What a tasteless joke.
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The alternative would have been “A white man is taking my job”. And this picture wouldn’t have been memed.
“An immigrant is taking my job…after all she’s better looking, more qualified and not such a fucking bitch”.
Tasteless? Oh I dunno 🙂
Yup, whoever modified the original image (https://twitter.com/flotus/status/464148654354628608?lang=en) should find something better to do.
What job?
Yeah because I am sure Boko Haram will never let those people go if they see this photoshop job 😆
Yup, whoever modified the original image (https://twitter.com/flotus/status/464148654354628608?lang=en) should find something better to do.
Hows that Hopey-Changey thing going?
Tasteless? One of the funnier things (other than Guardian columnists blaming the electorate for electing someone…) I’ve seen recently.
About as well as that ‘restoring honor and dignity to the White House’ thing is going.
“Yup, whoever modified the original image (https://twitter.com/flotus/status/464148654354628608?lang=en) should find something better to do.”
See that sign she’s holding? The one that says “bring our girls back”?
That’s ALL she and her husband did on those girls’ behalf.
I can picture those terrorists now, full of bitter despair that they had been . . . tweeted!
A bit harsh, she was also part of a wave of liberal sanctimonious priggery on their behalf.
@bobby d: What would you have had them do? Invade? Impose sanctions beyond those imposed by the UN Security Council (which I assume were at least supported by the Obama administration)? Designate them as ‘super-duper terrorists’ to show that the they were even more opposed to them than when the State Department designated them as a terrorist organization ~5 months before that round of kidnappings?
Or perhaps you didn’t care what they did, because whatever it was would leave room for you to complain.
I think perhaps what rankles is the wife of the most powerful man in the world holding up a sign with a hashtag and then expecting that to be seen as something more than cheap virtue signalling. Perhaps if it had said #JeSuisCharlie (i.e. something that actually came with a political cost) I might have had more respect. But the edit is pretty damn funny 😀
@ PaulH. To my antiquated mode of thinking the Boko Harem thing would have been a perfect scenario for a special services operation. But the Obama administration was (and is) to timid to allow something like that to happen in the total secrecy necessary for success. It’s also likely that their emasculated intelligence services would have been either unable or would have been prevented from undertaking the necessary covert prep work.
As for the UN & sanctions, please! For over 60 years I’ve watched this sanctimonious, ineffectual, passive aggressive, self serving, self perpetuating cess pit issue “stern” admonitions and designations. Surely you refer to them in jest.
@Perry: I agree – hashtagging something seems to me to fall under the literal meaning of “It was the least I could do”. Weirdly it will sometimes work, but that’s rare enough in domestic politics: I don’t think it’s going to have much impact on Boko Hram
@COM: I’ll put aside the Special Forces wishful thinking, and point out that the Obama administration did a pretty good job on bin Laden’s assassination. Not the same situation, but I wouldn’t have characterized it as timid. And no, I hold no torch for UN sanctions, it’s just a measure that exists in the realm of the possible. Unless Bruce Willis is available, in which case let’s do the Special Forces thing.
Mrs Michelle Obama is a very corrupt person (see Michelle Malkin’s “The Culture of Corruption”) and a far leftist – see her Princeton thesis, unlike Mr Obama’s Colombia thesis, Michelle Obama did not think to keep her thesis a secret.
And YES – I remember Michelle Obama holding up the “bring back our girls” sign about the girls abducted (and raped) by the Islamists, gesture “social media” politics rather than real action (all about votes and P.R.).
Truly a female dog.
@PaulH: And why would you put aside the SF as wishful thinking? Sorry, that is not really acceptable. And the Bin Laden operation was in an entirely different tactical context.
” a measure that exists in the realm of the possible” – A measure? A measure of virtue signalling, nothing more.
@COM: I put SF action down as wishful thinking because the admirable folks in such units are still just human, and what they can achieve is limited. I’m not saying they couldn’t do this, but I am saying that neither of us knows whether they could. Hence it’s wishful thinking.
The assassination was certainly in an entirely different tactical context, but you said the Obama administration was too timid. What part of the bin Laden raid did you feel was too timid?
Your characterization of sanctions as nothing more than virtue signalling is wrong. They clearly can have significant impact on the ground, which is unfortunate as they are a grossly undiscriminating tool.
What I truly find an abomination is this menopausal woman pouting to the camera like a teen with a piece of paper absolutely worthless in hand. In the original picture, that is. This one is funny.
No, neither of knows or can ever know because of the timidity.
