Well ain’t that a God-damned shame:
Turkey Recalls Vatican Ambassador After Pope Uses the ‘G’ Word Referring to Armenia http://t.co/1KbVEjibsa #tcot
— PJ Media (@PJMedia_com) April 12, 2015
What’s Turkish for “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out the door?” …Or perhaps Italian would make more sense, in this context. Or maybe just liturgical Latin.
You’ll all be pleased to hear that apparently we no longer have any pressing domestic problems. At least, none that are more important than the need to squash recognition of the Armenian genocide.
White House Rebuffed In Effort to Kill Vote on House Bill Recognizing Armenian Genocide By Turks
The Obama administration asked the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to cancel a vote scheduled for today on a bill recognizing the Armenian genocide. The chairman of the committee, Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., is going forward with the bill “mark up” and vote regardless.The bill, H. Res. 252, recognizes as genocide the “systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians” as ordered by the Turkish government from 1915 to 1923. It’s the kind of statement then-Sen. Obama supported; as a candidate for president, he said, “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that President.”
Please note: this is technically not any more of a broken campaign promise than the broken one that it was before. I’m sure that the President intended to do a lot of things, once in office. Just like I’m sure that the President often means well. That being said: you do realize that if you voted for this man on this issue you more or less threw your money away, yes? – Which is something that you should really take into consideration, next go-round.
Moe Lane
Ben Smith covers the Standard Washingtonian Weasel Statement by President Obama here, the comparable reactions to said SWWS here, and – best of all – Samantha “Monster” Power’s
…here. I do hope that nobody was shocked by any of this; it was pretty obvious how this was all going to go down, as both Dan Riehl (here and here) and myself kept saying. Continue reading And American recognition of the Armenian Genocide gets delayed. Again.
(H/T: Dan Riehl) With regard to President Obama’s decision to not confront the Armenian Genocide question while in Turkey – as noted here from someone on the scene, he specifically avoided using the word genocide – it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that he didn’t keep that particular campaign promise (“America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that President.”). Politician, lying, lips moving, etc. etc. etc. Besides, I saw this coming last month.
What should be the focus now is what Congress plans to do about it. Rep. Mark Kirk (R, IL) is still hopeful that his resolution recognizing the Genocide – which he’s worked on with Rep. Adam Schiff (D, CA), Rep. George Radanovich (R, CA) and Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D, NJ) will make it to the floor of the House, but that’s up to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA)… who has been noticeably silent on this issue in this Congress. One would have to be a terrible human being to suggest that this is because there’s no convenient scapegoat this time around…
Moe Lane
*I’d be sympathetic to the problem he’s got with this, except that he shot off his mouth a lot on the subject last year, and the man needs to learn that people pay attention to what Presidents say.
Crossposted to RedState.
Which happened, by the way.
I said that it did back in February, and I say it now. It happened, and while there are consequences to saying that it happened, there are consequences to not saying so, too. And the administration has apparently decided to go with the latter set of consequences.
Obama wavers on pledge to declare Armenian genocide
The Obama administration is hesitating on a promised presidential declaration that Armenians were the victims of genocide in the early 20th century, fearful of alienating Turkey when U.S. officials badly want its help.
President Obama and other top administration officials pledged during the presidential campaign to officially designate the 1915 killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks as genocide. Many Armenian Americans, who are descendants of the victims and survivors, have long sought such a declaration.
But the administration also has been soliciting Ankara’s help on Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and other security issues amid Turkish warnings that an official U.S. statement would imperil Turkey’s assistance.
Administration officials are considering postponing a presidential statement, citing progress toward a thaw in relations between Turkey and neighboring Armenia. Further signs of warming — such as talk of reopening border crossings — would strengthen arguments that a U.S. statement could imperil the progress.
Continue reading Obama to quietly break promise on recognizing Armenian genocide.
