Congressman King Schools Soledad O'Brien on Obama's 'Apology Tour'

NewsBusters.org ^ | September 17, 2012 | Noel Sheppard

[Kaslin]

CNN's Soledad O'Brien on Monday felt the need to defend Barack Obama from criticism that his policies are at least partially responsible for the recent anti-American hostilities transpiring in the Middle East and other parts of the globe.

During a heated debate with Congressman Peter King (R-N.Y.) on Starting Point, O'Brien got a much-needed education on the President's "apology tour" (video follows with CNN transcript and commentary):

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, HOST: Let me play a little bit of what you said on Friday. You talked about the president going on an apology tour. I want to play a little chunk of that.

REP. PETER KING (R-NEW YORK): Right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: President Obama's policies in summer of 2009, he took his apology, I believe have not helped the United States. They have weakened our position in the Middle East. They have provided -- sent a very mixed message, a confusing message. Combine that with the way he treats Netanyahu and Israel, and the pulling troops out of Iraq without getting status of forces agreement, the apologies.

You put it all together and I think what we saw this week is in many ways a logical result of all that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about that last line. What we saw this week is in many ways a logical result of all that. Are you saying that the president is responsible and his policies responsible for the death of American ambassador to Libya?

KING: I'm saying the president's policies have sent a confused message. For instance, take Egypt. Here is a country getting $1.6 billion in aid, annual aid, from the United States. You have President Morsi for the first day, the entire day of our embassy being under attack, did virtually nothing to protect us and was actually putting out statements in Arabic where he was sympathizing with the demonstrators and those attacking the American embassy.

What it's done is it's created a climate, it's created an attitude in the Middle East where our allies don't trust us, where those who are undecided are starting to hedge their bets and turn against us. For instance in Iraq, the president talks about how he pulled out troops out of Iraq. The fact is he was given a glide path in Iraq. He pulled the truth out without get establish of forces agreement, leaving any troops behind. Now Iran is emerging as a major power in that region where if we had our troops there that would not happen.

O'BRIEN: But you've been talking about an apology tour. As you know that matches the framing of other people.

Donald Rumsfeld says he's made a practice of trying to apologize for America, he's talking about the president.

Mitt Romney has said I will not and never apologize for America. I don't apologize for America.

Tim Pawlenty back in February was saying, Mr. President, stop apologizing.

Where do you see an apology? You called it an apology tour. You said the apologies. What apologies are you specifically talking about?

KING: I would say when he was in Cairo in 2009, when he was basically apologizing for American policies, saying American policies sometimes have gone too far --

O'BRIEN: Never once in that speech, as you know, which I have the speech right here. That was -- he never once used the word apology. He never once said I'm sorry.

KING: Didn't have to. The logical -- any logical reading of that speech or the speech he gave in France where he basically said that the United States can be too aggressive --

O'BRIEN: That was on April 3rd in 2009. Right. But that's not apology. People --

KING: It is. I do consider it -- we're apologizing for -- we have nothing to apologize to the Muslim world at all. We have not sacrificed our ideals.

He was overseas criticizing American officials and the CIA and others when he says that we lost our ideals. These are the people who kept us safe for eight, nine years against Islamic terrorists.

O'BRIEN: Everybody keeps talking about this apology tour and apologies from the president.

KING: It is.

O'BRIEN: I'm trying to find the words I'm sorry, I apologize in any of those speeches. Which I have the text of all those speeches in front of me. None of those speeches at all, if you go to factcheck.org which we check in a lot, they all say the same thing. They fact check this.

KING: I don't care what fact check says.

O'BRIEN: There are fact checks. You may not care, but they're a fact checker. I'm reading the speeches.

KING: No. Soledad, what I'm saying is any common sense interpretation of those speeches, the president's apologizing for the American position. That's the apology tour.

That's the way it's interpreted in the Middle East. If I go over and say that the U.S. has violated its principles, that the United States has not shown respect for Islam, that's an apology. How else can it be interpreted?

O'BRIEN: I think plenty of people are interpreting it as a nuanced approach to diplomacy is how some people are interpreting it. So I don't think that everybody agrees it's apology.

