Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in remarks Thursday, ranked U.S. ally India with China as a rising threat to the U.S. in Asia. The Pentagon quickly sought to roll back the remarks.
“We face the threats from rising powers — China, India, others — that we have to always have sufficient force protection out there in the Pacific to make sure they know we’re never going anywhere,” Mr. Panetta said during a visit to a shipyard in Groton, Conn., where he toured a submarine, the Mississippi, in the final stages of construction.
(Via Hot Air Headlines) It is quite bad enough that Panetta’s equal fool of a colleague Attorney General Eric Holder has damaged our relationship with Mexico to the point where their Attorney General apparently no longer trusts us to try gun runners on our own (and AG Holder had better hope that AG Morales doesn’t decide that she wants to put out a few arrest warrants on American law-enforcement officials); so I would appreciate it if the Secretary of Defense did not utterly muck up our relationship with India, which was one of the previous administration’s most useful long-term diplomatic projects. If this proves to be beyond the Secretary’s feeble powers, then the Secretary is invited to simply stay in his office and turn off the phone; he’s got only thirteen months’ worth of service left (maximum) anyway.
The terrifying part? Foreign policy is the area where the Obama administration does arguably best. Which apparently means that they only catastrophically mess things up every other month.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: A colleague of mine wonders whether this gaffe actually represents either: an admission that Malthusian thought processes form the basis for our current foreign policy; the revelation that this administration directly equates population size with threat level; or some demented combination of both. For the sake of the country, I’m hoping that this was instead just standard, pig-ignorant Ugly Americanism.
(pause)
You know, I’ve noticed that I’ve had to hope that “blindingly stupid incompetence” was the true reason for a lot of what the Obama White House has done recently…
Even after almost three years, it’s amateur hour at the White House.
I haven’t seen an “ignorant slut” thread in a while…nice to see it make a comeback.
Funny how this follows on the latest gaffe from Cain. This is worse, IMHO — the person saying this idiocy HAS ALREADY RECEIVED TOP SECRET BRIEFINGS.
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As for it being “pig-ignorant Ugly Americanism” — haven’t we already had the fights over how important it is to have a worldly chief executive? How horrid it was that Bush didn’t spend half his life pining to live anywhere but the US, and how wonderful it was that Obama did? Wasn’t THIS the group that was supposed to be utterly innocent in being parochial, ignorant, addle-minded Americans?
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Then explain this. And Hillary’s “overcharge” button. And Fast and Furious. And…
It’s Smart Diplomacy(tm). He was trying to ingratiate us to Pakistan.
*Roll(5d25)-10: 5,2,18,14,7,-10 (Blindingly Stupid Incompetence Modifier) = 36*
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Why does Panetta still have a job?
I’ve noticed that I’ve had to hope that “blindingly stupid incompetence” was the true reason for a lot of what the Obama White House has done recently…
I’ve done this from Day One. And I have a pattern. First I hope it. Then I count the remaining time for this administration. Then I wonder if they’ll go when they’re ousted.
You know how the Dems always project onto us what they themselves are planning or doing? Well they always insisted (without saying why) that GWB would ignore the election results or call off the 2008 election. I wish I could stop feeling almost dead, solid certain they mean to do this.
Tell me I’m being a hysterical nut and it might make me feel better. 🙂
Beej: You’re being a hysterical nut. 🙂
Seriously, I cannot imagine a scenario where this administration could get away with ignoring or canceling the 2012 elections, mostly because allowing this administration to do so would violate some very specific oaths sworn by the USA, USN, USAF, USMC, USCG, and I think every state NG as well. And those ladies and gentlemen would make this very, very, very clear to the Democratic party establishment, well in advance. Probably backed up with a copy of the US Constitution, with the 25th Amendment circled in red ink for the slow of brain.
BG5: Why do any of them still have jobs? Oh. Because that “elections have consequences” thing works both ways. Dammit.
Yes, this administration wouldn’t defy the constitution. And even if they did the Republicans would stop them.
I desperately want to be a hysterical nut. I want to sit here blushing in November 2012 over what a doofus I was.
I’m not there yet though.
I didn’t say the Republicans, Beej. I said the US military. 🙂
Ha! 🙂
“I said the US military.”
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And then we’d spend the rest of our lives being lectured to about the “right-wing junta”, and watching them stage “citizens arrests” on every one of our government officials, high and low. Eventually a judge in Spain will decide he has the authority to order to arrest of our president…
“Eventually a judge in Spain will decide he has the authority to order to arrest of our president…”
I thought that had already been established…?