Obama Breaks Promise to Armenians
Barack Obama was unequivocal during the campaign: As president, he would recognize the nearly century-old massacre of Armenians in Turkey as genocide.
In breaking that promise Friday, the president did the same diplomatic tiptoeing he criticized the Bush administration for doing.
Like George W. Bush before him, Obama did not want to alienate vital ally Turkey by declaring the slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians to be genocide — especially with Turkey and Armenia now exploring reconciliation.
Instead, he said he had not changed his view from the campaign, even as he declined to state it, and added: “My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts.”
In a statement on the anniversary of the start of the killings in 1915 — a day when U.S. presidents typically honor the Armenian victims — Obama said: “Each year, we pause to remember the 1.5 million Armenians who were subsequently massacred or marched to their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire.”
The statement was less than the full and frank acknowledgment he promised Jan. 19, 2008, when he vowed that as president, “I will recognize the Armenian Genocide,” and repeatedly used the word.
The only president to fully recognize the first genocide of the 20th century has been Ronald Reagan.
In a proclamation on April 22, 1981, Reagan stated,
“Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it – and like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples – the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.”
Obama has become just the typical politician, playing to his own special interests and trying not to offend anyone in the name of political correctness and political expediency. But as we have begun to see, he is actually offending a greater number of people as his term rolls on.
An excerpt from that 2008 campaign statement, one of several he released on the subject:
“I also share with Armenian Americans — so many of whom are descended from genocide survivors — a principled commitment to commemorating and ending genocide. That starts with acknowledging the tragic instances of genocide in world history. As a U.S. Senator, I have stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey’s acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide.
“Two years ago, I criticized the Secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term ‘genocide’ to describe Turkey’s slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915. I shared with Secretary (Condoleezza) Rice my firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is an untenable policy.
“As a senator, I strongly support passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106 and S.Res.106), and as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.”
Typical, just another broken campaign promise that many fell hook, line, and sinker for. Just like those kids who ran for class president in high school ~ I’m still waiting for chocolate milk to replace water in the fountains…
Obama Governs the United States Through Polling Trends
This is just plain dumb! You don’t run a company, a state, a city, a town or the U.S. by polling and popularity – it will bite you in the A$$.
The problem I see with polling so often as the article actually indicates is that you will flip-flop on way too many issues and will never stand by principles. People’s minds change all the time depending on the times and whatever it is they may be going through. For example, I had a friend sign up for E-harmony, and he took that survey they require you to fill out; he took it twice. Each survey result was incredibly different because, he had a different mindset and mood each time he took the survey. Same thing goes for these polls that are conducted by Rasmussen, Zogby etc.
It’s good to know what the public is thinking but how can you ever be trusted by anyone if you never stand strong on your principles and always change your mind depending on other people’s moods. That seems pretty empty and shallow to me.
As President Barack Obama works to sell the American people on a sweeping agenda of domestic spending and policy changes, he’s relying on three men who have gone through neither Senate confirmation nor cable news spin cycles.
Data from pollsters Joel Benenson and Paul Harstad has become increasingly important to shaping the White House’s message as the crucial battle over the president’s budget intensifies.
“The pace [of polling] is picking up,” said one source familiar with the data.
In addition, David Binder, a San Francisco-based focus group expert, also has been traveling the country taking the national temperature on issues like energy and health care, others close to the White House said.
Most people I know, Democrat or otherwise, are not keen on the energy push and health care push at this point in time when there are still so many uknowns with the economy. Most Republicans are against those agenda items so you almost have to have more than 50% not fond of that idea currently… however, Obama is still pushing this as an agenda item so how can this be the true temperature of the country?