KING: I don't interpret it that way.

O'BRIEN: Clearly.

KING: More importantly, our enemies don't interpret it that way.

O'BRIEN: I don't know that that's necessarily the case. I think that's what we're trying to figure out.

KING: I think it is. That's where we have an honest difference of opinion.

[Kaslin]

The rest and the video is in the link

[Mr. K]

She has really developed and finely honed that smirk to a point where she could go on MSNBC next to Queen Smirky McSmirk herslef -Rachel Maddow

[ClearCase_guy]

You cannot have a discussion with someone like Soledad. A normal discussion holds the posibility (I would say: the hope) that you might educate me, and with a bit of luck, the possibility that I might educate you. We discuss. We both learn. In the end, we are both better off. Discussion is a great thing.

Soledad does not discuss.

Soledad conducts an interview according to this guideline: "Shut up, Sir, and let me defend Obama."

What's the point of talking to someone like that?

[EGPWS]

O'brien:

"And STOP staring at my forehead!!!

[jimmyo57]

” nuanced approach to diplomacy is how some people are interpreting it”

Don’t just just love Obama’s nuanced approach to diplomacy?

[kevkrom]

"a nuanced approach to diplomacy is how some people are interpreting it."

King should have cut her off right there and demanded names.

[Venturer]

Soledad inherited her good looks from her father and her brain from her mother.

[rollo tomasi]

This chick needs to pick up a dictionary. This diplomatic "nuance" the chick speaks of is automatically relegated as an apology by admitting nefarious past transgression occurred in Obummer's opinion.

apol·o·gy noun \ə-ˈpä-lə-jē\ plural apol·o·gies Definition of APOLOGY 1 a : a formal justification : defense b : excuse 2a 2 : an admission of error or discourtesy accompanied by an expression of regret 3 : a poor substitute : makeshift

[Sans-Culotte]

Soledad showed the pittbull-like tenacity of a Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in that interview.

[ripley]

She’s so brilliant, so much brighter than those
Christian morons out there, like Mr. King, who only know simplistic remedies as opposed to the brilliant, really-really smart, highly intellectual, nuanced, superior thinking processes of Progressives.

/sarcasm/

[halfright]

Got’em on the end of each boob, too but this is a family board so no pics. I dont wanna get booted.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

What an ignorant tw@*.

A 'nuanced approach to diplomacy'? Gimme a break.

Soledad, If I were to say to you I want to decapitate you and then dismember you because you disrespected my religion, would you not make the assumption that I hate you? Or would you simply consider that a nuanced approach to stocking my freezer for the Winter?

[radpolis]

I’m sorry, but even though Barack Obama didn’t say “I’m sorry” directly he did in diplomaticspeak, which is a more nuanced language, so it was an apology tour.

Obama did call the US arrogant, that is indisputable.

Obama has bashed the United States and Americans abroad, that is indisputable.

Obama told Putin he would disarm us, that is indisputable.

Obama did bow himself before Muslim and Chinese tyrants, that is indisputable.

[rdb3]

Prison, I mean Soledad, O'Brien!

What a tool.

The pain you feel today is the strength you'll have tomorrow.

[oldbrowser]

” nuanced approach to diplomacy is how some people are interpreting it”

Nuanced means a subtle or slight difference. So we can say that he went on a "nuanced apology" tour because he never exactly said, "I apologize" or "I'm Sorry".

[GOPJ]

Too bad King didn’t have the picture of Obama bowing to the Sauds... sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

[masadaman]

King should have asked O'Brien if burkhas and a clitorectomy are nuanced?

[mike_9958]

King could have simply asked if O’Brien if she knows Arabic or any middle eastern language, and then asked her if that although the speech did not say “I apologize” in English what did it say to the people who were listening to it ?

Do fact checkers take the cultural differences into account ?

We need to get smarter when talking with these people - I like King.

[VRWCarea51]

So if Soledad was caught on video taking money and having sex with people in a biker bar restroom would she have to be called a whore to be one?

[Wurlitzer]

She is simply defending the man who forces all of us to pay for her birth control.