As for the Bin Laden raid the public pressure for action required a response. That it was not followed up with respect to Boko Harem is shameful. Given the subsequent arc of Obama’s history, one swallow doth not a summer make.
Revel in your faith in sanctions, regardless of their indiscrimination to your ultimate satisfaction. It is their lack of discrimination that belies their efficaciousness. Only when they are sufficiently onerous that they produce civil insurrection, or the threat thereof, can they be said to be effective. I am trying (without success) to recall an instance. Likely there have been some but it is late and scotch is taking its inevitable toll.
Yes, they are a tool, a method of applying pressure. But they need to be coupled with other methods. What other methods? Refer to the Communist Party for further direction.
@COM: What public pressure? Bin Laden had been on the run for a decade after the point when he should have been killed, but instead became “The Tora Bora Law Ignorer” (due in part to the Bush administrations timidity, ironically). Are you saying that the US public was willing to wait for a decade, but not a day longer?
Could you quote back to me where I said I had any faith in sanctions? I only claimed that they are a thing that can be done, and that they have an impact. I’ve never said that they’re a good idea, or that the effect they have is positive.
“Or perhaps you didn’t care what they did, because whatever it was would leave room for you to complain.”
She used the plight of those girls – hell, the plight of all of Nigeria, which has suffered how many thousands of deaths at BH’s hands – to get votes, to make herself sound concerned, to show us how GOOD she is.
She tweeted. And you and all of her little teenage girl fans were impressed, and said “what a good person she is!”
Spare me. There was no usefulness in what she did apart from puffing herself.
@PaulH All likely after the fact but likely checked before action.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1978/poll-osama-bin-laden-death-reaction-obama-bush-military-cia-credit-first-heard-news
http://www.gallup.com/poll/147395/Americans-Back-Bin-Laden-Mission-Credit-Military-CIA.aspx
And I agree with you on the Bush timidity.
“Could you quote back to me where I said I had any faith in sanctions?” No, of course I cannot as you did not.
“I only claimed that they are a thing that can be done, and that they have an impact. I’ve never said that they’re a good idea, or that the effect they have is positive.” – Then why not say so at the outset?
You appear to be arguing to do nothing. And I refuse to accept that doing nothing is an option unless you know what the result of that inaction will be and unless you are willing to accept that result.
@PaulH: Its after midnight here in Australia I’m going to bed. Talk amongst yourselves if you wish.
@COM: I’ve no doubt people were pleased after, and that they wanted him dead before. But that’s different from some irresistible public pressure that forced Obama’s hand.
I raised sanctions because there was a claim that Obama did nothing, but he did do something. That it was something neither of us agrees with illustrates my point: there is no good option to take (imagine the Republican outcry if dozens of SF troops had lost their lives ‘chasing after a few women in some African hell-hole’, for example). So sometimes doing nothing is the right choice, even when you know that there will be a price to pay for that inaction. As the saying goes, “Don’t just do something, sit there!”
Oh, and goodnight!
I cannot for the life of me see what the fate of those poor girls had to do with Mrs Obama, her husband or the Metropolitan of Constantinople. Nigeria is a sovereign country responsible for its own security, and whilst the situation is very sad, the only proper response would seem to be a war, perhaps without quarter should that be lawful, to eliminate the organisation and agents thereof dedicated to the destruction of all opposition.
But if you are going to offer some help, it is only proper to be clear about the limits that you have set on what you will do, e.g. say ‘On dear, how sad, never mind, but here’s a hashtag‘ would at least be an honest policy.
“I cannot for the life of me see what the fate of those poor girls had to do with Mrs Obama . . . “
The context at the time was that Obama had been, since his inauguration, denying that militant Islam was a problem. In spite of atrocities across the world for years, he consistently denied a connection.
This was one more instance when he would speak of some regional conflict and pointedly ignore the Islamic factor.
So, his wife’s tweet – the only action taken by Obama et al – was a particularly sore point. It seemed to sum up just how unimportant he saw a situation that others saw as a defining characteristic of much of the world’s conflict.
It also seemed to sum up the feeling that the Obamas saw everything in terms of how their own images could be buttressed.
I doubt that we could have done much of anything about the specific situation of the kidnapped girls short of full-fledged war. But Ms. O’s tweet just seemed like a slimey way to use their fate for her personal ego-feeding.
Paul H:”point out that the Obama administration did a pretty good job on bin Laden’s assassination. Not the same situation, but I wouldn’t have characterized it as timid.”
