Maureen Dowd, "Donald Trump’s Disturbia": Diss-topia or Piss-dopia?

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Maureen Dowd, covering the Republican convention in Cleveland, writes in her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Donald Trump’s Disturbia":

"LIKE any masterly comic book villain, Donald Trump is reveling in conjuring a dystopia. And it’s a natural progression, given that he got this far by reveling in conjuring a diss-topia.

. . . .

[H]is dystopia is fueled by diss-information and diss-tortion, insulting rivals with disturbing exaggerated and cherry-picked facts and unsubstantiated assertions and conspiracies."

Indeed, Trump suffers from a severe narcissistic personality disorder, and I continue to believe that he should be examined by a board of leading psychiatrists to determine if he is fit to serve as commander-in-chief with responsibility for America's nuclear arsenal.

Doubts about Trump's mental health? Have a look at a New Yorker article entitled "Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All" by Jane Mayer. Mayer quotes Tony Schwartz, who ghostwrote Trump's "The Art of the Deal":

"'I put lipstick on a pig,' he said. 'I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.' He went on, 'I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.'

. . . .

If Trump is elected President, he warned, 'the millions of people who voted for him and believe that he represents their interests will learn what anyone who deals closely with him already knows—that he couldn’t care less about them.'"

But the problem extends far beyond Donald Trump. Twenty-first century America has descended into the abyss of piss-dopia, and both Donald and Hillary are mere symptoms of this life-threatening malaise.

Thomas Friedman, "Paris Climate Accord Is a Big, Big Deal": A Nonbinding Agreement

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Paris Climate Accord Is a Big, Big Deal," Thomas Friedman would have us know:

"Any global conference that includes so many countries can’t be expected to agree on much more than the lowest common denominator. But the fact that the lowest common denominator is now so high — a willingness by 188 countries to offer plans to steadily and verifiably reduce their carbon emissions — means we still have a chance to meet what scientists say is our key challenge: to avoid the worst impacts of global warming that we cannot possibly manage and to manage those impacts that we can no longer avoid. That is a big, big deal.

Many leaders had a hand in it, but it would not have happened without the diplomacy of President Obama and John Kerry."

Friedman fails to observe that as reported by John Cassidy in a New Yorker article entitled "A Skeptical Note on the Paris Climate Deal," the accord is not binding, countries can establish their own carbon emissions targets, and developing countries expect voluntary contributions of at least $100 billion per year from the West to achieve their goals.

A big, big deal? Good luck.

Paul Krugman, "A Heckuva Job": Evenhanded? Yeah, Right!

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Is Krugman biased against Republicans? Heck no . . . if you ask Paul.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "A Heckuva Job," Paul Krugman sets out to deprecate Republican presidential hopefuls Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal and Donald Trump, while ignoring any and all Democratic foibles. Krugman explains in his own defense:

"I know, now I’m supposed to be evenhanded, and point out equivalent figures on the Democratic side. But there really aren’t any; in modern America, cults of personality built around undeserving politicians seem to be a Republican thing.

True, some liberals were starry-eyed about Mr. Obama way back when, but the glitter faded fast, and what was left was a competent leader with some big achievements under his belt – most notably, an unprecedented drop in the number of Americans without health insurance. And Hillary Clinton is the subject of a sort of anti-cult of personality, whose most ordinary actions are portrayed as nefarious. (No, the email thing doesn’t rise to the level of a 'scandal.')"

"An unprecedented drop in the number of Americans without health insurance"? Wonderful! And the cost? Krugman forgets to mention that Obamacare will add more than a quarter of a trillion dollars of insurance overhead through 2022 and that insurance costs are soon expected to rise dramatically, but why should that matter to someone who believes "Debt Is Good"?

Hillary's "email thing doesn’t rise to the level of a 'scandal'"? You see, the FBI routinely investigates the non-scandalous transfer of classified government data via a private server, probably breached by foreign security services and subsequently wiped clean. And as acknowledged even by the New Yorker article which Krugman references above, "it is conceivable that more striking evidence of deception or serious neglect may eventually surface."

