Wednesday, June 21, 2017

They Never Stopped Trying

When North Korea finally released Otto Warmbier the dying student’s father called out the Obama administration for failing to bring him home sooner. President Trump quickly joined the chorus.

Evidently, the charge struck a chord. An Obama spokesman responded yesterday:

During the course of the Obama Administration, we had no higher priority than securing the release of Americans detained overseas…. Their tireless efforts resulted in the release of at least 10 Americans from North Korean custody during the course of the Obama administration.

It is painful that Mr. Warmbier was not among them, but our efforts on his behalf never ceased, even in the waning days of the administration. Our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Warmbier’s family and all who had the blessing of knowing him.

Message: we never stopped trying.

And yet, they failed. Nowhere in the statement does Obama admit to failure. And clearly, the Obama administration failed. It told the Warmbier family not to put a very public face on the problem. Even now Obama is unwilling to admit to failure, to take responsibility for having failed the Warmbier family. One notes the weasel words: “It is painful….” Painful to whom? Anything to weasel out of stepping forward and showing some shame. Trying doesn't count. As Warmbier's father replied: it's the results that matter.

We should not be surprised. Being Obama means never saying you are sorry and never admitting that you are responsible for anything that went wrong.


6 comments:

trigger warning said...

"It is painful..." As always, they feel your pain. They do. Really.

Frankly, I suspect a YouTube video was to blame. But what difference, at this point, does it make?

Ares Olympus said...

Congratulations. For one day, we can blame Obama again!

The only apologies deserved will be private ones to the family, and outside that, it's not really our business.

If Obama trades Taliban terrorists in Guantanamo for a AWOL American, he's a failure. If he fails to get an American released from North Korea, he's a failure.

I expect the only sufficient response to failure a Republican needs from a Democrat is to commit seppuku. But it does make sense. There's so much shame being inflicted on the republican party by our current president at the moment, some of it is bound to be redirected outward for some sort of temporary relief.

It seems like for rational regret, we ought to try to differentiate between things within a person's power, and things not within a person's power. Stopping your own personal twitter-storm, that's possible. Controlling other countries, that's not possible.

Once you start trying to take responsibility for other people's thoughts, feelings and actions, you're going down a dark road that never ends well.

Sam L. said...

Never stopped trying. Why don't I believe that? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

"During the course of the Obama Administration, we had no higher priority than securing the release of Americans detained overseas…."

Not so fast. It is clear that doing cash deals with the theocratic Iranians and combating imaginary Climate Change were infinitely more important. The Obamatrons moved mountains to make these kinds of things happen, including pallets of cash on unmarked cargo planes into Tehran.

With Obama, we have to follow his choices, not his words. Obama's words are meaningless.

Maybe if Warmbier was an imprisoned environmental activist, he would've received more from Obama. After all, the environmentalists stopped the Keystone XL pipeline for years without explanation.

Ares Olympus said...

Thanks all for confirmations today. All we have here is mockery and cynicism.

Clearly there is nothing Obama or anyone in his administration could say that would satisfy any critic here. Facts are irrelevant and ignorance means assume the worse and play imaginary blame games that would never apply to a Republican president under the same situation.

Eric Trump recently said “I’ve never seen hatred like this. To me, they’re not even people.”

I wonder he meant? I presume it means if certain liberal Americans are captured by N. Korea for breaking their laws it is because they are working on their Darwin Award, and deserve whatever they get.

But it may be dangerous for conservatives to criticize since Republicans are in charge of everything now.

And we do know that the Trump administration still has hundreds of positions still unfilled after 5 months. Some of those unfilled jobs might even be necessary, and the lack of those positions may enable us to seriously question our President's commitments to his duties. Twitter is clearly more important.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/30/hundreds-of-top-government-positions-remain-unfilled/
http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/07/news/economy/trump-staffing-vacancies/index.html

Does anyone think President Trump will apologize when this obvious neglect has negative consequences? It's inconceivable of course. He was just distracted by his name being mentioned on TV too much to get his work done.

Or will he act like Peewee Herman and say "I meant to do that" after falling on his face or like Reagan and say "Government is the problem." It's all very convenient.

Anonymous said...

AO does not mock others. AO is not cynical. AO references known sexual deviants.