Here’s the full transcript, from the Washington Post; I’ll put up a video link if one becomes available.
Via John B. Judis at the New Republic, who had his own interpretation:
President Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday to the United Nations was his most significant foreign policy statement since becoming president. It showed he had clearly learned something from the recent “red line” fiasco in Syria. The speech also displayed what has always been the most attractive feature of Obama’s foreign policy, one that clearly sets him off from his predecessor—his willingness to court erstwhile enemies and adversaries, or to put it in negative terms, his not possessing what my former colleague Peter Scoblic called an “us versus them” view of the world….
MikeJ
So it’s not like the “fiasco” that got England, France, Russia, China and Syria all on the same page with us about Syria’s chemical weapons?
Rheinhard
I look forward to the spittle-flecked apoplexy that will surely issue from the mouths of neoconservatives and Fox News pundits this evening about the President’s perfidious calumny against our glorious Iraq adventure and apology tour to the Muslim untermenschen.
Personally I can’t but wonder whether a public acknowledgement in front of the world about what everybody already knew (that we helped assassinate Mossadegh) might provoke a response in some quarters akin to the reactions in S. Korea to the Japanese Emperor’s remarks a few years ago, acknowledging Japanese crimes in that country during WW2. While the Japanese press made only cursory official notice, Koreans were dancing in the streets; and more importantly, after this, the logjam in relations was broken and new business deals between the two countries started being signed right and left.
Baud
Did he swing his dick? I heard he likes to do that.
mclaren
Since Obama habitually does the opposite of what he says, this latest speech proves ominous indeed. The more conciliatory Obama’s words, the more savage his bombings and drone strikes and hellfire missile assassinations and SEAL team murders of women and children are likely to be.
Let’s just hope Obama doesn’t make a speech about his respect for children. That would mean he starts eating live babies on TV.
ira-NY
@Baud:
No, but later today he is going to co-pilot a fighter jet and land aboard an aircraft carrier just off the Syrian coast while wearing a tight jumpsuit.
Mike in NC
Funny how none of the neocon pundits and fellow travelers have ever said that they miss the cowboy/drunken frat boy diplomacy style that Dubya brought to the table.
Violet
Cute Newsmax headline over in the right column:
I’m sure newbie Senators Rubio, Aqua Buddha or Cruz are going to be more ready because Republican.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@mclaren:
If I didn’t know you had no bounds for spewing feckless bullshit, I would almost suspect the last statement was snark.
Ass.
JPL
This is OT.. Cruz spoke with Reid before his fake filibuster according to TPM… https://twitter.com/search?q=%23fakefilibuster&src=hash
Thoroughly Pizzled
@mclaren:
You’re trapped in a dungeon. There are two doors. One of them leads to unicorns, the other to death by drones. An Obama stands before each door. Hope ‘n’ Change Obama always tells the truth and Worse-than-Bush Obama always lies, but you can’t tell them apart. You can ask one question to one of the Obamas. What do you ask to make sure that you end up in the Land of Unicorns?
JPL
@Violet: It depends on the definition of cute..
kindness
Charles Pierce had a good note on it too. He quoted several of the warmongers who of course slagged Iran (and Obama). Charles has a good way of pointing out who are nuts and frankly, Iran sends them over the edge and not in a good way.
Neutron Flux
@mclaren: You are weird.
joes527
@Thoroughly Pizzled: You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Ben Franklin
{cough, cough} I think that should also have been ‘inaudible’ for the sake of transcriptionists, and any others who actually listen to what he says.
different-church-lady
@mclaren: Oh, I get it: you’ve learned sarcasm! Good for you!
different-church-lady
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): Poe’s law, now and forever.
different-church-lady
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
“WHY WON’T YOU HAND OVER BUSH TO THE HAGUE?”
Duh.
hildebrand
@Thoroughly Pizzled: I think I remember that episode of Doctor Who.
dmsilev
@Thoroughly Pizzled: “Do you support the Public Option?”
PopeRatzo
The good news is that the President already knows what the other members of the UN think of his speech, because he’s got the NSA tapping all their phones.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130924/11545124641/brazilian-president-blasts-nsa-spying-front-world-leaders-including-obama-un.shtml
hildebrand
@PopeRatzo: The NSA spies on other countries? GTFO.
Chris
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
“As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives,
Every wife had seven sacks, every sack had seven cats,
Every cat had seven kittens,
Kittens, cats, sacks, wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?”
Because why not?
dmsilev
@Chris: The answer is 42, right? It’s always 42. Or maybe pi.
MikeJ
@PopeRatzo: So you’re saying that American intelligence agencies are trying to find out what the leaders of foreign governments really think about issues and what they’re actually planning?
ETA: Or, what Hildy said @22.
rp
Obama is right — the pundits, even the good ones, care far more about appearances than results.
the Conster
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Why didn’t you try to close GTMO?
max
@Mike in NC: Funny how none of the neocon pundits and fellow travelers have ever said that they miss the cowboy/drunken frat boy diplomacy style that Dubya brought to the table.
