CBS's Chip Reid reveals Catch-22 the RW is trying to trap President Obama in

[rvablue]

Chip Reid asked the President if he was "influenced at all by John McCain and Lindsey Graham calling you weak?"

All of this was prefaced by their criticisms over the weekend and with Reid's typical "gotcha" tone.

The President shot back with: "What do you think?" followed by laughter and then an explanation that he is the President and has maintained a consistent tone in his remarks regarding Iran, and explained that the state run Iran media had already tried to mislead by mistranslating his previous statments and did not want the current Iran government to be able to use the U.S as a foil. He also reiterated his criticisms of the violent crackdown made earlier in his opening remarks.

Chip Reid, pulling a major 180, then interrupted with b-b-b-b-but interjection:

"By speaking so strongly today, aren't you giving those leaders the fodder to make those allegations?"

What I see here is a strategy of damned if you don't, damned if you do.

As per usual, no matter what the President does, he's going to get harsh criticism from the right when it comes to national security or international affairs, because it's the only area where the RW feels they can gin up the "fear factor."


But President Obama took the right course/tone in regards to the election and ensuing protests in Iran. And since he beat them to it, McCain and Co. are engaged in an effort to push him to go farther, get more heated, make intrusive demands, delineate "harsh consequences".....it's so they can then flip around and criticize him for escalating the situation and "feeding the flames," so to speak.

It's not working, of course, but this is what I took away from this neck-jarring flip-flip in Reid's line of questioning.

Thoughts?

[Cha]

1. Chip Reid should be embarrASSed by

his game of "gotcha" ..especially since he was left holding his bag of empty rw rhetoric.

[CJCRANE]

2. Good catch nt

[Uncle Joe]

3. I believe the President is taking the perfect tone in regards to Iran.

Thanks for the thread, rvablue.

[Adelante]

4. You got it right

It's pretty shameless behavior even for a presstitute.

[Cha]

5. The good news is ..he

put his gotcha ass right out there on the line and lost.

[Tab]

6. Jon Stewart noted as much last night

although he didn't quite make the idiot-proof dot connection he usually does, but it was obvious anyway...

He ran clips of all sorts of RW talking heads questioning whether obama was doing "enough" about Iran

And then he ran clips of all sorts of RW talking heads wringing their hands and worrying that he might be aggressive and trying to do "too much" in Iran

I think Obama knows exactly what he's doing, and step one is to ignore these idiots, who will take a counter-position no matter where he is. He also said he's deliberately not injecting us more into their politics because he doesn't want this turned into a referendum about America and legitimizing (or just making possible) claims that Iran is a puppet or tool of America. It's better we keep to the high road and keep our hands off.

[Clio the Leo]

7. So he ASKED a question to his accuser?

I would say, "How very Christ-like" but I think I've used up all of my allotment of Messiah metaphors this week. :)

[Uzybone]

8. Yes, the press must think the president is a dumbass

Chip is not a very smart guy.


But what pains me is to see the lives of the Iranians fighting for freedom being treated as political fodder by the media. It doesn't always have to be about the United States.

[rvablue]

9. Excellent point. It's pretty pathetic....

[grantcart]

10. Every single reporter today demonstrated an amazing degree of intellectual laziness

I mean we complain about the threads in DU, but really these guys get paid big bucks for asking really stupid questions.


How many cigarettes are you smoking? and so on.



Its embarassing