Quote Of The Day – Weakness
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Obama, Quotes, Republicans, The World
“Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States’. They own Citgo. It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. I don’t think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so. Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela.”
- Obama addressing his critics who have accused him of showing weakness
“Frankly, this does look a lot like Jimmy Carter. Carter tried weakness, and the world got tougher and tougher, because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators – when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead,†Gingrich said on “Fox & Friends.â€
Critics like Congressional Republicans…
Two Republican senators, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and John Ensign of Nevada, joined in the criticism Monday, with Ensign calling Obama’s greeting of Chavez “irresponsible.”
Former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity that President Obama’s handshake with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez “was not helpful†and could lead “foes†of the U.S. to “think they’re dealing with a weak president.â€
Lest I remind my Republican friends…
This is too easy.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 and is filed under Barack, Obama, Quotes, Republicans, The World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 20th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Gingrich is a clown. A particularly funny one because he imagines himself to be a towering intellect, and he’s managed to convince a corps of toadies as well. On the strength of absolutely nothing this ludicrous, hypocritical windbag is hailed as a visionary.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:07 am
When someone is your advesary, you have seven choices:
1. Beat the crap out of him
2. Totally ignore him
3. Pretend to be nice to him and slam him behind his back
4. Get someone else to kick his ass and deny having anything to do with it
5. Kiss his ass in hopes he will come to like you
6. Totally surrender
7. Have a civil dialougue and see if thing progress in a positive direction
Well…, Obama was just sitting there and the man came up to him and offered a gift and a hand shake. Unless Obama wanted deck the guy right there, act like a spoiled teenage girl, or be a total pussy or a total dick, the only thing he could have done was accept the gift in a civil way and shake the man’s hand. (that’s option #7)
Seven choices and he did the only one that any one could call correct. Come on guys…, now you’re giving a new definition to the term sore-losers.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:16 am
Looks like a bunch of masonic handshakes to me.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:27 am
After all…he is called ‘Dick’ for a reason
April 21st, 2009 at 5:33 am
So you’re comparing the Russians to Hugo Chavez?
April 21st, 2009 at 6:38 am
At the risk of getting bashed from one of our neo-con supporting commenters: how’d all that cowboy, antagonistic tough guy, go it alone diplomacy work out for us again?
I bring this up not to “bash the Bushies” (its an arcade game at Chuckie Cheese not unlike ‘Whack a mole’), but to point out that rather than weakness, this is simply a different approach.
Only an insane person does the same thing over and over again and expects different results. Ooops, did i just call neo-cons crazy?
April 21st, 2009 at 6:48 am
I must say, I’m impressed with your new President.
He seems like a smart guy, and I think he’s just the man you need, at the helm, in these troubled times.
Welcome back to the real world of international relations, its been a long time, we’re all glad you’re here again, at last.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:26 am
It seems the more the critics try to paint Obama, the closer they get to the corner
April 21st, 2009 at 8:34 am
Republicons just want to stick with their already-failed policies.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:55 am
In all seriousness, Obama should have taken his cues from the posters on this thread, esp. Wayne–much more transparent, plain-spoken, and honest than what Obama came up with in his response. One only has to point out that an organization does not need a large budget to attack the United States, and Obama’s chosen defense gets all dumb and stuff. “They’re no threat because they’re small” is pretty ridonklephantulous.
Republicans should watch the movie Roadhouse a lot more until they finally “get” diplomacy. “Be nice until its time not to be nice anymore.” I think the more generalized concern on the right is that Obama seems a little too much like Chamberlain in his foreign policy approach, which is, “Be nice until…..Well, just be nice.”
April 21st, 2009 at 9:21 am
Exiled wrote
I think the more generalized concern on the right is that Obama seems a little too much like Chamberlain in his foreign policy approach, which is, “Be nice until…..Well, just be nice.â€
So in one week they have compared him to Hitler and Neville Chamberlain. A better example of fractal confusion, I have not seen. It’s time to just ignore the willfully ignorant.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:55 am
“One only has to point out that an organization does not need a large budget to attack the United States, and Obama’s chosen defense gets all dumb and stuff.â€
Interesting.
Which of these sounds weaker to you?
A) Taking the offered hand of an enemy. Knowing full well that he is not a threat to you or your country.
B) Refusing contact with anyone that disagrees with you. And considers anyone that disagrees with you and has access to any type of explosive a possible threat.
One of these seems a bit paranoid to me. Now don’t get me wrong. Option B is just paranoid enough for a homeland security chief, but to paranoid for a president.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:56 am
And I thought Roadhouse was just a bad movie….
Is this the new Axis of Evil?
April 21st, 2009 at 10:08 am
I have been trying to encourage conservatives to come up with some new material. But so far they appear eager to stick to the script that says that on foreign policy, all democrats are pussies and can’t be trusted.
