Uh Oh: Obama Not In Charge

While Goldfarb speculates on Obama's role in Zinni's ouster at the Standard, this quote is damning.

"The president called and congratulated me," Zinni said.

So, Obama called to thank someone Hillary had put in at State for signing on to his administration. Only the guy never signed on as someone else rejected him.

As a citizen, am I entitled to ask who the flip is running the damned country? Or is that answer above Obama's paygrade like some others?

Incredible. And not good.

Update: The article has been altered to state that it was the VP who called Zinni, not Obama.

Way to go, Joe! Unless of course Zinni is doing someone a solid by changing his story? It never hurts to have more of a friend than an enemy in a high place. ymmv

Comments

[Lala]

The kids are too busy playing around with the armored car right now.

[mark l.]

hmmm...

defense contractors=pimps.

wouldn't shock me if Zinni fell in the trap.

[prose]

That's what you need to ask. Who's in charge? Who's pulling the strings? It's definitely not Obama.

[Cindi]

heh, taking bets, who will go down as the worst president ever?

[Sissy Willis]

Cindi: Go down and take the country with him?

[The Masked Torilla]

I understand it was Biden who called him, not Obama.

[weffie]

It turns out the vice-president called, and the article was corrected. Not much better, but better.

[franglo]

Wow, I read the links for about 5 seconds before I saw the "damning" quote you posted was false. You are a lying sack of crap.

[franglo]

"Asked about that, Zinni said that he had done an assessment in Iraq for outgoing U.S. Amb. Ryan Crocker and Gen. Ray Odierno last fall, and no one had raised any issues about Dyncorp then."

Because no one cared about lobbyists in government last fall... and somehow this is a bad thing?

You all suck so hard it makes my teeth hurt.

[pablo panadero]

So lets get this straight. A nice, vain, charismatic but inexperienced man finds himself suddenly in a job "above his pay grade". Unfamiliar with making executive decisions, he needs to surround himself with smart competant people to funnel the decisions up with the proper context t make policy. But he has a history of making incrediably bad choices oon his inner circle of friends (hate-monger pastor, unrepentant terrorist mentor, convicted-felon real estate partner), which relates to poor choices for his inner cabinet (gaffe-prone veep, lying-prone secretary of state, and two tax-cheats for cabinet positions, hyper-partisan chief of staff).

Gee, this looks more like a pattern that should have been properly vetted when he was merely a candidate. How possibly could this realization have slipped through the layers and layers of fact checkers in the main-stream media?

[Patrick]

These guys are in way over their heads. Its scary. We need to start holding our elected officials accountable.

Patrick
www.conservativeteaparty.com

[Yehudit]

This reminds me of the foul-up over firing Dr Dybul the AIDS Czar. IIRC Obama told him he was in, then someone else told him he was out. Same as here. Looks like mid-level admin are making hiring decisions and informing the boss later.

[mike d]

Bravo Pablo. Palabras bien habladas.

[Ted]

The article now contains a correction to say it was the Vice President who called, not the President.

[Paul H]

This is beginning to make Clinton's hiring problems look like child's play. Is this what you get when you put a guy without a day of executive experience in the most important executive position in the world?

[Mars vs Hollywood]

Because no one cared about lobbyists in government last fall... and somehow this is a bad thing?

Correction: they still don't care about lobbyists in government. They just say they do.

Oh, and it's a bit much to call the poster a "lying sack of crap" when he just repeated an error in the original article from Foreign Policy.

You stay classy, though.