This is almost on a par with Krugman's 2011 claim that "Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point." Give it a rest, Paul!

David Brooks, "The Art of Focus": Hocus-Pocus

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull."

- W.C. Fields

A couple of years ago, in a New Yorker article entitled "The Obama Memos" (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all), Ryan Lizza wrote :

"On a frigid January evening in 2009, a week before his Inauguration, Barack Obama had dinner at the home of George Will, the Washington Post columnist, who had assembled a number of right-leaning journalists to meet the President-elect. Accepting such an invitation was a gesture on Obama’s part that signalled his desire to project an image of himself as a post-ideological politician, a Chicago Democrat eager to forge alliances with conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill. That week, Obama was still working on an Inaugural Address that would call for 'an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.'"

Ah yes, "an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics." Five years later, where did that take us? Among those attending the dinner was Richard Lowry, editor of the National Review, who, as noted by Lizza, "grabbed Obama’s hand and said softly, 'Sir, I’ll be praying for you.'" Obviously, Lowry has not prayed hard enough.

But more to the point, also at the dinner with "right-leaning" conservatives was David Brooks, whom Obama asked in jest, "What are you doing here?" In fact, Obama's observation was dead on balls accurate. Lord knows where on the political spectrum Brooks lies or where his mind is wandering. Brooks often seems out of focus.

And so, at a time when Obama is being eviscerated by both left (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/opinion/president-obama-misses-a-chance-on-foreign-affairs.html) and right (see: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/28/krauthammer-obamas-west-point-speech-was-literally-pointless/) for his petty West Point speech foisting worn out dogmas and replete with recriminations, Brooks brings us his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Art of Focus" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/opinion/brooks-the-art-of-focus.html?ref=opinion&_r=0). After explaining how children are able to learn more effectively than adults, Brooks concludes his opinion piece by declaring:

"The information universe tempts you with mildly pleasant but ultimately numbing diversions. The only way to stay fully alive is to dive down to your obsessions six fathoms deep. Down there it’s possible to make progress toward fulfilling your terrifying longing, which is the experience that produces the joy."

Six fathoms deep I should seek my terrifying longing that produces joy? Indeed, the "stuff" that animates the cognitive processes of Times readers around the globe. Or as W.C. Fields declared in his immortal 1940 comedy "The Bank Dick," "Sounds like a bubble in a bathtub."

Perhaps, with a smidgen of luck, I can find an alternative "way to stay fully alive."

Gail Collins, "The Women Versus the Ted": The Men Versus the Nancy?

In her latest New York Times hyperpartisan fluff op-ed entitled "The Women Versus the Ted" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/opinion/collins-the-women-versus-the-ted.html?_r=0), Gail Collins begins by observing that the female population of the Senate "rose from 17 to 20 this year." Good news, but this is not enough. One day before I depart this earth, I hope that number will be closer to 50.

Collins concludes by attacking Senator Ted Cruz of Texas:

"So, people, who do you think has been more helpful in edging the Senate toward a pinch of progress? The women or Ted Cruz? One strives for collegiality by holding regular bipartisan dinners. One called his colleagues 'squishes' for opposing a gun control filibuster.

I’m sticking with the girls. “Women seem to know how to work in a way that at least moves the process,” said Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, the new chair of Appropriations. If you can agree on how to proceed, then maybe someday you get some progress.

On the other hand, Ted Cruz has memorized the Constitution."

Well, I don't see eye to eye with Senator Cruz on gun control, but I also believe that there is nothing wrong with memorizing the Constitution, particularly when the First Amendment is under attack by the Obama administration.

I also believe that a Senate populated with 50 clones of Nancy Pelosi (even if her net worth was divided 50 ways, they would all still be wealthy), who has yet to say a disparaging word about any of the scandals besetting the Obama administration, would not work in America's favor.

