Friday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was in full damage control mode regarding continued protests in the Middle East. Carney claimed,"This is a fairly volatile situation, and it is in response not to United States policy, not to, obviously, the administration, not to the American people."
Amid violent expressions of hatred towards America, voters are looking back to 2008, the day President Obama was inaugurated. Obama had predicted his inauguration would "make us safer."
Obama was answering to the topic of what he would do to improve the negative impression other countries had about America, when he responded on a New Hampshire Public Radio interview in 2007. He predicted, "I truly believe that the day I'm inaugurated, not only is the country looking at itself; but the world looks at America differently."
With a pause, Obama added, "If I'm reaching out to the Muslim world, they understand that I've lived in a Muslim country. And I may be Christian; but I also understand their point of view."
Obama explained that he had lifelong familial ties to Muslims,"My sister is half-Indonesian. I traveled there all the way through my college years; and so I'm intimately concerned with what happens in these countries, and the cultures and perspectives these folks have."
Further driving home the point that all he brought to the Oval Office was relevant, Obama elaborated," And those are powerful tools for us to be able to reach out to the world. And when you combine that with my work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on everything from nuclear proliferation to issues of genocide."
In conclusion, Obama said,"Then I think the world will have confidence that I am listening to them, and our future and security are tied up with our ability to work with other countries in the world. That will ultimately make us safer, and that is something that this administration has failed to understand."
Recently, Representative Allen West described Obama as "naive," and "dangerous" amid the raging protests ongoing in the Middle East. These eruptions are dominated by Muslims and appear to be directed primarily towards America. The losses of four American heroes in Libya were mourned this week. Alan Colmes, far-left political commentator, referred to the embassy murders as, "a few deaths in Libya."
Despite the near-flawless SEAL mission which eliminated the alleged power behind 9/11, Osama bin Laden, unease about American safety at home and abroad reigns. Recent bomb threats called into American campuses, attributed to Al Qaeda, add fear of domestic terrorism. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is raising anxiety that major defense cuts, as much as $54.7 billion, loom.
Though it is possible that the president has done some personal soul-searching about his belief that his links to the Muslim world could change the world's impression of America, and "make us safer," recent responses seem to belie any notion of self-reflection or change of attitude. The rigid claim that the Muslim protesters are not acting out of hate towards America seems to many, incredulous.
Conceivably, the White House denial is merely a far-fetched political ploy designed to deflect blame from the president, to reinforce the idea that Obama's policies are not at fault. Possibly, the denial was made as an attempt to appease Muslims and sooth anti-Muslim reactions. In the meantime, the State Department has gone into a full crisis mode.
Could it be when protestors storm American embassies, shouting "Death to the Americans," murder American diplomats, and burn American flags, that those are not acts of anti-American negativity? National security expert K.T. McFarland begs to differ. She said:
"The fact that we are in this position is his [Obama's] fault in the first place. You don't have an apology tour, pull the rug out from under our leaders in this part of the world, create a power vacuum and then expect nothing bad to happen. Then when these instances happen, to then say it's our fault, apologize for this movie which nobody cares about. These were well-planned, organized attacks .... The fact that the United States doesn't condemn these countries and their leaders, is beyond belief."
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