White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today called the assertion that President Obama’s soundbite about “bumps in the road” in the post-Arab Spring landscape diminished four American deaths in Benghazi “both desperate and offensive.”
“I think it was absolutely the right thing for us to do to align ourselves with democracy, universal rights, a notion that people have — have to be able to participate in their own governance,” Obama said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes. “But I — I was pretty certain and continue to be pretty — pretty certain that there are going to be bumps in the road because, you know, in a lot of these places, the one organizing principle has been Islam.”
The Romney campaign jumped on the statement soon after the show aired. “His indication that developments in the Middle East represent bumps in the road is a very different view than I have,” Romney told ABC. “I can’t imagine saying something like the assassination of ambassadors is a bump in the road.”
“The president was referring to the transformations in the region to this process that has only began less than two years ago, as we saw in Tunisia, and continues to this day with remarkable transformations occurring in countries around the region,” Carney said at today’s press briefing. “And obviously in these countries there are huge challenges, huge obstacles to the kinds of change that the people in these countries are demanding, to the kinds of governments that are democratic in nature and responsive to the interests of average citizens in these countries.”
“…There is a certain rather desperate attempt to grasp at words and phrases here to find political advantage. And in this case that’s profoundly offensive.”
Carney visited another comment made by the president on the news show: “My biggest disappointment is that we haven’t changed the tone in Washington as much as I would have liked.”
“He’s absolutely convinced that, with the insistence of the America people that the tone can change, that together we can bring about that change in Washington,” Carney said. “As he made clear, it requires the voices of average Americans across the country making clear to their elected officials in Washington that they will not tolerate the kinds of partisan gridlock that is often waged and engaged in for the sake of small-bore political advantage at the expense of the interests of average Americans across the country.”
This is a bump in the road
I won’t let it goad
Me to giving voice
To US interests
Which I deeply detest
Putting speculation to rest
Whenever you call me—won’t be there
What America needs—I don’t care
Even if you say you’ll pay your “fair share”
I can’t be found…
As the CNN team of (ahem) “journalists” said: the Obama bump.
In other news, The Wohn is such a genius.
From the eponymous Carney, master of words and phrases.
“I think it was absolutely the right thing for us to do to align ourselves with democracy, universal rights, a notion that people have — have to be able to participate in their own governance,”
Son of a bitch. And did he align us with the Iranian protesters as they were being gunned down in the street? Did his harridan advisor Samantha Powers urge a R2P “solution” on him for Iran? Of course not: too big and too formidable a target. The man is a coward promoting a cowardly doctrine. “Democracy?” Universal Rights?” Does anyone esle see this happening in that part of the world? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? What a destructive imbecile this man is.
“My biggest disappointment is that we haven’t changed the tone in Washington as much as I would have liked.”
Unfortunately, the President’s running against a possible felon who killed at least one guy’s wife, and who conceals his taxes in order to decieve people into thinking he pays taxes (when to all indications he does, but we can distort that into maybe he doesn’t) and who lies about the President’s sterling record of keeping unemployment high, bailing out companies owned by cronies, keeping jobs from going to Americans who aren’t in Unions, making sure all residents of the country–citizens or not–can vote multiple times for the Democrat of their choice in the coming elections, and blaming George W. Buch for ever bad thing that’s happened during his administration. His sterling record in these matters has won the support of a largely Republican-controlled news media, and will win over the country, just as soon as that media convinces everyone who they should vote for…
And now we return to our regularly-scheduled, reality-based programming…
Call me sick and twisted, but I swear I’ve had a mental image of a political cartoon ever since hearing the phrase “speed bump” in association with this tragedy.
That image is Uncle Sam kneeling beside four fresh graves in mourning with hat in hand and head bowed, headstones inscribed with the names of the four dead, and across all four graves are a set of tire tracks where the tread reads “Obama Middle East Foreign Policy”.
Underneath the political cartoon is the caption “Speed Bumps”.
If someone hasn’t done this already, I’d be shocked.
Think I’ll go back to my dark corner of the world and mark off another day on the calendar between now and November 6th when we can begin to end this nightmare…
Brilliant!
What about this line from the interview:
“But I was pretty certain and continue to be pretty certain that there are going to be bumps in the road because, you know, in a lot of these places, the one organizing principle has been Islam. The one part of society that hasn’t been controlled completely by the government.”
Am I the only one who finds this a chilling revelation of his attitude? The problem is that there is a part of society not “completely controlled by the government”, and note that that part is the peoples’ religion.