Firstly, Michele Bachmann was born in Iowa, a fact she has been telling anyone who will listen for the past month or so. This may indeed give her something of an advantage when the Iowa Caucus comes around next year..
Secondly, because Iowa is the first in the nation to hold a vote (though not the first in the nation primary of course) politics are a bit in your face whether you want it or not so president hopefuls are seemingly always here and it annoys a great many Iowans (including myself from time to time even though I am a political wonk). Now for any number of reasons, I will freely admit I strongly dislike Ms. Bachmann both for her political views and her closeness to possibly the most disgraceful and worthless Iowa politician of all time, Steve King (thankfully not my congressman). A recent example of her complete lack of political wit (or any wit at all for that matter) was in a recent event she hosted her in Iowa.
Just yesterday Ms. Bachmann was in Iowa City and giving the usual "Obama is a communist, and the she would never have supported a conflict in Libya, and his Health care plan will kill us all" speech. Towards the end of her speech she uttered something that struck me and shows yet again that from a foreign policy viewpoint she is unequivocally incompetent.. She stated that while former Egyptian President Mubarak "wasn't perfect", he was a good friend to the United States in the region and that the President should have supported him and because Obama didn't Mubarak fell and the country is prime for an Islamist takeover (via POLITICO).
Mubarak "wasn't perfect" could be the understatement of the year. He was a dictator plain and simple. He was never elected by the Egyptian people, under his rule all independent political movements were outlawed, his own people lived in fear of his dreaded Interior ministry and he was rumored to be grooming his own son to take over for him..Sounds a bit more than "wasn't perfect" to me..or any other human being with half a brain. More importantly she claims this absurb belief held by many on the political Right that President Obama has now properly used his power when it comes to such events in the Middle East during his presidency. My question to Ms. Bachmann is quite simple..What should President Obama had done instead? Should he have sent in the Marines and put down the protests ourselves? Now if the US had fully supported Mubarak against the protests and simply called on him to push some reforms (as we are doing with the Bahrain's royal family who are using foreign troops to hold back protests), it is quite possible that Mubarak would still be in power but for how much longer? The fact the protests happened and spread like they did could not have been stopped by anyone, certainly not President Obama. US support would have only delayed the inevitable.
Not to mention most 'experts' on the region generally agree the President handled the situation in Egypt as well as one could hope for considering the circumstances with Mubarak stepping down and a military back provisionally government taking over and with a successful nationwide referendum under this belt that set the stage for parliamentary and presidential elections later this year (though many claim that is too soon).
So either Ms. Bachmann thinks President Obama should have supported a hated dictator against his own people whether that be in the form of public support or more overt actions..Or She is just a massive idiot. Sad thing is, I am not sure which would be worse...Voters beware. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52976.html
Wow, is this blog just a shill for the Democratic Party? I believe Obama could've handled the situation better by umm... not giving millions of dollars to a dictator in the first place.
ReplyDeleteActually no this isn't associated with the Democratic party nor will it ever be. I don't personally favor either major political party (hence the name of the blog).
ReplyDeleteAnd I freely admit to having a personal hatred for Ms. Bachmann not because she is a Republican but because she is so politically incompetent I am ashamed to be from the same state she was born in (Iowa).
And when it comes to support for Mubarak, Obama is just the latest member of a long line of US Presidents who have blinded supported Mubarak which includes every President since Reagan (since Mubarak was not President when the Camp David Accords were first signed that started US support for Egypt). He was simply accepted the by all those Presidents (including Obama) as a necessary evil. This makes all of them partially guilty for their unquestioned support of Mubarak. Now President Bush was the first to challenge Mubarak on human rights issues and political reforms but Mubarak simply ignored him. President Obama failed to pick up where Bush started and simply maintain the status quo.
More importantly Obama has been so far rather unconsistent when it comes to the protests the occured in Bahrain. Those protests were also massive and seemed supported by the people, but President Obama had no comment on the issue other than calling on both sides to refrain from violence. Then, when thousands of soldiers from neighboring Gulf states came to Bahrain to restore order (not unlike the Soviets intervening in Hungary in 1956) the President was silent. The man is clearly a hypocrit when it comes to US support of protests movements in the Middle East.
But that was not the point of my post. She stated that Mubarak "wasn't perfect" and stated Obama should have supported him even though he had crossed the line and killed many of his own people. By that admission, she clearly believes Obama should have just maintained the status quo.
By your own comment maintaining the status quo is the wrong position so as I was pointing out, Michelle Bachmann stance on the issue clearly shows she is a twit plain and simple.