We can absorb another 9-11 … the audio
The famous words of President Obama, from Bob Woodward’s new book “Obama’s Wars”. I know you’ve read the line before … now listen to the word’s, from O’Reilly’s show last night on Fox.
O’Reilly’s guest was Bob Woodward and later they debate what the President was trying to say and what he meant. First the audio and it’s pretty amazing in it’s lack of … emotion?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmLm7BoLhIY
Woodward did a fine job explaining what he thinks was Obama’s motivation behind the quote … and amazingly, both he an O’Reilly have no problem with it.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyU7dWJLwDw
For me, as President, I might think it, but I certainly wouldn’t announce it to the world.
18 Comments
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Good Morning Jim, I'm in agreement with you and most of your callers on this statement for our "Illustrious President" Barack Obama. I am a veteran, and I'm also a Proud Parent of a US Army Special Operations Soldier , who at the present time is Down Range in Afghanistan, defending americas freedoms, and if this president will say this about another 9/11 style attack on america, and the fact that we can absorb another hit and can afford to give up human lives again, because we are a strong country, then what does he feel then about our sons and daughters who are down range serving there country and it's freedoms we all hold dear to us here back home. I guess you would have to assume then , we can afford to give up our soldiers lives between now and July 2011, Because were leaving then anyway, and this war can't go on forever for the united states. This is outrageous for the commander in chief to make a comment like this publicly, and for someone like bill o'reilly who is such a huge supporter of our troops and the wounded warrior project , to sit there and say that he does not have a problem with this statement, I find very disturbing, and I just think this clearly shows that Bill O'Rielly is really a liberal, and that he is a supporter of Barack H. Obama, and is someone that is more affraid of his ratings taking a hit, then to stand up for what he alway's claims is Fair and balanced reporting, and be willing to say that this is an outrageous statement to be made by this commander in chief. When I hear these kinds of comments from our president, I really have deep concerns for my son and all of our sons and daughters, who serve under this mad man. He clearly demonstrates to me anyway, that he has no reguard for there service and the "Lives" Either!
Good morning Jim,
What the man child president is disspicable let alone cowardly. Of course this great country can ans would recover from another attack. That is a given and goes without saying. What the patriotic and couragious message he should have said as as the leader of the free ands democratic (not democrat) world is – If some one is fool enough to try it and happens to succed this country with all it's might and resources and at all costs will hunt you/them down to their death. I too am a veteren of the Veit Nam war, 1969-1970 I joined for two reasons. !. To do my god given duty and serve for my country, to fight for our freedom (which God knows many have died for) in it's time of need. I've seen buddies, mamed, burned to death, some killed. Even I took fire at night over my head while on perimeter guard duty. The other reason was to learn some skills I could bring back, go to work, raise a family and continue on moving this great country oneward as spelled out in all the writtings of our great fore fathers!!
P
It is 9 years since 9-11 and many of us still can't absorb it. I was 40 yrs old at the time and any time I thought about WTC I had problems with my heart.
BTW
I am still busy trying to absorb this president and consequences of his polices on my life.
The key to absorbing any large scale terrorist attack is having universal healthcare coverage for any survivors. The key to absorbing repeated small scale attacks is ignoring the religion and motivation of the attackers.
He "Spoke stupidly"
This is like a baseball manager during spring training saying "The team sucks, and we are going to finish last" That may be true, but the manager can't say it, he has to think positive, talk about the teams strengths, what they need to work on, etc etc. If a leader acts like you are going to fail, you will.
A leader with a positive outlook can make a seemingly impossible mission successful. Launching bombers off a carrier and bombing Tokyo? Suicide mission. With the right leader it was carried out successfully.
The biggest problem with the President's statement was that it will discourage the people on the front lines, they will think "we can't win" Terrorist only need to be successful one time out of a hundred, We need to be successful 100 percent of the time to prevent an attack.
Jim, as I stated on your show today, I do not believe President Obama’s statement about “absorbing another attack” and his philosophy of never letting a crisis go to waste means he would intentionally let one happen. I should have been clearer. However I do fear how he may use such a crisis to further advance his agenda. He has already proven that he is willing to use a crisis that has hurt American citizens to his ideological advantage: The Financial Crisis and Recession and The Gulf Oil Crisis. In doing so he has heaped additional hurt on citizens instead of providing relief with The Stimulus, Healthcare Bill and the drilling moratorium and other policies. This is not a Hollywood type plot fear it is just an acknowledgement of what he has already shown he is willing to do. I share your concern also that he did not follow the “absorb” statement with a strong statement of how we would avenge another attack.
