Video of Obama's Press Conference
Please spend 23:41 minutes to witness the brillance of Obama. The last 8 years have been painful for anyone with brain cells and took a history class in high school. To watch President Bush and his cronies raise spin and manipulation of the media to an art-form and the media become willing transcribers of their idiocy, you often wonder if our country could recover.
Yesterday they saw that an Obama administration would end the circus seen in presidential press conferences and White House press briefing. Obama answered questions directly, honestly, forcefully, pushing his own vision while re-educating the press who have lived in the dark for the past 8 years.
The media is use to the game. Obama sent a clear signal that there will be no game playing in the tough issues facing the country. I've never seen a politician answer these questions so focused on highlighting the truth.
On Iran
There is not an observer of Middle East politics that would not say that the single biggest contributor to Iran’s expanding in the Middle East is George Bush’s policies and our invasion in Iraq.
The approach I am suggesting, the tough but engaged diplomacy that I am suggesting is the kind that was carried out by John Kennedy, it was carried out by Richard Nixon, and it was carried out by Ronald Reagan. There is a strong bipartisan tradition of engaging in that kind of diplomacy. You mirror military strength with aggressive, effective, tough diplomacy. That’s what’s been lacking.
On the Failed Bush/McCain Foreign Policy:
the American people can look back at the track record of George Bush, supported by John McCain, and say to themselves, let’s see, we were told that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There were none. We were told that we would be there relatively briefly. We have been there over five years. We were told that this would cost maybe 50 billion, 60 billion.
We are now on $600 billion. We were told this would make us safer and that this would be a model of democracy in the Middle East. Hasn’t turned out that way. We were told this would not serve as a distraction in Afghanistan. You have Bin Laden sending out videotapes, today. And our own intelligence estimates say that Al Qaeda is stronger now in Afghanistan and in the foothills of Pakistan than in anytime since 2001. And Iran is stronger now than before we invaded. So the American people are going to look at the evidence and they are going to say to themselves, you know, we don’t get a sense that this has been a wise foreign policy or a tough foreign policy or a smart foreign policy. This has been a policy that often times has been revolved around a lot of bluster and big talk but very little performance. What the American people want right now is some performance.
Brilliant? Brilliant.
On the political game the Republicans have mastered and the media loves:
I guess, you know, look, I don’t know how the politics of this plays out but I know that what we have done over the last eight years does not work.
On American history:
And that is a position. I mean, what’s puzzling is that we view this as in any way controversial, when this has been the history of U.S. diplomacy, until very recently. This whole notion of not talking to people, it didn’t hold in the 60s, it didn’t hold in the ’70s, it didn’t hold in the ’80s, it didn’t hold in the ’90s, against much more powerful adversaries; much more dangerous adversaries. I mean, when Kennedy met with Khrustiev, we were on the brink of nuclear war. When Nixon met with Mao that was with the knowledge that Mao had exterminated millions of people. And yet we understood that we could advance our national security interests by at least opening up lines of communication. And this was bipartisan. And it’s a signal of how badly our foreign policy has drifted over the last eight years; how much it has been skewed by the rhetoric of the Bush Administration that this should even be a controversial proposition. Yes.
To me the last sentence highlights the miseducation of the media and subsequently the public about what diplomacy means. The Republicans have so embedded the boogey-man in the Arab world into the brains of the press that they have bought hook line and sinker the RNC's cowboy mentality. The mentality that brought us into the Iraq War. By laying out these historical examples, Obama forces the media to study the history of this country. To examine, why are we afraid of a petty man like, Ahmadinejad? Kim Jong Il?, whose citizens are starving? If we weren't afraid of the Soviet Union, why would we be afraid now? Does that even make sense? We're bigger and stronger than any nation in the world, nothing they can do will can take away our position of strength.
The Bush Adminstrations incompetence in the Middle East:
this Administration was warned, repeatedly, that given the problems with Fattah, given the corruption, given the lack of grassroots support, that initiating elections could end up resulting in big wins for Hamas. And this Administration went ahead, because this Administration’s policy has been a combination of extraordinary naivety.
He goes on to educate the media on what democracy REALLY is, not the bill of goods that Bush Co. has sold us:
us. It’s not the notion of democracy, per se or elections, per se. It’s the lack of understanding that in this region of the world and regions all across or in the Middle East and in areas all across the world, that democracy is not just going to the ballot box. It’s how we are strengthening our civil institutions, what are we doing with the press, what are we doing with the judiciary. Are there economic structures in place that are helping to build a middle class? Is there rule of law? You know a host of issues that this Administration typically neglected in the run-up to some of these elections.
The Bush record is a stain on American history. It's no wonder that the Obama campaign is delighted to see McSame decide to run along side of Bush. American will know that there is a clear choice, it's McBush vs Obama. No doubt about it.
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