Noise

Barack Obama did not have a good day on Sunday, when he appeared on Sixty Minutes with interviewer Steve Kroft. First, the now infamous "bump in the road" comment that can legitimately be characterized as a gaff, much in the same what that Mitt Romney's "don't care" comment was ... oh, wait, the media took that one literally ... oh, never mind.

Steve Kroft asked about Bibi Netanyahu's request for action against Iran:

STEVE KROFT: “You don’t feel any pressure from Prime Minister Netanyahu in the middle of a campaign to try and get you to change your policy and draw a line in the sand? You don’t feel any pressure?”

OBAMA: “When it comes to our national security decisions — any pressure that I feel is simply to do what’s right for the American people. And I am going to block out — any noise that’s out there.”

Hmmm. So, the leader of an important Middle Eastern ally (a group that is rapidly shrinking in size as Obama's foreign policy implodes) asks for a "red line," and the President suggests that it's "noise." Not to worry, it's just another in a long line of innocent "gaffs" that seem very important when Mitt Romney makes them, but not so very important when Barack Obama does the same.

Jennifer Rubin comments:

Calling Netanyahu’s concern about an existential threat “noise” is another in a long string of insults, snubs and gaffes about Israel. This remark immediately raised red flags in the foreign press. The Iranians were happy, though. A reader sends me a report that at least one country is delighted. From the Iranian official TV outlet: “US President Barack Obama says Israel’s call for drawing red line over Iran’s nuclear energy program is just ‘noise’ he tries to ignore.” Well, the Iranians got that one right. And just to rub it in, Obama knocked Israel down a peg, saying it was only “one of our closest allies in the region.” Really? Is Egypt the other? The level of disdain he holds for Israel runneth over.

Obama, possibly realizing his gaff, followed his "noise" comment with a pro forma statement of support for Israel, but there was absolutely no enthusiasm when he said it.

This week, while the UN General Assembly is in session, the President made time to appear on The View, a vacuous afternoon talk show. But he did not have time to meet with faux ally Mohammed Morsi, President of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government of Egypt.

That's probably because the atmospherics would have been awful, given that he earlier indicated that he didn't want to meet with Bibi Netanyahu ("no time, after all).

And finally, back to the Sixty Minutes interview. In response to a Kroft question about a national debt that has increased sixty percent on Obama's watch, the President stated:

"When I came into office, I inherited the biggest deficit in our history.[1] And over the last four years, the deficit has gone up, but 90% of that is as a consequence of two wars that weren't paid for,[2] as a consequence of tax cuts that weren't paid for,[3] a prescription drug plan that was not paid for,[4] and then the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.[5]

The numbers in [brackets] represent The Wall Street Journal's scathing refutation of each of these blatantly incorrect and misleading claims. I urge you to read the Journal article in it's entirety..

On the whole, the Sixty Minutes interview was a disaster for the President. That seems to be happening more frequently in recent weeks.