After 9/11 thank God George W. Bush was president. He bolstered by his core beliefs and duty to the American people sent a strong winning response to our enemies and avoided the financial crisis that could have occurred with 9/11 coming on the heels of the 2001 recession by using free market principles (his tax cuts etc.). And for all his devotion and hard work for the country, however, he was continually and viscously attacked by the Democrats for using 9/11 for his own political advantage.
First of all, to Army Strong and your son, Thank you for your service. To al Charette, Welcome Home and thank you for your service. Thanks to Tim because you keep my blood pressure down. Excellent comments all.
jjflynn your comments were exceedingly difficult to make clear, but I agree with you that while President Obama does not wish any attacks on our country he has used crises to make his point. IE, insurance companies are bad and Wall Street is bad but we'll give them money anyways, Big banks are good but Main Street banks are bad and need regulation enough to strangle them. His response or lack thereof to The Gulf Oil Crises was undeniably making a point. Oil companies need to be punished.
Interesting how this is being spun,
The Prez is portraying us as being smart and strong-you will not bring us down!
I guess the right would prefer that he say we are cowards.
Chris, That is why the world goes around. You heard the President say we are strong. I heard that, too. However, I want the Commander-in-Chief to say what (God Help me) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said about the Mumbai-like plots, all of our allies are working together to stop the terrorist plots. That was one of the reasons for the drone attacks in Pakistan.
Or how about, We consider this one of our MOST important jobs to keep our country safe. Honestly, what good is passing Healthcare, if 3,000 citizens are killed again.
"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever… we absorbed it and we are stronger."
Hi Lynn-please notice the part of the quote in bold.
If our fearless leader was truly doing everything he could to prevent it, the gaping security hole called the unsecured southern and northern borders would be sealed or something considerably closer to it. I have yet to see that. Throw some "stimulus" money at it and put people to work building a wall. Win-win.
Again Chris, President Obama actually thinks we are stronger and you believe him. However, I don't. We are trillion of dollars in debt, beholden to the Chinese, and our country is more divided than ever, mostly because people feel Congress is not doing the job that was written for them in the Constitution. The MOST important job is to defend the US. Congress, following President Obama's agenda, show us that this is not the most important job to him. President Obama shows us his priorities daily and defense is last, thus no time for immigration laws and taking a month to decide whether he would give General McChrystal the troops he requested. His chilling remarks just prove to me, that he is frightened and not sure he knows what to do about terrorists and their attacks. Just let us absorb it.
Maybe O'Reilly is trying to get another Christmas party invite from the White House. We can absorb another attack we are a resilient country but we don't need to give the green light to "those that would do us harm" to go ahead and give it your best shot.
Obama will go down in the anals of history. (Not a typo!) I respect the office of the President of the United States. It has a really nice desk. Unfortunately, it has been unoccupied for the last 20 months.
This is an extension of foreign and domestic policy designed specifically for defeat. In BHOs world you have to break down institutions before you can remake them. His big realpolitik design is to forget the propagation of democracy completely and focus on doling out $$ to like minded countries, while standing in the center of the road with a big bulls eye painted on us. Why? Because we deserve it! He despises the military because it stands for democratic imperialism in his mind. How do you undermine those that you despise? You poison relations with the UK and Israel, while bowing – BOWING to our enemies. Oh, by the way, you don't get a wreath on Memorial Day either.
What bothered me about the president's choice of that word "absorb" and the rest of the statement, is the passivity of it. Sure we're strong, we can take the punches, like someone with their arms tied behind them. But it does lead one to wonder if in the case of such an attack, he would retaliate in any way, shape, or form. His comment is bizarre, but follows a pattern. Previously in response to a question about the border, he spoke about how Americans should learn Spanish–and now in practice has done very little to try to secure the southern border. His word choices are revealing.
He's doing damage control. He won't speak of victory, he won't scare the hell out of the enemy with his platitudes, he won't draw a hard line, and he'll never promise to send them back to the stone age! But he'll let us down softly as he prepares us for another loss of capitalist peons who can't afford a tax payer subsidized bunker with a 50 year supply of gourmet food! It must be nice to be an Obama!
First of all Obama's reply about absorbing an attack was about the resilience of the USA, the strength of our country.Let's not forget dims that 9/11 happened on George Bush's watch, so your implication of a weakened defense due to Obama's policies doesn't hold water.I wish everyone would stop spinning everything the guy says ….it's extremely irritating and really doesn't scratch the surface of the truth.