A Pathetic Piece of Flesh - Always Present, Calm, Unengaged and An Above it All Liar!

For those who read these  memos I have been having some computer glitches that I have not been able to solve so accept my apology. Maybe the gremlins have left!
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Will Netanyahu allow Obama to close Israel's window for fear of angering America and thus become a male Golda?  (See 1 below.)
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Obama does not negotiate because he does not want his hand print on anything that might have consequences.  That way he can  blame everyone else. when he was in the Senate or the Illinois Legislature he voted present.  He stays above the fray and remains cool. Always present but never responsible.

This is leadership?

What a pathetic piece of flesh parading as president. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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Dick
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1)A Lesson From the Yom Kippur War for a Perilous Time

Golda Meir didn't strike pre-emptively in 1973 because she was 'scared' of angering the White House.

By  YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI

As Israeli leaders weigh their response to the tentative dialogue between Tehran and Washington, which they regard as an Iranian ruse, the invisible presence at the cabinet table in Jerusalem will be the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

In declassified testimony just released by an Israeli national commission investigating the country's initial failures during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, Meir explained why she hadn't ordered a pre-emptive airstrike against Arab forces, though she knew by the morning of Oct. 6 that an invasion would happen within hours. She feared losing American support. "I am scared," she recalled telling her cabinet. "We will not receive necessary assistance when we have the need for it."

Meir's restraint was vindicated by an American airlift of military aid during the war. Yet her decision not to order a strike, along with the army's failure to respond to earlier intelligence warnings by drafting reservists, almost resulted in Israel's first military defeat.

As Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a coordinated attack on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, a relative handful of soldiers and tanks were all that stood between them and the Israeli home front. Despite initial failures, the Israel Defense Forces reversed the invasion and achieved a victory that is studied in military academies around the world. Still, over 2,500 Israelis were killed and thousands more wounded—the equivalent today of 230,000 American dead.

In recent weeks, Israelis have been commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, arguably the most traumatic conflict in Israel's history, with reunions of army units and media programs offering more revelations about the those terrible days in early October 1973. Once again, Israelis are debating the causes for the war's initial setbacks. And many Israelis have concluded that the war—or at least its most devastating consequences—could have been avoided.

Hawks argue that the "sin" of the war was Meir's fear of American reaction. More profoundly, they note, the lack of preparation at the front revealed a near-fatal complacency, a failure to take seriously the continuing existential threats to the Jewish state. The inevitable conclusion is that Israel must never be caught unprepared again, and must be willing to defend itself even at the risk of international isolation.

For dovish Israelis, the sins that led to the failures of the Yom Kippur War were arrogance and an excessive reliance on military power. They recall how, in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, Israeli leaders dismissed Arab fighting capability and reassured the nation that Arab armies wouldn't dare attack. That attitude led generals and politicians alike to ignore strong intelligence warnings of an imminent two-front attack.

Worse, doves conclude that the war might have been avoided had Israeli leaders responded to overtures in the months before fighting erupted from Egypt's President Anwar Sadat, who, four years after the Yom Kippur War, came to Jerusalem on a mission of peace.

For many years, the dovish interpretation of the Yom Kippur War prevailed. The fear of missing a historic opportunity for peace emboldened Israeli leaders to initiate peace talks with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1993. Now, though, as Tehran moves ever closer to a nuclear-weapons capability, the most compelling lesson of the 1973 war for Israelis may not be the arrogance of power but the opposite: Meir's hesitation to launch a pre-emptive strike against imminent threat.

For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, time is pressing. Israel's window of opportunity for striking at Iran is closing. The concern in Jerusalem is that negotiations between Washington and Tehran over the coming months will effectively end Israel's military option. The agonizing dilemma, then, may come to this: Can Israel risk entrusting its fate to President Obama?

Mr. Netanyahu, along with much of the Israeli media, endorsed Mr. Obama's agreement with Russia to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons. But profound doubts remain about the implementation of the agreement and especially about the president's handling of the crisis. Israelis are concerned about an American president whose red line fails to intimidate a besieged dictator, who then publicly wavers about reinforcing his threats, and who then entangles himself in a process of congressional approval he might have lost.

Now Israelis fear that the president may inadvertently allow Tehran to become the next North Korea, using negotiations as a cover to realize its nuclear ambitions. At the United Nations on Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu insisted that Israel wouldn't allow that to happen: "I want there to be no confusion on this point. Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone."

