Barack Obama - A Ladies' Man

 It seems that a lot of this administration's business is handled by assertive women:

-  Victoria Nuland is making a "hash" of diplomacy surrounding unrest in the Ukraine.  She didn't know that phone calls are intercepted?

- Samantha Power our Irish immigrant ambassador to the UN wants to fight with the russian ambassador over "Pussy Riot."  Say what?

- Susan Rice, a hyper agressive person, is willing to "duke it out" with the Israelis and The Lobby over pathetic John Kerry.  Hey!  Perhaps I like this part.  On the other hand, she sent Kerry to Cairo a while back to tell the generals that that they had better behave.  They handed him his hat.

- Valerie Jarrett is evidently a "mother figure" to the WH women and POTUS himself.

- And then there are the divorce rumors.  I don't know what to make of that.

All in all, these women have a lot of power.  Let's hope their reason prevails in the use of that power.  The "Pussy Riot" thing worries me.  All the world is not a school yard.  pl

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26079957

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/samantha-power-pussy-riot-103201.html?ml=al_1

http://observer.com/2014/02/susan-rice-forbids-israel-from-criticizing-kerry/

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/Felsenthal-Files/January-2014/The-Mysteries-and-Realities-of-Valerie-Jarrett-Mystery-Woman-of-the-White-House/

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/rumours-of-marriage-problems-threaten-to-overshadow-michelle-obamas-50th-birthday/story-fnb64oi6-1226800021887#

Comments

[Valissa]

In general I agree, and have been very unimpressed with these women. However, I have long thought that Jarrett may be one of the linchpins behind Obama reaching out to Iran.

From here Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Jarrett

Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran, to African-American parents James E. Bowman and Barbara Taylor Bowman. Her father, a pathologist and geneticist, ran a hospital for children in Shiraz in 1956, as part of a program where American physicians and agricultural experts sought to help communitize developing countries' health and farming efforts. When she was five, the family moved to London for one year, later moving to Chicago in 1963.

[Tyler]

"Schoolmarms and Scolds of the US, assemble", it seems.

[Rd.]

"Victoria Nuland is making a "hash" of diplomacy surrounding unrest in the Ukraine. She didn't know that phone calls are intercepted?"

she must believe nsa is the only entity spying / collecting phone info on every one!!!

just a simple case of sitting on too high of a chair and not gauging the depth. a good example of recent/current US FP establishment.

[tv]

Just a lack of adults in this administration.

[walrus]

What concerns me is that most women who make it into leadership positions in the Western world have an additional agenda; - to prove that they are as good or better than men in that role.

To put that another way, you don't see men in any heterosexual milieu I can think of trying to "do better than a woman".

I heard this same additional agenda surface just last night at a sailing function, girls only, at which the speaker trotted out just this agenda, not just to enjoy the sport of sailing and encourage other females to do likewise, but to prove that they can do it better than men.

In the rarefied reaches of Government the stress loads are high enough as it is without carrying the weight of this additional agenda.

[kao_hsien_chih]

That is the strange paradox that seems to be true so often about women in politics/policy making.

We often dislike policymakers who are too macho, needless combative/loud, and gung ho--"too male" if you will--to figure out what's going on and act deftly. One might think women might be less macho and gung ho, but, in practice, women who get so far up the ladder are usually far more eager to do the stupid things that often get men in trouble.

[kao_hsien_chih]

The Russians, they have computers too?

Seriously, the lack of understanding of the outside world, even among the elite, in US is often breathtaking. It may be good for the morale to chant "we are number one" but too many people seem to go on believing our own propaganda blithely.

[Fred]

Walrus,

In America we are in the midst of a "War on Women". (A slogan - and agenda - created by the political left for the purpose of both social engineering, political fund raising and axe grinding.) Qualifications for leadership? Who needs those when you have Ivy League credentials and the right chromosomes?

[Norbert M Salamon]

it seems that the US has spent more than 5 billion dollars to democratize Ukraine according to MS Nuland at US Ukraine Foundation event Dec. 13 2013
her 8+ minute speech can be accessed at

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.ca/

[Peter C]

PL. Barack Obama - A Ladies' Man

Pat, this is excellent standup comedy commentary. Besides being a most excellent shot, ham prep master, prolific author, and all around honorable soldier and a gentleman.

I do think in the proper venue, your material would have me rolling on the floor!!

[nick b]

Col.,

I completely agree with you on the 'pussy riot' comments by Amb. Power. I don't think she has any idea who she's dealing with when she supports these ladies. The big tip off should be their western name.

I enjoyed the quotes from Politico. Amb. Churkin mocked her brilliantly.

[JohnH]

Reminds me of a cat fight. Anything that's not substantive gets their dander up. Gay rights in Russia is the latest example.

Before they go yammering about Russia, they should check out attitudes in Israel, in most allied nations, and in most states. People in these places must shake their heads at how badly the State Department's public diplomacy has gone off the rails, since most of them are more sympathetic to Russia's position than to the US position.