As observed today by a Washington Post editorial entitled "The press must have the ability to ask questions" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-press-must-have-the-ability-to-ask-questions/2013/05/24/8e9ce4ba-c356-11e2-914f-a7aba60512a7_story.html?hpid=z3):

"The Obama administration already has pursued more criminal leak investigations than all of its predecessors. There is a worrisome trend here, also recently evident in the government’s pursuit of Associated Press telephone records in a different leak investigation. Yes, the government must have secrets in order to function. But overclassification is so rampant that to criminalize the disclosure of all secret information would come close to paralyzing the flow of information.

Perhaps prosecutors failed to read the Justice Department’s policy on this, which declares: “Because freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news, the prosecutorial power of the government should not be used in such a way that it impairs a reporter’s responsibility to cover as broadly as possible controversial public issues.” That statement goes back four decades. The Obama administration should recommit to its spirit."

Meanwhile, as reported by Ryan Lizza in a New Yorker article entitled "How Prosecutors Fought to Keep Rosen’s Warrant Secret" (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/how-justice-fought-to-keep-rosens-warrant-secret.html):

"The Obama Administration fought to keep a search warrant for James Rosen’s private e-mail account secret, arguing to a federal judge that the government might need to monitor the account for a lengthy period of time.


. . . .

Yesterday, hours after President Obama said, in a speech at National Defense University, that he had asked Attorney General Eric Holder to review the Justice Department’s policies concerning investigations of the media, NBC News reported that the warrant to search Rosen’s e-mail account was personally approved by Holder."

Concern from Collins or Pelosi over this outrage against the First Amendment, perpetrated by Obama's Justice Department? Heck, no.

Which tells me that Ted Cruz also has a role to fill in the Senate.

As I said, I can't wait for the day that fifty percent of American senators are women; however, I also believe in the sanctity of the First Amendment, which is under siege by the administration of constitutional lawyer Barack ("I found out when you did") Obama.

Obama and His Best Buddy, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, to Bring Democracy to Syria

This story just out from Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/us-turkey-accelerate-syria-transition-white-house-202114418.html):

"President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by telephone Monday 'to coordinate efforts to accelerate a political transition in Syria,' the White House said.

This 'would include the departure of (Syrian leader) Bashar al-Assad and be responsive to the legitimate demands of the Syrian people,' the statement said.

Obama and Erdogan shared their concerns over the Syrian regime's crackdown on opposition 'and the deteriorating humanitarian conditions throughout Syria as a result of the regime's atrocities.'

. . . .

The statement said US and Turkish teams 'would remain in close contact on ways that Turkey and the United States can work together to promote a democratic transition in Syria.'"

Ah, yes, Obama and Erdogan will together make the world, or at least Syria, safe for democracy. The problem is that Syria's Muslim Brotherhood is not in the market for democracy. Perhaps theocracy, but not democracy.

But more to the point, how is Erdogan in any position whatsoever to assist in another country's transition to democracy? As observed in a March 9, 2012 comment in The New Yorker entitled "Turkey’s Jailed Journalists" (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/03/turkeys-jailed-journalists.html), by Dexter Filkins:

"Measuring strictly in terms of imprisonments, Turkey—a longtime American ally, member of NATO, and showcase Muslim democracy—appears to be the most repressive country in the world.

According to the Journalists Union of Turkey, ninety-four reporters are currently imprisoned for doing their jobs. More than half are members of the Kurdish minority, which has been seeking greater freedoms since the Turkish republic was founded, in 1923. Many counts of arrested journalists go higher; the Friends of Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener, a group of reporters named for two imprisoned colleagues, has compiled a detailed list of a hundred and four journalists currently in prison there.

The arrests have created an extraordinary climate of fear among journalists in Turkey, or, for that matter, for anyone contemplating criticizing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government. During my recent visit there, many Turkish reporters told me that their editors have told them not to criticize Erdogan. As I detail in my piece in the magazine this week, the arrests of journalists are part of a larger campaign by Erdogan to crush domestic opposition to his rule. Since 2007, more than seven hundred people have been arrested, including members of parliament, army officers, university rectors, the heads of aid organizations, and the owners of television networks."

You sure as heck know how to pick your friends, Mr. President! Yet another foreign policy success!