As we know, the fear that democrats will be too conciliatory in foreign policy is not entirely unfounded. Which means that the most idiotic of critics will try to get mileage out of Jimmy Carter, whose foreign policy will always be disparaged. The next easy leap is to Neville Chamberlain. And then…
Now, I am not sure why every argument that reinforces a partisan stereotype must be made, no matter how moronic. I guess that’s just how wingnuts roll.
But Barack Obama is not Jimmy Carter. He’s no humble “son of a preacher man”, “can’t we all just get along” naif. The brother’s from Chicago. He knows that he can shake someone’s hand and yet not give an inch unless the other guy gives one as well. Notice that the fact that Bush would regularly declined such actions and would not engage in rhetoric is just as easily interpreted as being due to lack of diplomatic chops as to toughness. He whiffed at the UN and never really stepped into the box again.
Jimmy Carter gave me the impression of someone who overestimated how good human nature is, and how much could be achieved merely by openness and kindness. He showed that Jimmy Carter face, and guys were running for the bat racks.
Obama is shrewder than that. He understands that people will always be tempted to wipe their feet on anything with welcome written on it. If you ask me, I think he shakes folks hands and looks them in the eye with an expression which says “Hi, I’m the new President…by the way, of the United effing States, b!tch.
Just something about the spring in his step and the glint in his eye.
Sure guys like Chavez, Castro, and Ahmadinejad may try to manipulate the new guy. My sense is that if one of these clowns starts leaning out over the plate the next pitch could be in their ear.
Maybe, just maybe, Obama chose to mention our military might in contrast to Venezuela’s as a message to Chavez. This is the kind of interpretation that neocons luvvved to make about various Bush statements.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:07 am
Jimmy Carter- Didn’t vote for him by the way but he’s the guy who ok’d a rescue mission to free the hostages (and he wasn’t flying the helicopter – oh and as per usual, he actually served his country) while Reagan sent them a cake, a bible and a plane full of weapons. I guess tough is sometimes tough to figure out.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:57 am
“There is an old Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon could go to China. “
Agnostick
[email protected]
April 21st, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Yeah, I agree that Carter was tarred pretty unfortunately by the unsuccessful helicopter raid. Had it been successful, we might have seen some different things. And propping up the Shah of Iran for years wasn’t Carter’s idea, after all. He was just the poor sap in charge when it blew up in our face.
Still, having lived through those years, I can’t escape the overwhelming impression of weakness and malaise and feeling that it connected to Jimmy Carter. He seems to me to be to be a fundamentally decent human being, and worthy of admiration on many counts even if you don’t agree with his tacks in old age. Yet if I had only one word to describe him as President, it would be ineffectual.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Republicans have such short memories. They probably already forgot that they’re the one’s responsible for a false war, thousands of dead soldiers, tax cuts for the rich, record Pork Barrel spending, doubling the National Debt and numerous failed economic policies. With luck, they’ll all die off soon and the rest of us can focus on things like logic and facts.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Obama said that engagedment with our enemies strengthen’s America’s position. My question to Obama would be, does he think that it strengthen our enemies’ positions as well?
April 21st, 2009 at 1:24 pm
…or maybe it is the first step to making our enemies our friends?
Oh darn, we wouldn’t want to have that option, would we? If we don’t have enemies, we don’t giant defense budgets and boogey-men to keep the party base in line.
Hey, I am not saying that we can make everyone love us, nor that we should–but we should not allow the past to always dictate our future actions.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:39 pm
btw–I had a perfect wonderful set of pictures of Kim Jong Il, Osama bin Laden and Ben Gazzara in my previous “axis of evil” post that would have been good for a laugh if it weren’t for the Donklephant code stripping out images….
April 21st, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Wow, too funny. C’mon guys, lighten up. Anyone who illustrates a political point with a trashy 80s movie has to have their tongue somewhere close to their cheek.
First of all, we’re not talking about just a handshake, and note too that I’m not one of the hystericals equating a handshake to the fourth horseman of the apocalypse. Shedding some light on *why* folks on the right take this as a bad sign was my aim. So, some thoughts:
Kevin: wow, touchy. Obama is certainly no Hitler; he’s a charismatic leader who motivates millions with the power of his words. The right’s worry is, more realistically, that he *might* be a Chamberlain, without enough seasoning to know when a foreign leader is being genuine or nefarious. If you follow the mental thread on Roadhouse Diplomacy (and Gerry, little known fact that the Republican guide to foreign policy is only 4 pages long), where Republicans go wrong is that they come off as having zero interest in diplomacy–their world view is “Never be nice no matter what.”
Kranky: bless, you, you love your guy. Personally I think you give him too much credit in the shrewdness and savvy category.
Nero: Man, you should be in politics. You take my comment and then shift gears into a really convenient either/or choice. Back on point, though, is that significant attacks against American interests in the past 30 years haven’t been from organizations with big armies or massive national coffers. So my point is simply that Wayne’s reasoning holds a lot more water than “Their army is small, so no big deal.”