Like Golda Meir, the prime minister has so far pulled back from ordering an airstrike, in part because he has feared alienating the American president. But with growing questions about America's position in the Middle East, this time the Israeli government may well conclude that the danger of not pre-empting outweighs all the other dangers—including a strained relationship with the White House.

Mr. Halevi is a senior fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He is author of the book, "Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation," published this month by HarperCollins.

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2)

The Great Compromiser

President Obama and the art of political 'calm.'

A hallmark of this political era is the disconnect between how President Obama sees himself and how he behaves. A classic example occurred Wednesday when he told CNBC's John Harwood that, "I think it's fair to say that during the course of my Presidency I have bent over backwards to work with the Republican Party, and have purposely kept my rhetoric down. I think I'm pretty well known for being a calm guy. Sometimes people think I'm too calm."

How could anyone get any other idea? Well, perhaps they were in Rockville, Maryland on Thursday, when Mr. Obama told a rally that the "single-greatest threat to our economy" is "the unwillingness of Republicans in Congress to stop refighting a settled election."

He went on to taunt "the Speaker of the House, John Boehner," who he said is acting as he is only because "he doesn't want to anger the extremists in his party. That's all. That's what this whole thing is about." Well, not all. It's also about "the Republican obsession" with "denying affordable health insurance to millions of Americans. That's all this has become about. That seems to be the only thing that unites the Republican Party these days."

Aficionados of the President's "calm" may also recall his comments in 2011 aboutPaul Ryan's House budget. With Mr. Ryan in the front row by White House invitation, Mr. Obama said that "Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America" and telling Americans including "children with autism or Down's syndrome" to "fend for themselves."

More healing rhetoric came Tuesday when Mr. Obama told NPR he's open to dealing with Mr. Boehner—but only on his terms. "From the start what I have said is I am happy to talk to Republicans about any issue," before responding to host Steve Inskeep's next question that the Affordable Care Act "is not something that we're going to be discussing." Mr. Inskeep then asked Mr. Obama "What can you offer?" to Republican leaders to break the deadlock. He replied: "And, if, if we—Steve, when you say, 'What can I offer?'—I shouldn't have to offer anything."

How about calming markets? CNBC's Mr. Harwood suggested that Wall Street was "pretty calm" about this latest "Washington posturing" and asked Mr. Obama: "Is that the right way for them to look at it?"

"No," the President replied, "I think this time's different. I think they should be concerned." He said it's "not unusual for Democrats and Republicans to disagree. That's the way the Founders designed our government. Democracy's messy." But "this is not a problem of Congress per se. This is a problem with a particular faction in the Republican Party."

We could go on for pages, because for Mr. Obama this kind of rhetoric is routine. He behaves as if the realities of a divided government are beneath him, and his first resort is to question motives and mock as insincere any differences of principle. One reason the shutdown debate is so inflamed is because Mr. Obama's politics of division and obloquy is being repaid in kind.

2a)

To Lead Is to Negotiate

A veteran of shutdowns and divided government reflects on today's Washington

By Peggy Noonan

Acrimony, insults, the government shut down. Time to talk to a wise man, someone from the days when government worked. I turned to the famous Mr. Baker—James A. Baker III, U.S secretary of state (1989-92), secretary of the Treasury (1985-88) and White House chief of staff under Ronald Reagan (1981-85) and George H.W. Bush (1992-93). He spoke, by phone, from his Houston office at the law firm Baker Botts.

Looking at Washington, "I'm seeing, frankly, a sad situation." A brief shutdown won't be terrible—there had already been 17, he notes, since 1976, eight when he was at the White House or Treasury. But the longer this one lasts the more dangerous it will become.

The political problem: The president is failing to lead. His refusal to negotiate with Republicans over spending and the debt limit is "an obstinate position, it's not a leadership position." The Republicans made a mistake early on with a "maximalist" position on ObamaCare—they could not realistically achieve their aim of defunding when the Democrats hold the White House and Senate. But the president's position is a "pretty damn maximalist position itself, and people will say that."

Presidents, he notes, always negotiate in order to get an increase in the debt limit—it's their job. "It's a failure of leadership to say, 'I'm just gonna sit here while the government remains closed,' or, with respect to the debt limit, 'I'll sit here and not negotiate and the catastrophic consequences I warned you of will just have to happen.' . . . He has the burden of moving forward. He's the leader of the country. He has to get the debt limit raised to avoid default."

