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Michael Hastings, the reporter whose story led to the sacking of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has done it again. Given us an inside look at the people who are in charge, this time it’s Pres. Obama.
This morning, he talked about “an anecdote” from the second chapter in his book, The Operators. He tells of candidate Obama arriving in Baghdad in 2008 and events around a speech he gave at the embassy. Afterward, according to Hastings, Barack Obama started “complaining about having to take pictures with American soldiers and diplomats.”
One of Hasting’s sources for the book told him, “he clearly didn’t get the culture of the military and the cultures of these wars.”
Willie Geist, introducing a chapter he was about to read, characterized it like this: “the relationship between some of the generals, the senior military officials with Pres. Obama was sort of strange.”
“We wanted to be led. We would have been putty in his hands. But the President wasn’t comfortable playing that role in the meetings anyway. …”
It’s all in the video above.
Oh THIS is going to make for some interesting campign commercials from the repugs!!
Those commercials should be riveting!
The President simply isn’t interested in being President. He likes the big house, he likes Air Force One, and most of all he likes the crowds and the attention. Actually doing the job? Total downer.
I don’t know how accurate that bit of gossip is, but if people take it seriously it’s not going to go over terribly well with the military..
Hastings has been accurate so far, having good sources. I’m not sure it will even get traction or coverage, we’ll see.
First Lady Michelle Obama has made remarkable efforts with military families.
Publishing is a lumbering industry in radical transition, but the timing of this book is odd. Could be it just took this long to get it out.
“I’m not sure it will even get traction or coverage, we’ll see.” LOL! Are you really so desperate for an excuse to bash President Obama that your willing to latch on to unsubstantiated gossip, which even if true in the grand scheme would be trivial?
I wonder sometimes if English is your first language? You apparently are incapable of reading fairly simple sentences with any signs of comprehension.
Solo – Still waiting for you to prove your (false) charge that I write daily posts saying Pres. Obama is going to lose in November.
Gossip isn’t necessarily wrong. It’s just not backed by hard evidence. Hard evidence is often hard to come by when you’re talking about peoples’ opinions of things, or what they supposedly do when no one’s looking.
For my part, Hastings’ writing sounds plausible, but that doesn’t make it true, either.
EDIT: Another problem with gossip is that it is often more about the observers’ inclinations or prejudices than it is about what actually occurred. For instance, it’s quite possible that the observers here expected Obama to act like a big, important politician who was too important for them. Anything Obama said or did would likely be interpreted as confirming the observers’ opinions.
This doesn’t pass the smell test. Obama was hanging around with military people even before the election ( playing basketball, working out at the base gym ). I think he’s gotten a little to close to them. They wanted to use more drones, he used more drones; they wanted to go after Osama, he did it; they wanted more time in Afghanistan, he gave it to them; he even tried to hang around Iraq a while longer . I’m sure those soldiers appreciate being home for Christmas whether they say so or not and I’m sure their families have no trouble saying so. If you look closely at that big budget cut for the military you see that it isn’t all that big. You really can’t touch him on national security even if you try. I’m sure the republicans will love this and use it to paint him as a ” sissy ” man who doesn’t appreciate fighting men; but it was George W. Bush who was the real ” sissy ” man. He liked to live vicariously through them and cared not a wit what sufferings he heaped on both them and their families. He and his defense secretary praised their bravery in public while in private they and their republican cohorts sought to trim their salaries, pensions and medical care. I think Obama has come to like military people as well as respect them. He sees them as deeply patriotic and honorable. . It’s no secret that I am not one of his biggest fans but I do believe in giving credit where credit is due.
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All that piece of gossip’ “the relationship between some of the generals, the senior military officials with Pres. Obama was sort of strange.”” ‘ says is that President Obama wasn’t interested in photo ops with the generals or succumbing to the generals who were lobbying him to keep 30,000 troops in Iraq for the next decade.
‘Lack of leadership’, … tell that to the generals who wanted to keep 30,000 troops in Iraq for another ten years or more. Tell that to John Boehner who surrendered in a man to man showdown over the two month extension of payroll tax and unemployment benefits and tell that to the Somali pirates or Osama Bin Laden.
The only’ sissies’ are the the so-called ‘movement’ Progressives and chattering class for whom nothing is ever enough and have never gotten over the fact that Hillary Cinton lost to Barack Obama because of her own self-inflicted wounds. ‘I came under fire in Bosnia’ or hiring the worst Presidential campaign manager in the history of primary elections, Mark Penn. He convinced Hillary that the caucuses don’t matter and that the campaign would use all of its war chest in a media blitz on the Super Tuesday primary elections and Penn told her that the nomination would be wrapped up when the Super Tuesday returns were in. The nomination wasn’t wrapped up and the Hillary campaign was too late in organizing in the caucus states.Actually, it’s people like you who can’t seem to realize that the 2008 election ended more than three years ago and that some of us actually expected Obama to start acting like a President when he took the oath in 2008. All this “you can’t get over your loss in 2008″ crap is nothing but projection- YOU can’t get over the fact that once the campaign ended, the governing and leading was supposed to begin. That’s why you and Solo dismiss all criticism with “oh you just wanted Hillary, your team lost sore losers” and focus instead on how Obama will probably beat any GOP contender. You simply do not care about policy- it’s all about Your Team and Winning the Next Election, and you can’t understand why everyone is not as pathetically shallow as you are.
So stuff your Whiny Progressives talk, ok? We happen to believe in something beyond the next poll. I know that’s annoying to you, but we aren’t about to apologize for it.
Well, I just think that Obama is not a people person. He has come across this same way in numerous town halls etc. He seems to hate “pressing the flesh” with the lowly voters. Anyway, I don’t know if this story will matter one iota in the long run because Obama’s performance on the economy has been abysmal and I don’t think much else is going to matter to the voters.
So let me get the rules straight. It’s now not acceptable to even mention what a book written by a reporter says, whose previous reporting landed a celebrated general in the hot seat that eventually got him sacked? Obama rules means that new media and others only can mention what is approved by the fan bots.
Thomas Jefferson would have a lot to say about the fan politics of Solo and RAJensen, none of it good.
This alone brings out knee jerk squealing & fan defensiveness, not to mention yet another Clinton derangement belch that has absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand. Do you really think your emotional Turrets is helping your candidate?
You Obama Fan Boyz are going to get very tired by November. Kick back a little, enjoy life a bit.
Right now, Pres Obama is in not danger of losing his billion dollar bid on the presidency.