marie, it’s just the beating of the dead horse about “Obama’s lack of leadership.” As stated earlier, it’s like Benghazi all over again–the concern seems to be more about the response than the incident itself or how to keep such things from happening again.
I understand and agreed about the major nations. My input was based on a different center of attention. With family in Belgium, I also get the formal and informal news from Brussels. When either Paris or Brussels sneeze, the other gets a cold. The problems of integrating the efforts have been particularly acute in the recent years, but obviously not restricted to those two countries as it reaches almost everywhere in Europe and even farther.
Fwiw, almost denied by the government, there is a strong rumor that the police forces are on high alert in Belgium as they fear reprisals. Not a great time to be in Paris or Brussels.
“It’s hilarious how the fear of Fox News continues to come up as the rationale for why he didn’t go is okay.”
Fear?!? LMAO. It’s not fear - It’s that whatever he does will be be deemed wrong by the CEC. If he went there would be an equal amount of poutrage from the right that he is wasting tax dollars, doing it only for the photo op, doing it so the attention would be focused on him, blah, blah, blah. Rinse and repeat.
It goes both ways, emilybee. There are plenty of others who will always say he can do no wrong.
Actually, that is where you are wrong, Bay. I don’t think there’s a single person who voted for him who would say he can do no wrong, or who isn’t critical of many things he has done. The blind allegiance is found on the other side.
I, along with other, have already said we thought the admin should have been better represented. And many of us have been critical of things he has done or not done - just not for the same reason than those on the Right.
But, I am certainly not going to get my panties in a twist over it. I save that for really important things - like whether we go to war and put troops on the ground or not.
But if you all want to get your knickers in a knot over this - be my guest. I understand why there are those that need to be in put in a perpetual outrage over this President and his administration.
Not to beat a dead horse, but President Reagan did not attend Sadat’s funeral, did he? I thought Reagan should have gone (Carter and Ford represented him), but I didn’t see a need to condemn his decision.
And don’t fool yourselves into believing that Hollande let diplomacy hinder any critical thoughts he may have held about American participation in the march. The French have been notorious for telling the U.S. to sit down and be quiet,we’ll do it our way or not at all, politically speaking. and how surreal was it to see Abbas standing a few feet from Netanyahu, smiling?
That there may be constant critics of our President, no matter who he is, is a fitting observation for this thread. It’s something we all need to defend.
“It goes both ways, emilybee. There are plenty of others who will always say he can do no wrong.”
Bizarre thinking. There is no one on the left who thinks Obama is a king, or a saint, or a perfect person. That’s some wacko right-wing assumption.
But being blindly critical is different from being thoughtfully critical, if you know what I mean. When you have a president who is criticized by the opposition for suggesting ideas that CAME from the opposition, you know there is a problem.
The other issue with today’s “constant critics” is their hypocrisy. If you condemn, say, Obama’s use of executive orders, at least have the decency to do your homework and know how many (or, rather, few) he has issued compared to his predecessors. Then say, “I condemn all use of executive action no matter who is doing it.” Unfortunately there are too few people on the right with enough intellectual honesty to look critically at ALL of our elected leaders–not just those with the wrong party affiliation.
It certainly is. It comes from the talk-show hosts and oft-repeated memes that people on the left regard Obama as some kind of “messiah.” I have yet to meet anyone who thinks that.
I think no matter what Obama did, there would be someone kvetching about it.
Getting out of the narrow confine of the participation (or lack thereof) of the WH will surely be considered a return to the discussions that will get this thread closed. Obama’s use of EO will not pass the CC test unless it is about some school issue. 
Yes, Sally is confuzzled again but straightening it out is against the rules, I think.
xiggi/marie: surely you are joking. This entire thread has been political in nature. What in bevhills’ original post was “school-related”?
Hey, I have not read this entire thread and did not read the posts before mine. My last post was only a small suggestion to avoid getting into general politics and departing from the recent discussions about Paris. Feel free to disregard it and think my “suggestion” was misplaced – albeit it was not directed at “one side” in particular.
Wow, xiggi, that explanation makes me think you’d be a great politician yourself.
I think an opinion on a post is allowed but getting into the politics around it becomes political. But, I do agree it’s a fine and seemingly wavy line. EO discussions probably are going to go over it, though.
So here’s a question for the naysayers. Knowing the heightened terror threat in France–and how much the terrorists hate America–if Obama had gone to the rally and something had happened, resulting in even more deaths, what would you be saying now?
xiggi-
While political discussions are not generally allowed, the Parent Cafe is not even close to being totally about colleges…what does Downton Abbey have to do with college life? What does dressing young, or football, or for that matter a high school kid drinking, a wife unhappy with her marriage, bad relatives, weddings, taxes, etc? The parent cafe is supposed to be about parents who have kids in college having a place to talk to each other about whatever, this is supposed to be a time out from worrying about paying for college, getting into schools, etc, etc…this thread is somewhat political, though it is talking about an international event, not US politics, so to me should be allowed, we are discussing our feelings about what happened, and what we think needs to be done in the aftermath of it, so it isn’t fundamentally political. Even though I disagree with some of the posts, even though I don’t but the argument that it is precisely because the west ‘allows,’ inflammatory stuff about Mohammad or that the western countries are the fault for all of this, I respect people who are espousing those, and positions closer to my own, and it would be sad to shut this down because politics play a small role in it.