More than the Optics

Optics is a word that has been repeatedly used to refer to President Obama's behavior this past week.

Here's one juxtaposing Obama playing golf with Rand Paul in Guatemala doing charitable doctoring.

Well, how about this one? Obama in his vacation tan suit, with Putin watching. Obama has that frantic look in his eyes that I have documented over the years of his presidency. Putin just looks on, calm and collected.

The caption for this Reuters photograph of Putin reads:

Russia's President Vladimir Putin chairs a session of the State Council Presidium in Voronezh, August 5, 2014. Putin has ordered his government to prepare retaliatory measures against the latest round of Western sanctions, Russian news agencies reported on Tuesday.

Obama's photo caption from ABC News says:

President Barack Obama gestures in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Aug. 28, 2014. Evan Vucci/AP Photo

I think it is more than a "summer suit." Obama is saying that he is still on vacation, no matter the world's situation.

The not so subliminal message is that he doesn't care. And the political message is that he is not watching out for America in particular, and the West in general. He is siding with the enemy. But then, our enemy are his friends, so is behavior his to be expected.

The "perception" message, the "optics" message, is that he's giving the enemy information that should be kept secret for national security reasons, but is now out in the open: America's leadership is hesitant, which makes it vulnerable to attacks. Now is a good time to attack.

All this, in other words, it is more than "the optics."

Here is Republican King basically saying what I'm saying:

You have the whole world watching, you have a week, two weeks of anticipation of what the United States is going to do and then for him to walk out – I'm not trying to be trivial here – but in a light suit, light tan suit, saying that first he wants to talk about what most Americans care about, and he said that's the vision of the second-quarter numbers on the economy.

This is a week after Jim Foley was beheaded, and he's trying to act like, you know, real Americans care about the economy, not about ISIS and not about terrorism. And then he goes on to say that he has no strategy!

Now you know, listen, you and I know that it is easy to mis-speak [inaudible]...you can say the wrong things. What this showed was, you know, you know there's always a few issues you're not overly familiar with, and you can find yourself saying the wrong thing or saying it in the wrong way. That's the way it struck me is that this is not, that foreign policy is not a major issue to him. It's something he has to talk about, he's not crazy about it, and he'd much rather talk about some social engineering or healthcare or whatever. And he doesn't even know how to..For a guy that's so articulate, he does not know how to express himself on this issue. He's not the --thoughest radar screen, he really isn't.

It was just a terrible performance by a commander-in-chief.

Forget that our allies are watching, forget that the American people are watching. ISIS is watching.

If you were the head of ISIS, if you were [ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-] Baghdadi, or if you were any of the ISIS, anyone in the ISIS leadership, would you come away from yesterday afraid of the United States?" he asked. "Would you be afraid that the United States is going to use all its power to crush ISIS?

Or would you think, here's a person who's going to go out and do a few fundraisers over the Labor Day weekend? [More of the interview at Newsmax.com]

A Chinese J-11 fighter jet is seen flying near a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon
about 215 km (135 miles) east of China's Hainan Island in this U.S. Department
of Defense handout photo taken August 19, 2014.

Chinese interceptions of U.S. military planes could intensify due to submarine base

"We didn't give [the Americans] enough pressure (before)," Zhang* said... "A knife at the throat is the only deterrence. From now on, we must fly even closer to U.S. surveillance aircraft."

* Zhang is Rear Admiral Zhang Zhaozhong from the National Defense University in Beijing

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Source, text and image: Reuters

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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