Comedian in Chief: Obama Snubs World Leaders for Talk Shows
Helle Dale /
Where is President Obama? Yakking it up on television and radio with comedians and chat shows. That is, when he is not out raising funds for his reelection.
Last Tuesday, the President gave a full hour to late night comedy host David Letterman. On September 11 of all days, he gave a radio interview to talk-show host “Pimp with a Limp.” Tomorrow, Barack and Michelle Obama and will appear on ABC’s “The View.” No wonder the U.S. President cannot find time to squeeze in his intelligence briefings or meetings with world leaders.
Meanwhile, U.S. embassies are under attack, and violent extremists are filling the streets of the Arab world with hatred against the United States.
At the United Nations, leaders from all over the world gathered Monday for the week of the annual General Assembly. Obama will be making his own address to the General Assembly on Tuesday at 10 a.m., a speech that is sure to contain yet more apologies and denunciations of the offending Innocence of Muslims YouTube movie trailer.
Comments TIME magazine, hardly an organ critical of the Obama Administration: “Blink and you may miss President Barack Obama’s appearance at the annual U.N. General Assembly this week. The President plans to make the briefest visit by a U.S. President in recent memory.”
The President’s schedule contains no bilateral meetings—not even with presidents from countries like Egypt, where U.S. embassies have been under attack, or Libya, where the U.S. ambassador was assassinated. A meeting request from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was turned down by the White House for lack of time, leaving America’s best and most beleaguered Middle East ally publicly hung out to dry.
President Obama’s display of indifference to the most basic function of his job—national security—would at least until this Administration have been absolutely unimaginable. But even for a celebrity-hound like Obama, the contrast between the severity of the crisis facing the nation and the President’s set of priorities is beyond belief.
Maybe the Obama Administration has just given up on having a Middle East policy altogether and simply has nothing more to say as the Middle East is in turmoil. Whatever the reason, none of this is worthy of the government of the United States of America.