The Bin Laden caper was a laughable pack of lies that illustrated only what a lying tosspot Obama is. And don’t bother with all the “tinfoil hat ” crap.
All they had to do was a Che Guevara and let the world’s press take thousands of photos and forensics people do their bit also. That would have settled the matter for ever.
Buried at sea? Along with the brains of those who believe Obama’s tripe.
PaulH: to reinforce Mr Ecks’ point above, no, the Obama administration did NOT do a pretty good job on bin Laden’s assassination. They did a pisspoor job, like they have done with everything else they touched. This was an operation that cried out for secrecy, not only before and during, but after the fact. For plausible deniability, for one, but also, and more importantly, to leave the enemy in the dark about what happened and LEAD HIM TO MAKE MISTAKES. That’s why you use spooks for these actions. Nobody knows what happened and the enemy exposes himself trying to find out or because he doesn’t even know that it happened. Instead Obama got on National TV to brag about his calm under pressure in the situation room. Please! The same way he disclosed that the US had been involved with the Stuxnet virus that laid low Iran’s centrifuges. What kind of moron does that?
Joke em if they can’t take a fuck.
@Cristina wrote:
November 17, 2016 at 1:11 pm
___________________________________________
What? She’s going through menopause?
Well, that explains it then. My wife did all sorts of weird stuff when she was menopausal. She even took up knitting with a knitting group, every Friday.
Thankfully, it didn’t last too long and she’s over it and back to her old self now, back on the shooting-range every Friday, as was usual.
I agree. This modified picture is funny, isn’t it?. The other one always seemed rather banal to me,
@Hedgehog: Your approach is certainly a valid one. Another approach is to shout it from the rooftops, making clear to your enemies that, however long it takes, the US will find them and kill them. That does sacrifice an element of mystery, but the modified Black Hawk left behind was a teensy-tiny clue that it might just possibly have been a US Special Forces raid.
I’m intrigued by Obama’s disclosure of Stuxnet. My understanding is that it’s still not been officially confirmed, despite leaks to the NYT in 2009. Do you have a source for his announcement?
bobby b: “See that sign she’s holding? The one that says “bring our girls back”?
That’s ALL she and her husband did on those girls’ behalf.”
That’s because #blacklivesmatter
@Slartibartfarst
Knitting? Are you sure it was the menopause and not a transient state of psychosis or some such? A case of “weekly knitting” is a very serious disturbance comparable only to all needleworks, cupcake making, and husband nagging.
Good to know she’s back to normal 😀
@PaulH: Just google Obama Stuxnet admission. There’s any number of links. None of them are “official,” meaning that the White House spokesflunkie didn’t actually say it from the podium, but interestingly most of them date to 2012, i.e. to the run-up to the election in which the Golfer-in-Chief wanted to portray himself as tough in the face of Romney’s attack on him as weak on national security. And when a Democratic administration “leaks” something to the New York Times, i.e. to the unofficial mouthpiece and press organ of the Party, it is not in order to keep it hidden.
As far as the choice between secrecy for a mission such as the bin Laden raid and the desire to shout it from the rooftops, it’s not just about removing the element of mystery. It’s about coming across as a braggart. Real men don’t do that. Remember the “GM is alive, and Osama bin Laden is dead” slogan? Again, who does that? And the intimation that Obama was such a cool operator for having given the go-ahead to the mission and HAVING SAT IN THE SITUATION ROOM WHILE IT WENT DOWN!!! What nerves of steel! Puh-leeze.
“A case of “weekly knitting” is a very serious disturbance comparable only to all needleworks, cupcake making, and husband nagging.”
Wait, are you telling me all that isn’t a part of the official Wife Handbook? That I got a defective model? 😮
Don’t tell me your wife is affected by those maladies! Even the needleworks dexterity? 😯
All those and more. (Well, to be fair she’s pretty decent about the “nagging” part.) But in addition to all manner of needlecrafts there’s things like beading, and kumihimo or some such (a form of Japanese braiding), and stained glass, and pisanke (Hungarian egg dyeing), and . . . (the list goes on). And here I had assumed that was normal!
Oh, Laird! I’m so sorry to read that! 🙁
Funny, actually.
People with a sense of humor get it.
Muslims, Nazis, Fascists, Communists and Democrats won’t. Screw them all.
@Hedgehog: Obama’s pretty reserved announcement is clearly not the act of a braggart, because that would exhaust the language’s ability to describe a President landing on an aircraft carrier and announcing combat operations over, a decade or more before that was the case.