This is how these women build solidarity with allies? What a joke!

[Duran]

"The pussy riot thing" ??? What does that mean?

[turcopolier]

Duran

One of the links deals with this. pl

[William R. Cumming]

All! Are any neo-cons female?

Walrus! I believe the Atlantic Solo Sailing speed record is held by a woman!

[kao_hsien_chih]

With regards Pussy Riot, or, I suppose, ex-Pussy Rioters (the darlings of the Obama administration have been kicked out of their own band in disgrace, apparently), and for that matter, various other grandiose pronouncements by the Obama administration concerning foreign policy, I'm just stunned at how deluded they are about about other parts of the world (or, indeed, parts of their own country that don't adore them automatically). Follow the link below for a perspective along this line:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/07/snow_blind

[Alba Etie]

Norbert M Salamon
IMO there is no way that leader Putin will allow Ukraine into the EU or any other nonsense that Nuland and her ilk may wish to perpetrate on the Russian Near Abroad. That five billion could have been well spent on infrastructure rehabilitation & new project right here in These United States .

[Alba Etie]

WRC
I equate R2P proponents as neocons , in that context I feel that Samantha Powers , & Susan Rice are clear & present danger - ie - more misbegotten military interventions overseas . When I think of Samantha Powers I think of the Clean Break bullsh-=-t that "Prime Minister" Cheney gave us back in the previous administration .

[David Habakkuk]

All,

Some exhibits re Victoria Nuland:

From the 13 December speech in which she explained how since 1991 the U.S. had invested $5bn. in promoting democracy in the Ukraine.

‘People of all ages, of all classes, of all walks of life are taking ownership of their future and coming out into the streets to demand a European future. They’re doing so peacefully, with great courage, and enormous personal restraint.’

(See http://geneva.usmission.gov/2013/12/17/assistant-secretary-nuland-speaks-at-u-s-ukraine-foundation-conference/ )

Shortly before this, Nuland was photographed meeting the principal opposition leaders. From right to left, Oleg Tyagnibok, Arseny Yatsenyuk, and Vitaly Klitschko.

(See http://ca.news.yahoo.com/photos/u-assistant-secretary-state-nuland-ukranian-opposition-leaders-photo-112142919.html )

In the list of ‘2012 Top Ten Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Slurs’ published by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, No. 5 opens:

‘UKRAINE’S ANTI-SEMITIC “SVOBODA” (FREEDOM) PARTY

‘OLEG TYAGNIBOK LEADER OF THE SVOBODA PARTY

‘In recent elections the radical right party won 41 seats in the Ukrainian Parliament (10.44% of the popular vote). Tyagnibok has called for purges of the approximately 400,000 Jews and other minorities living in Ukraine and has demanded that Ukraine be liberated from what he calls, the “Muscovite Jewish Mafia.”'

(See http://www.wiesenthal.com/atf/cf/%7B54d385e6-f1b9-4e9f-8e94-890c3e6dd277%7D/TT_2012_3.PDF )

[Bill H]

All neocons are warmongers, but not all warmongers are neocons. I believe R2P is a neoliberal position. Perhaps I'm wrong on the second sentence, but not on the first.

[The beaver]

NSM and Alba Etie,

Wonder how Nuland et al. will deal with the far-right group Pravy Sektor.

http://world.time.com/2014/02/04/ukraine-dmitri-yarosh-kiev/

As far as Jeff Feltman being the MC of the whole UN/US propping up the three opposition leaders with the exclusion of Pravy Sektor, is the end game Syria and the Middle East?
Ukraine maintains key naval bases used by the Russian navy during its deployments last September to oppose US plans for an attack on Syria.

[David Habakkuk]

All,

Another graphic image of Tyagnibok is at

http://gwplondon.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/oleg-tyanhybok.jpg

[JohnH]

What's really strange is the contrasting styles between the women and the black men at the peak of power. The women try to outdo the males in aggression. The blacks--Obama, Clarence Thomas, Eric Holder--seem to need to show how deferential they can be. So far, Obama has the fewest vetoes of any President in 150 years (except Garfield, who only served 6.5 months). And Obama has the fewest prosecutions of prominent lawbreakers in memory.

So I suppose it makes sense for Obama to staff his foreign policy desk with emasculating females, who can act aggressively where he can't.

If that's the strategy, he could use a few angry women on the domestic side, too, something he most respectfully refuses to do.

[Charles I]

It does stagger me, admittedly after many years here, that FP brainiacs, so obsessed with Cubas and Venuzulas can't grasp the Russian Near Abroad. Notwithstanding the amount of blood shed over it. Even I, a bleeder, wistful onetime avid R2P'er, Canadian where there is a very strong Ukrainian expat presence must admit the naivete or wilful blindness which springs eternal must be tempered with, in this case, specifically geography, in lieu of reality generally.

[Norbert M Salamon]

I do miss mention of MS Clinton in this respect, for she was a primary official of the first Obama term - whose positive accomplishments [aside from speeches] was IMO rather negative world wide