UPDATE: Again, awful optics...
Priorities - With President ObamaPriorities - With President Obama. While Belgium Burned, Obama Took In a Baseball Game with Communist Leader Raul Castro. He Also Took Some Time To Chum It Up With Derek Jeter and ESPN Hosts.
Posted by Townhall Video on Wednesday, March 23, 2016
President Obama called the Belgian prime minister to offer his condolences over the horrific terrorist attack they suffered yesterday. He also mentioned it briefly in a press conference, but didn’t mention radical Islam. Learning nothing from the bad optics he incurred from the public by playing golf after delivering remarks when journalist James Foley was beheaded in the summer of 2014, Obama decided to head to the ballgame with Raul Castro. Of course, the 2016 Republican field criticized him for going to the game in the wake of this ISIS-led terrorist attack, but the president said we just can’t let these terrorists win–and let them “disrupt people's ordinary lives.”
It’s always a challenge when you have a terrorist attack anywhere in the world, particularly in this age of 24/7 news coverage. You want to be respectful and understand the gravity of the situation, but the whole premise of terrorism is to try to disrupt people’s ordinary lives.”
So, is he saying that if he had left the game to head back to D.C., or fly to Brussels, to deal with the current security situation, or show solidarity with a NATO ally; then the terrorists would have won? I guess I could see that argument if he was just an ordinary citizen, but he’s the president of the United States. One would hope that a little more would come from the leader of the free world other than offering brief remarks before bolting to the ballpark to watch the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Cuba’s National Team.
Is it fair to classify this as “The Pet Goat” moment of the Obama presidency? Granted, there are a lot of differences, namely that it was our nation that was attacked on 9/11. Luckily, an attack of that scale hasn’t occurred since. Second, this Brussels attack was abroad, but the idleness that some on the left criticized then-President Bush for when the he was told the nation was under attack while in a classroom that was reading “The Pet Goat” seems to apply to Obama; the man went to a ballgame, where he told ESPN essentially that if he had left–the terrorists would’ve won, or something.
As president, there are certain aspects of the job, like dealing with a terrorist attack, which might force him to skip a baseball game–along with doing “the wave” with Castro–to handle a global security crisis. Obama has admitted that there were certain aspects of the “theater” about being president where he falls short, and that he needs to make improvements. Obviously, he’s caught senioritis on that front.
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