Thursday, July 16, 2015

Major Garrett Administers Journalism To Obama's Abandonment Of Iran's U.S. Hostages

by JASmius



You know, there was a time, thirty-six years ago, when the Iranian Shiite jihadist fanatics holding multiple Americans hostage was a big deal.  Back then it was even called a "crisis".  It held the nation spellbound for four hundred forty four days.  And it destroyed a hapless Democrat president whose foreign policy had put said hostages in their captivity, but who was at least man enough to eventually admit his criminal foreign policy negligence.

That was then.  Today another hapless Democrat president's foreign policy has not only kept the mullahs in power by allowing the 2009 "Green Revolution" to be mercilessly crushed with nary a peep of White House protest or support, but has now welcomed the Iranian Shiite jihadist fanatics into the "nuclear weapons club," as Barack Hussein Obama did yesterday in one of the most flagrantly dishonest pressers on record, all with nary a peep about the U.S. hostages - including a by-now well-known Christian pastor - languishing and dying in Iranian captivity.

Until Major Garrett stood up and gave O the tiniest glimpse of what it's like to be a Republican president facing a hostile press corps:

During a Wednesday press conference about the Iran nuclear deal, Barack Obama was angered by a question from CBS reporter Major Garrett about the American prisoners held in Iran.

“Thank you, Mr. President. As you well know, there are four Americans in Iran, three held on trumped-up charges according to your administration and one whereabouts unknown. Can you tell the country, sir, why you are content with all the fanfare around this deal to leave the conscience of this nation, the strength of this nation unaccounted for in relation to these four Americans?” Garrett asked.

Iran currently holds four American prisoners: former Marine Amir Hekmati, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, and former FBI agent Robert Levinson.

That is a perfectly reasonable question to ask, especially given the traitorous lopsidedness of the "deal," and the rank deceptions with which it was foisted on the American people.  And it really hits Captain Compassion where he lives by citing not statistics and arguing the likelihood approaching certainty of the "deal" leading to nuclear war in the Middle East, but personalizing his sellout to the mullahs in terms all Americans can understand: He was so eager to give our enemies the means with which to wipe us out that he completely abandoned Americans who were counting on him to rescue them.

No wonder The One got so visibly pissed:

Obama seemed to take offense to Garrett’s question that he celebrated and was content while four American citizens languish in Iranian custody.

“I’ve got to give you credit for how you craft those questions,” Obama said, pausing at one point to glare at Garrett before continuing. “The notion that I’m content as I celebrate with American citizens languishing in Iranian jails, Major, that’s—that’s nonsense, and you should know better.”



This is being called a "rebuke," and Mr. Garrett's "journalistic" colleagues are bashing him for his effrontery in what will once again become "speaking the truth to power" if a Republican ever regains the presidency.  And some were less subtle, and more predictable, than others.  But you'll notice that behind that trademark haughty peevishness, Obama....didn't answer Garrett's question.  Because he couldn't.  To do so honestly would be to admit that Garrett nailed him to the wall with no possibility of escape.  It begs the followup question: "Forgive me, Mr. President, but how is it 'nonsense'?  The status of Amir Hekmati. Saeed Abedini, Jason Rezaian, and Robert Levinson could easily have been included in the negotiations, their release made a condition of any agreement.  Yet you left them completely out of the process.  You might not be 'celebrating' their continued captivity, but it seems clear that their fate mattered less to you than clinching a 'deal' that most Americans believe is of dubious worth at best.  So I ask again: What are you doing to secure these four men's release, and how will that be accomplished now that we have even less leverage with Tehran than we did before?"

You'll also notice that Major Garrett is not the slightest bit repentant today:

“Clearly it struck a nerve,” Garrett told CBS anchor Contessa Brewer. “That was my intention. Because everyone who works for the president, and the families of those four Americans, have heard the president say he’s not content and they will work overtime to win their eventual release.”

Which is clearly yet another Obama whopper.

“Was it provocative? Yes. Was it intended to be as such? Absolutely,” Garrett said on the network’s live-streaming website, adding he wanted to get Obama to share “a full range of his interpretation of the whys and why-nots” of not including the Americans’ release in the deal announced Tuesday.

Which he refused to do, hiding behind his accustomed royal demeanor.

“I believe that was achieved. Sometimes you have to take a president’s scolding, if that’s the best way to characterize it, in order to get to an answer like that, that’s part of my job. My skin’s plenty tough enough, and I look forward to the next press conference,” Garrett added.



You can take Major Garrett out of Fox News, but you can't take Fox News out of Major Garrett.

In the mean time, the hostages' loved ones are left to stew in Barack Obama's vicious betrayal:

Barack Obama should have secured the release of jailed U.S. citizens before sealing a nuclear deal with Iran, and the accord should not win congressional approval until their freedom is guaranteed, the wife of a detained Iranian-American pastor said on Wednesday. Saeed Abedini, thirty-five, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced by an Iranian court in 2013 to eight years in prison for allegedly compromising Iran's national security by setting up home-based Christian churches in his native country.

His wife, Naghmeh Abedini of Boise, Idaho, said her husband has faced threats to his life from Islamic militants held in the same prison west of Tehran and that his physical and psychological health has deteriorated from a lack of medical care and from stays in solitary confinement.

Abedini is one of [four] Americans known to be currently detained in Iran.

His spouse said their release should have been assured before Obama even agreed to the talks that produced a deal on Tuesday aimed at restricting Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Bah.  What do you matter, Mrs. Abedini?  You and your family are evangelical Christians, which makes you traitors and enemies of the state here as well as to the Islamic Empire of Iran.  Did you really think that Barack Hussein Obama was ever going to lift a finger on your husband's behalf?  As far as O's concerned, he's getting what he deserves.

And he was never going to be allowed to get in the way of his infernal majesty's Neville Chamberlain Moment:

Obama....insisted that including their fate in the talks would only have undermined the U.S. bargaining position. [emphasis added]

i.e. The PR optics would have made the final unconditional capitulation more difficult to carry out.

"If the question is why we did not tie the negotiations to their release, think about the logic that that creates," he said. "Suddenly Iran realizes ... maybe we can get additional concessions out of the Americans by holding these individuals." [emphasis added]

Says the man who conceded every damned last issue and point anyway.

I don't doubt that Obama knows why he is so hated and loathed on the Right, seeing as how that's the reaction he goes for and in which he revels like Khan Noonian Singh after Admiral Kirk bellowed, "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!"



But in case he ever did wonder, contemptuous, intelligence-insulting outrages like this are a prime example.

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