David Remnick, "Threatened": Thanks, David, for Warning Me

Recently, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Liz Cheney: Desist!" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/opinion/dowd-liz-cheney-desist.html?ref=opinion), Maureen Dowd wrote a denunciation of Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, which was rife with manifestations of ignorance (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/03/maureen-dowd-liz-cheney-desist-wearing.html). In her shoddy opinion piece, Dowd cited David Remnick:

"As the New Yorker editor David Remnick wrote, Netanyahu and his supporters too often 'consider the tenets of liberal democracy to be negotiable in a game of coalition politics.'"

Dowd was referring to Remnick's comment entitled "Threatened" (http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/03/12/120312taco_talk_remnick), which would have us believe that Israel's democracy is under attack:

"[A]s an experiment in Jewish power, unique after two millennia of persecution and exile, Israel has reached an impasse. An intensifying conflict of values has put its democratic nature under tremendous stress."

To prove his point, Remnick alleges:

"The political corrosion begins, of course, with the occupation of the Palestinian territories—the subjugation of Palestinian men, women, and children—that has lasted for forty-five years. Peter Beinart, in a forthcoming and passionately argued polemic, 'The Crisis of Zionism,' is just the latest critic to point out that a profoundly anti-democratic, even racist, political culture has become endemic among much of the Jewish population in the West Bank, and jeopardizes Israel proper."

So whereas as liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd relies upon liberal New Yorker editor David Remnick for her opinions on Israel, Remnick relies upon liberal Peter Beinart's "polemic" book being published by Times Books, the publishing arm of The New York Times, whose op-ed opinions concerning Israel often border upon or descend into anti-Semitism (see, for example: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/02/stench-of-anti-semitism-at-new-york.html).

Do Dowd, Remnick and Beinart speak Hebrew and Arabic? Have they spent meaningful time in Israel, studying the political, social and economic climate? Of course in a democracy, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, i.e. to spout blather.

Remnick writes of "political corrosion," "occupation" and "subjugation." It sounds almost akin to Assad's ongoing slaughter of Syria's Sunnis. But as Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, stated in May 2009 to Jackson Diehl of The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/28/AR2009052803614.html), he couldn't care less about "the stalled peace process":

"'I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements,' he said. 'Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life.'"

A "normal life"? How can that possibly be? I thought they were occupied and subjugated.

Is Israel's democracy "threatened"? Why don't I, a secular Jew living in Israel, who, like most Israelis favor a two-state solution but demand in return an acknowledgment of our right to exist, feel "threatened" by right wing, ultra-Orthodox extremists?

As observed by Jeffrey Goldberg in a 2010 interview with Peter Beinart in The Atlantic:

"Are Israel's failings, in fact, so terrible, especially given the line-up of enemies Israel is facing? I'm asking you to confront reality, not your Utopian vision of what a Jewish country should be. The reality is that there are organizations and countries trying to physically eliminate the Jewish state. Even with this existential problem, Israel still manages to be the freest and most democratic state in the Middle East, and one that even grants its Muslim citizens the right to build minarets and wear burqas, unlike many countries in Europe."

In any event, thanks for the warning, David, but sorry if I don't feel "threatened." Vigilant, yes. Threatened, no.

Thomas Friedman, "Made in the World": It's Raining Twaddle at The New York Times

It's raining twaddle at The New York Times.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Made in the World" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/friedman-made-in-the-world.html?ref=opinion), Thomas Friedman makes the case for global outsourcing. Friedman refers to a February 2011 meeting between Obama and Apple's Steve Jobs:

"The president, understandably, asked Jobs why almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were made overseas. Obama inquired, couldn’t that work come back home? 'Those jobs aren’t coming back,' Jobs replied."

Moreover, Friedman sees no danger in US outsourcing of manufacturing, owing to talented immigrants arriving on America's shores, IP protection, secure capital markets, high returns on innovation, government funding of new techology, and logistics jobs available to middle-class workers.

So the US should forfeit its manufacturing muscle and enjoy the cheap benefits of Chinese and Pakistani slave labor (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/01/thomas-friedman-average-is-over-when.html), and the middle-class should be content with finding work with FedEx and U.P.S. Sorry, but I will never accept this, even if it means doubling the price of iPhones.