Yet the GOP too bears responsibility for the impasse. "I don't think it was a very wise strategy for we Republicans to say we would not fund the government unless we defunded ObamaCare. I don't think that's a smart political strategy, and I think we'll pay a price for it. . . . If you're gonna make your stand, make your stand on something you can accomplish." When he worked for Reagan, he'd come back from a negotiation saying, "I think we can get this," and it was never all the president wanted. "Reagan would say, 'I'd rather get 80% of what I want than go over the cliff with my flag flying.'"

Mr. Baker says two GOP-backed changes to ObamaCare hold promise. "House Republicans are not wrong when they say we ought to eliminate the special privileges that members of Congress and their staffs have. . . . That would be tremendously popular in the country." The public also would support, and Democrats would likely back, eliminating the ObamaCare tax on medical devices.

He returns to the leadership problem: "When a president doesn't control both sides of Congress he has to deal with the other party. Ronald Reagan did it almost every day with Tip O'Neill." Nonnegotiation is bad politics. "Suppose we get past this budget debate and Oct. 17 get into a fight on the debt limit. I'm not certain the American people would not penalize the administration."

What should President Obama do? Own it. Lead. "Leading would be to call [Speaker John] Boehner in: 'All right, this is a sorry situation for our country. Come on here and let's talk about resolving it.'" In this negotiation they should first explore an agreement on getting rid of the special provisions for Congress. Second, they could move to come to agreement on eliminating the medical device tax.

"Resolve this thing by getting into a room and making the government work. The leader of our government should be willing to get into a room and sit down with the opposition."

Why doesn't Mr. Obama do this? Baker spoke of "obstinacy" and political calculation. "This White House thinks it's got a bird's nest on the ground because we Republicans overreached when we said defund ObamaCare." The president thinks this works for him. "He could turn out to be right, and he could turn out to be wrong." Democrats "think this is a great political strategy. I'm not sure it is if it continues too long, particularly if it segues into the debt limit and he doesn't negotiate." The White House meeting of the president and congressional leaders Wednesday night does not qualify as a negotiation. "They didn't do anything but parrot their respective positions."

Ronald Reagan faced a fiercely Democratic house throughout both terms of his presidency. "Those days were bitter, but we got into a room and we thrashed it out. The 'Gang of Five,' the 'Gang of 17'—we worked it out, each side gave a little, and we got the government working. Reagan—as you know, he had the reputation of being a conservative ideologue. But he wasn't, he was pragmatic." He worked with the other side and "won them over." How? "Horse trading, compromise and negotiation made the government work." Bill Clinton too "was willing to negotiate when he had a body controlled by the opposite party."

When people speak of Reagan and O'Neill, I said, it always comes across as covered over by nostalgia, as if the two were magical. "Hell no, I'm talking about practicality. Reagan, believe it or not—one reason he was so successful was he was pragmatic. He did what he needed to do to get things done."

Could Reagan have controlled today's GOP? "I think yes, he could have. You bet. Yeah, he would have." How? Baker's answer seemed to be: Through a personal application of peace through strength. "Somebody asked me about the tea party, 'Ya think Reagan would have [been at odds with] them or been in sync with them?' I think, Reagan would have probably led the charge! But remember how it was when he first came in. He understood that we judge our presidents . .  on the basis of what elements of their programs they get accomplished legislatively, how they make the government run, how they lead."

A sound strategy for the Republicans going forward would involve a shift in public perception. People will see the issue one way when they believe House Republicans are unwilling to pass a budget because of ObamaCare. When people see the issue as the president refusing to negotiate with House Republicans on the issue of the debt limit, things will change. The president's refusal to negotiate "could change the political calculus, the more so the longer it goes. . . . My political antennae tell me when the debate becomes the failure of our leader to negotiate . . . the mood of the country could flip." That would look like a true "abdication of leadership."

Does he worry about how all this is making America look in the world? "Yeah, sure, of course. It makes us look like we don't have our act together. And I guess you could say we don't."

He notes that Mr. Obama used to speak of how he admired Reagan. But Reagan tackled big problems—fundamental tax reform, fixing Social Security. "Why doesn't he do what Reagan did?"

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