In his pre-Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer on Sunday, President Obama was asked the following question about Iran in light of the heightening tensions over its nuclear program and the possibility of an Israeli air strike: "(In repsonse) Do you fear that they will wage attacks within the United States on American soil?" Obama responded as follows: "We don't see any evidence that they have those intentions or capabilities right now."
Really? The President's statement directly goes against statements made recently by other government officials, up to and including Attorney General Eric Holder. Lauer, who is paid to look good while delivering the news and conducting interviews but not necessarily to deliver on substance, especially if it might disturb the American people before the Big Game, totally missed the contradiction. Fortunately, Ed Lasky at American Thinker didn't (internal links added by me):
President Obama has a very serious short-term memory problem
As Josh Gerstein writes in Politico, "Obama's statement was a curious one, since an intelligence community assessment that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper presented to Congress last week said that some Iranian leaders "are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime."
Gerstein notes only one problem behind Obama's cheery assessment. "There is one more significant issue that reveals a great deal about Obama's mindset. America just a few months ago was subject to an Iranian plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador and attack the Israeli Embassy here in America. The attack on the Saudi Ambassador was to take place in a public spot, killing Americans along side the Ambassador. Yet, Obama says "we don't see any evidence that they have those intentions or capabilities right now." Obama's own officials believe that Iran was behind this plot.
CNN reported back in November, for example (that) "U.S. agents disrupted an Iranian assassination-for-hire scheme targeting Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, U.S. officials said Tuesday. Elements of the Iranian government directed the alleged plan, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said."
... Perhaps if one lived in Barack Obama's fantasy land there are no problems with Iran.
... What exactly does he do all day? Does he read the news? Or does he just sit around all day checking off boxes on memos sent to the Oval Office?
The rest of the media has, as expected, been completely incurious. Just two examples:
- An unbylined Associated Press report only dealt with Obama's views on the upcoming game.
- At USA Today, Aamer Madhani mentioned other Iran-related questions Obama answered, but not the one about possible attacks on U.S. soil.
Matt Lauer had a chance to follow up on Obama's (take your pick) memory lapse, frighteningly uninformed naivete, or flat-out falsehood and failed, leaving Lasky's disturbing questions wide open. It's virtually unthinkable to imagine that he would have let a contradiction like Obama's slide had he been interviewing a Republican or conservative president.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