Friedman concludes:

"If only — if only — we could come together on a national strategy to enhance and expand all of our natural advantages: more immigration, most post-secondary education, better infrastructure, more government research, smart incentives for spurring millions of start-ups — and a long-term plan to really fix our long-term debt problems — nobody could touch us. We’re that close."

Or in other words, Friedman would have the US spend trillions of dollars on a dozen different programs while somehow reducing long-term debt. "We're that close"? Yeah, right. For now, I would prefer to see the US provide incentives to keep manufacturing jobs in the US and to allow ordinary families, which cannot find work in hi-tech, to put food on their tables and pay their mortgages.

This is one instance where Obama is right.

[No, I haven't developed a soft spot for Obama. During the Procrastinator-in-Chief's February meeting mentioned by Dowd, Jobs, according to Ryan Lizza in an article in The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all), "was most annoyed by Obama’s pessimism—he seemed to dismiss every idea Jobs proffered. 'The president is very smart,' Jobs told his biographer, Walter Isaacson. 'But he kept explaining to us reasons why things can’t get done. It infuriates me.'"]

Charles Blow, "Lunar Colonies, Lunacy and Losses": Aren't You Forgetting Something?

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Lunar Colonies, Lunacy and Losses" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/opinion/blow-lunar-colonies-lunacy-and-losses.html?ref=opinion#comments), Charles Blow sarcastically observes:

"To that point, Gingrich told a crowd on Florida’s so-called Space Coast on Wednesday that 'by the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the Moon. And it will be American.'”

I am no fan of Newt; however, observe what Obama glibly promised in 2008 (see: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=8):

“As President, I will establish a robust and balanced civilian space program” that “not only will inspire the world with both human and robotic space exploration but also will again lead in confronting the challenges we face here on Earth, including global climate change, energy independence, and aeronautics research.”

Would someone care to explain the difference?

In case you were wondering, Obama's advisors informed the president in November 2009 :

"Especially in light of our new fiscal context, it is not possible to achieve the inspiring space program goals discussed during the campaign."

Like "Hope" and "Change," Obama's space program never got off the ground.

Obama, Iran and Twittergate: J'accuse!

J'accuse! The cat is out of the bag.

This has nothing to with Donald Trump and the inanity involving Obama's birth certificate. Rather, this has everything to do with the duplicity of Obama's decision to abandon those who took to the streets of Iran during the 2009 Green Revolution, owing to the president's belief in his own omniscience.

This also has everything to do with further attempts by the Obama administration to depict another murderer, Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria, as a "reformer", and Obama's delay in responding to the plaintive cries of those being gunned down in Daraa, Izraa and Homs.

Obama was sworn in as president on January 20, 2009, and exactly two months later, on March 20, 2009, he extended a new year's ("Nowruz") greeting to the Islamic Republic of Iran whereby he sought reconciliation with the mullahs:

"So in this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran's leaders. We have serious differences that have grown over time. My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.

You, too, have a choice. The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right -- but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.

So on the occasion of your New Year, I want you, the people and leaders of Iran, to understand the future that we seek. It's a future with renewed exchanges among our people, and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce. It's a future where the old divisions are overcome, where you and all of your neighbors and the wider world can live in greater security and greater peace."

This was all part of Obama's agenda to prove that there was a different way to approach the world's tyrannies, and that with kindness and humility they could be brought into the fold. Obama was determined to demonstrate the error in Bush's ways, that only he knew best, and that what had been deemed the "axis of evil" by the former president would, like the American electorate, succumb to his charm.

On June 4, 2009, still courting Iran and seeking to smooth out any remaining differences, Obama declared from Cairo:

“I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.”

During these same months, just by chance, Roger Cohen of The New York Times was busy writing innumerable op-eds from Tehran, disseminating the message that Iran is "not totalitarian".

During these same months, just by chance, The New York Times published two guest op-eds by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett seeking "a new approach toward Iran."