Good times–always good to see a thread break the 20 mark.
Obamapologists–Activate!
April 21st, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I know that was tongue in cheek–I thought it was pretty funny. ‘just having fun with it as well…c’mon, when is Ben Gazzara NOT funny?
April 21st, 2009 at 3:22 pm
2nd picture is Clinton with Yeltsin.
Clinton is a Democrat.
and you are seriously saying that Reagan met Gorbachev under a position of weakness , when in fact he MASSIVELY expanded the U.S. nuclear deterrent?
Keep rewriting history mate – thats what lefties like you always do.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:28 pm
“Taking the offered hand of an enemy. Knowing full well that he is not a threat to you or your country.”
so by your logic, i should shake the hand of a guy who is always saying, day in day out “death to sabrewulf” and threatening to kill me.
i dont know where you get that logic from, but its warped.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Sabre:
The point is to know who is and who is not a threat. Hugo Chavez? President of Citgo? Not so much a threat. Although the prices at some of his mini-marts are crimes against humanity.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:48 am
Nixon gave Brezhnev a Cadillac Eldorado in 1972 and then went for a drive with him reportedly for three hours, Sabre you have your marching orders, dig him up and call him a commie sympathizer.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:48 am
Hugo Chavez – are you kidding me? I can’t think of one leader in South or Central America that doesn’t want a better relationship with the US – since when are good manners and mutual respect a sign of weakness?
“I think I’ll be a clown when I get grown,” said Dill. “Yes, sir, a clown…. There ain’t one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I’m gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.” “You got it backwards, Dill,” said Jem. “Clowns are sad, it’s folks that laugh at them.” “Well, I’m gonna be a new kind of clown. I’m gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.”
Harper Lee – “To Kill a Mockingbird”
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:05 am
Exiled, I think a good example would be JFK since it relates directly to the situation in Latin America. JFK met with Khrushchev under no pre-conditions, got crushed, and led to Khrushchev getting the impression that Kennedy was weak. This directly led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was a real threat. The point of foreign diplomacy should be that situations like those do not arise. It doesn’t require tough pre-conditions, just as long as Obama goes in with an agenda of what he wants accomplished and what he doesn’t want to do.
Mr. Reynolds: Who is Hugo Chavez? Well, he’s the President of a country that is the same landmass as the US. Second, he’s a man who is willing to let the Russians put missiles in his country (I wonder who they’ll be aiming at?). Third, he’s a man who regularly berates the US for imperialism yet has meddled in the politics of other Latin American countries for years, which includes helping terrorists in Columbia. Lastly, he’s been very, very friendly with Ahmadinejad and been very supportive of their nuclear program. But of course, he is no threat.
I was upset that Bush ignored this problem for years, but if Obama isn’t careful, things may get worse.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:10 am
Andres
Bush created problems for many elected leaders throughout the world. I would wait to see how Chavez behaves over the next 6-12 months. I really don’t think he’s anywhere near as bad as you may believe. I think alot of the things he did while Bush was in office were just “positioning” rather than an honest attempt to undermine the USA. The populist movement in South America is very popular right now and popularly elected leaders down there appear to be following a trend line in that direction.
Venezuela is no where near the same land mass as the United States. According to the CIA factbook it is roughly twice the size of CA – are you sure you weren’t thinking of Brazil?
April 24th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Sorry, I meant to say in the same landmass.
And no, I don’t base his threat on . First, he readily admits how much he admires Castro and how he considers him a mentor. The same Fidel Castro that let the Soviets put missiles in Cuba. He gives Cuba free oil and spent a lot of time with Castro, when the man was healthy. Second, Chavez once tried to seize control of government through a failed coup d’etat back in the early 90s. He allows very little dissent, and has shown as much by sending the military to quell a student protest… by opening fire on them. And this was all before his second attempt to remove term limits (essentially making him dictator for life) passed.
As for his latest antics? He locked the mayor of Caracas out of his office (the mayor happens to be part of the opposing party). He told the military to seize the ports of provinces whose governors were part of the opposing party. And if the governors did not comply, Chavez said to just throw them in jail.
I am not speaking to throwing stupid comments and insults at Bush. If that was the most worrying thing, I wouldn’t care. But someone with an ego as big as Chavez wouldn’t think twice about undermining the US if he could get away with it. He can be put in his place, like the King of Spain did.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Meant to say I don’t base his threat on his insults or comments.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Andres:
I wouldn’t worry too much about Russians putting missiles in Venezuela. And however much of a windbag Chavez is, he’s of no real concern to the US.
November 24th, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Nobody cares how much amount of missiles do Russians place in Venezuela. Chavez is really not a concern to the United States. There are more people of great concern to the US, President Benigno Aquino Jr. of the Philippines for instance! Right?