On Wednesday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “The Kelly File,” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer reacted to remarks aimed at President Barack Obama from two prominent Democrats in the last few days – former President Jimmy Carter and former Obama administration Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
Both Carter and Panetta have questioned Obama’s resolve to accomplish certain goals he had set out in speeches, especially regarding the threat of ISIS in the Middle East.
Krauthammer pointed to not just Panetta remarks as former secretary of defense, but Panetta’s predecessor Bob Gates as well, who was also critical of Obama.
“[L]ook, what’s important about that statement is what Carter mentioned about the two secretaries of defense,” Krauthammer said. “Here are two people with a certain loyalty and sympathy to the president — one a Democrat and one a Republican. In fact, the Democrat, Panetta, is an icon of the party, he’s known as a straight shooter. And they both say in their memoirs this guy is indecisive, he vacillates, he doesn’t know how to lead. And the word they haven’t used but I think we can use is that he’s been unserious.”
“He wasn’t serious in Libya,” he continued. “He wasn’t serious about the red line. He wasn’t serious about supporting the moderate opposition two years ago in Syria when it would have made a difference, as Panetta says. And he wasn’t serious when he left Iraq entirely with no residual American force which would have made a huge difference. This is on the advice of his political advisors so he can run for re-election as ‘I’m the guy who ended the war in Iraq.’ He didn’t end the war in Iraq. Petraeus ended the war in Iraq. Obama is the man who threw away the fruits of victory and a result of that — the whirlwind we are reaping right now.”
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