McCarthy’s Criticism Of Obama’s ISIS Strategy Now Hilarious (VIDEO)
October 7, 2015Marc Belisle Politics
Republish Reprint
MCCARTHY LECTURED OBAMA ABOUT REVEALING HIS STRATEGY
On September 29, Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy admitted on Fox ‘News’ that the Benghazi Committee investigation was a taxpayer-funded Republican “strategy” to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign:
“What you’re going to see is a conservative speaker that takes a conservative Congress that puts a strategy to fight and win. And let me give you one example. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a Select Committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable [sic].”
The fallout is still spreading. He admitted it again on CNN. House Speaker John Boehner, whom McCarthy is likely to replace at the end of October, disavowed McCarthy’s statements. House Democrats have threatened to declassify information that they say the Committee arbitrarily deemed secret in order to leak it selectively. Hillary Clinton’s campaign produced an ad featuring McCarthy’s statement to Fox.
Prior to undermining his own party’s witch hunt by being childishly honest about its strategy, McCarthy had discussed strategy quite a lot. He seems to consider himself a pretty keen strategist. McCarthy has led the strategy planning to avoid a shutdown. He has demanded a strategy for confronting Iran and a strategy for combating terrorism. And he presented conservative donors with a strategy to get Obama to veto a few right wing bills to rile up Republican voters for 2016.
Yet, announcing his strategy for Hillary Clinton to the whole world wasn’t very, um, strategic. This is ironic, because, in 2014, he accused Obama of doing exactly the same thing.
One year ago, President Barack Obama was preparing to ramp up America’s air war against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. He presented Congress and the American people with a plan to attack ISIS, and laid out how he would prosecute an air war. The President explained that the campaign would be long, and potentially risky, but would involve air power and support for local allied forces, but would not include significant American forces on the ground.
Republicans, of course, had to come up with a way to criticize Obama for doing something they agreed with and had pushed for. McCarthy prides himself on being a strategic wunderkind. Though he was a brand new House Majority Leader at the time, he felt confident criticizing President Obama on his foreign policy strategy. And he went on Fox ‘News’ to criticize Obama’s strategy.
On September 11th, 2014, McCarthy told told Greta Van Susteren:
“The difficulty where I had with it, I never make a strategy and then let my enemies know what I will or will not do.”
Oh, sweet irony. McCarthy is such a good strategist, he would never do something like, make a great strategy, and then announce to the whole world what that strategy is. Oh, no.
Conservative commentator Mark Levin warned conservatives that Republicans shouldn’t elevate McCarthy to House Speaker, saying:
“Kevin McCarthy is Eric Cantor with 10 less IQ points.”
As McCarthy flails toward the Speakership, he seems determined to prove Levin right. His strategic preening and lecturing Obama about strategy is now hilarious. His absurdly shallow understanding of strategy gave the Democrats a huge advantage: the ability to turn Republicans’ biggest attacks on Hillary Clinton into a liability for them, and an asset for Hillary.
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