And if that was not enough, even the editorial board of The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/opinion/09mon1.html), as early as February 8, 2009 (only three weeks after Obama's inauguration), just by chance, got into the act and stated:

"President Obama has set a constructive new tone for trying to engage Iran. He told an Arabic-language TV network: 'If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.' And he showed refreshing humility after the Bush administration’s arrogance: 'Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes.'”

Rapprochement with Iran was clearly the keystone of Obama's revolutionary foreign policy, and he was getting all the support from the press that he could possibly imagine.

But then came the fraudulent election of Ahmadinejad in June 2009, when Iranian protesters took to the streets in what became known as the "Green Revolution" or "Twitter Revolution", owing to the reliance of the protesters upon Twitter and the Internet to communicate with one another. Brutally beaten, imprisoned, tortured and murdered, the protesters called out Obama's name from the streets of Tehran, but Obama ignored their pleas for help, refusing even to bring the matter before the United Nations.

Was Obama's failure to respond to the pleas of the Iranian protesters simply a matter of inexperience? Sadly, we are now learning that Obama's indifference to the Green Revolution was a calculated decision to adhere to his policy of currying favor with the mullahs, as evidenced by a New Yorker article entitled "The Consequentialist" (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/02/110502fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all), written by Mr. Ryan Lizza:

"A week later [after Obama's Cairo speech], however, a disputed Presidential election in Iran triggered large demonstrations there, which were soon labelled the Green Revolution. For the first five months after his Inauguration, Obama had tried to engage with the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an effort to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Now he faced the choice between keeping his distance and coming to the aid of the nascent pro-democracy movement, which was rallying behind Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who had finished second behind Ahmadinejad. Obama chose to keep his distance, providing only mild rhetorical support. In an interview with CNBC after the protests began, he said that 'the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised.'

During the peak of the protests in Iran, Jared Cohen, a young staffer at the State Department who worked for Slaughter, contacted officials at Twitter and asked the company not to perform a planned upgrade that would have shut down the service temporarily in Iran, where protesters were using it to get information to the international media. The move violated Obama’s rule of non-interference.

White House officials 'were so mad that somebody had actually ‘interfered’ in Iranian politics, because they were doing their damnedest to not interfere,' the former Administration official said. 'Now, to be fair to them, it was also the understanding that if we interfered it could look like the Green movement was Western-backed, but that really wasn’t the core of it. The core of it was we were still trying to engage the Iranian government and we did not want to do anything that made us side with the protesters. . . . The official said that Cohen 'almost lost his job over it. If it had been up to the White House, they would have fired him.'”

Interviewed by Mr. Hugh Hewitt (http://www.hughhewitt.com/transcripts.aspx?id=daf95729-9b04-484a-acb3-6c834217a155) and as noted by Mr. Rick Richman of Commentary in an "Contentions" item entitled "Leading from Behind 2.0" (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/04/27/leading-from-behind-2-0/), Mr. Ryan Lizza further explained in this regard:

"I was very surprised to find that this young guy, Jared Cohen, who unilaterally, essentially all by himself, contacted Twitter, and told them to delay a scheduled maintenance upgrade so that the Iranians could continue to use Twitter. It was a very controversial, I mean, inside, someone at the White House referred to it as, when I asked about it, they said oh yeah, you’re talking about Twittergate, right?"

Needless to say, Obama's refusal to support the protesters did not earn him any credit with Ahmadinejad or Khameini.

But that did not prevent Obama from persisting in his ways and seeking to win over Syria. He repeatedly sent Kerry to Damascus. He ignored the murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri by Assad in 2005 and appointed a new ambassador to Syria. He ceded Lebanon to Hezbollah. Notwithstanding the murder of protesters, Hillary saw fit to refer to Assad as a reformer, and now Obama has allowed Europe to take the lead in condemning the massacre of unarmed civilians.

Obama has proven himself a prisoner of his own narcissism and conceit, incapable of remorse, and unable to acknowledge his errors, which continue to exact a high toll of innocent bloodshed, but which go ignored by his fawning admirers.