This is pretty sharp analysis from someone who is normally so biased that many on the right have stopped paying her column any attention. But I have to say, I think she nailed the problem with Obama’s Holocaust speech this morning.
She starts off the piece giving him brief credit for a few things that he said that one must say, but then quickly noted as with all his speeches, he started off making it all about him. Yeah, that’s pretty normal for Obama so we’ll skip quoting it here.
Aside from his reflexive egomania, the statement was galling in its hypocrisy: “When faced with a regime that threatens global security and denies the Holocaust and threatens to destroy Israel, the United States will do everything in our power to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.” Except put together a credible military option. “It’s remarkable — as we walked through this exhibit, Elie and I were talking as we looked at the unhappy record of the State Department and so many officials here in the United States during those years.” Unhappy? One is unhappy that FDR packed the court; can’t we be infuriated that he and the State Department willfully ignored the plights of Jews who could have been taken in by the United States?
I think she’s right on both points, especially on Iran. Obviously Obama is repeating the lie he often tells when he says he is doing everything in his power to prevent Iran from getting a nuke. The fact that he said it at a Holocaust speech just proves how little respect he has for the threat of a nuclear Iran that would almost certainly bring about a second Holocaust. Very Chamberlain-esque.
Now Rubin gets brutal:
But the worst was certainly this:
Last year, in the first-ever presidential directive on this challenge, I made it clear that “preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States of America.”
He goes on to list actions in Sudan, Ivory Coast, Libya and Central Africa. But what about the big stuff, you know, in Russia (he congratulated Vladimir Putin after he stole an election and is fighting legislation to bar entry to human-rights abusers), China (where human rights have gone from horrible to atrocious), Egypt (where we refuse to cut off aid), Iran (where we snubbed the Green Revolution), North Korea (which we were prepared to ply with aid) and Syria? On the last, Obama proclaimed that “it tears at our conscience. Elie alluded to what we feel as we see the Syrian people subjected to unspeakable violence, simply for demanding their universal rights. And we have to do everything we can.” But we don’t. We don’t take military action. We don’t insist Syria be kicked out of international bodies. And we cheer Kofi Annan, who goes to Damascus to work out a “cease-fire” that leaves the mass murderer Bashar al-Assad in power.
Obama has now (after three-plus years) come up with another fig leaf: “We’re making sure that the United States government has the structures, the mechanisms to better prevent and respond to mass atrocities. So I created the first-ever White House position dedicated to this task. It’s why I created a new Atrocities Prevention Board, to bring together senior officials from across our government to focus on this critical mission. This is not an afterthought.” That’s it — another committee! But it’s not an afterthought, mind you. And another report! (“The intelligence community will prepare, for example, the first-ever National Intelligence Estimate on the risk of mass atrocities and genocide.” To those in the national intelligence community: The risk of mass atrocities is going up under this president.)
The gap between Obama’s words and actions in the realm of democracy promotion and human rights is so vast it is a wonder those in attendance did not burst into laughter — or tears. If there is a failing on his part of greater moral significance than his dismal performance on human rights, I’m at a loss to recall it. For Obama, “never again” has all too often become “never lead” and “never stop engaging tyrants.”
She’s right. Obama was silent during the Green Revolution in Iran, his own VP refused to criticize China’s one-child policy, and the list goes on and on. And most certainly, we haven’t forgotten about Honduras either, where Obama sided with a dictator-wanna-be and socialist instead of with the country of Honduras for preventing a dictatorial takeover of its people.
Obama is at best a hypocrite whose narcissism knows no bounds, even during such a sensitive speech as one about the Holocaust.