I believe that missing that is what they are referring to when they say that Obama lacks ‘leadership’.
Here’s the full transcript, from the Washington Post; I’ll put up a video link if one becomes available.
Video, schmideo.
I understand why that line is so long, and I am not anti-DRONEZ, but what a terrible, terrible line. (‘We’re not doing that anymore … EXCEPT when tab A fits into Slot B and only in the special case where the moon is full and Jupiter is rising.’)
Quite. Please inform the residents of the Beltway Bubble.
Excellent.
Group A would be most residents of the Middle East. Group B would be Muslims who want the US to fight their wars for them and neo-cons.
They avoid addressing ‘difficult problems’ because they do not wish to address ‘difficult problems’; they want you to bomb their ‘difficult problems’ into non-existence. No enemies, no problems!
This is basically a bad idea. Sucking up to the Saudis is one of *our* problems.
Yes. And if those people don’t want to partner up and solve actual difficult problems (not ‘difficult problems’), there’s not much you can do about it. Short of bombing things.
Yay!
Yeah, I am pretty sure most everybody, including the Israelis, actually got off the bus back there at ‘no enemies, no problems!’.
Now we’re hitting on all six cylinders.
The problem we ourselves have been having is when the US tries to use ‘leadership’ to solve problems said leadership cannot solve. No other country can fill that vacuum because NO country can fill that vacuum.
Only sometimes and not nearly as often as we wrench our collective shoulders to pat ourselves on the back for.
Right.
The problem we have is not a lack of concern for mass graves, it’s a general inability to discern the difference between Doing Something and Doing Something That Makes The Situation Better. We like the first bit quite a lot, and really hate the second part, especially when it costs cold, hard cash. (After all, it might involve raising taxes on people who scream about Doing Something, and obviously those people are Too Important to pay for their fucking wars.)
Sure. Won’t pass Congress. Probably wouldn’t pass Congress with Democratic majorities in both Houses. But worth doing.
‘Political power grows from the barrel of a gun’ – Mao Zedong. And rather a lot of people, including a number of our erstwhile allies, believe that. Not going to say that though. Just going to go for living proof.
Sure, but only slowly and painfully.
max
[‘Beats the shit the shit out of any of Bush’s speeches.’]
Jay C
@dmsilev:
No, dude: the correct answer is ONE: one (the narrator) going to St. Ives: the rest of the crowd were coming from it….
Jeremy
@MikeJ: Yep ! Nothing new about spying since every country does it. The emo liberals need to get some new talking points because the “NSA spies on other countries” stuff is stupid.
different-church-lady
@Jeremy: They really have lost the thread, haven’t they?
JPL
@Jeremy: It’s the Bill Bilichick excuse but I still think he’s a great coach, so there is that.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jay C:
No, assuming (and the poem isn’t clear) that everyone the narrator meets is not going to St. Ives, then the answer is zero. The narrator is presumably not a kitten, cat, sack, or wife. Those are all that you are asked to count.
different-church-lady
@Chris: Screw St. Ives, why did they have big bunches of cats in bags?
Ben Franklin
@max:
[‘Beats the shit the shit out of any of Bush’s speeches.’]
Don’t forget Nixons’ Checkers speech. It towered over that highbar.
Mnemosyne
@PopeRatzo:
Oh noes! The US spies on other countries! Someone lead me to my fainting couch, because of course other countries would never even dream of spying on the US. And especially not our allies.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
True, but Simon Says the answer was “1.” Who am I to contradict him?
@Mnemosyne:
Ah, I’ll take a crack at that riddle. Just a guess, without clicking on your links… do either of them refer to the Mossad?
Chyron HR
@Ben Franklin:
Psst, you guys are supposed to love Nixon now and praise him for being so far to the left of Obama with his health care reform.
ruemara
@mclaren: You’re such a shit slinging capuchine, drunk on rotted fruit.
dmsilev
@Jay C: Not necessarily true. The narrator could have been overtaking the poor man laden down with seven wives, 49 sacks, 343 cats, and 2401 kittens. How fast do you think he could have been walking?
Ben Franklin
@Chyron HR:
Good point. I supported Eugene McCarthy and got the squidgy HHH for my trouble; then Nixon got elected on an anti-war platform.
What a difference 40 years makes
mclaren
@rp:
Hahahahahahaha!
Classic!
This about the president who ran in 2008 by condemning a health insurance mandate as “ridiculous” and “unworkable” (“If mandates were the way to solve these problems, we could solve homelessness by mandating that every homeless person buy a house” — Candidate Barack Obama, CNN, 2008) and then switched to supporting and signing into law a system of health insurance mandates by 2009.
This is a president who campaigned in 2008 by attacking George W. Bush’s military commission trials of alleged terrorists (actually innocent cab drivers in the wrong place at the wrong time) as a gross violation of the basic rule of law, then switched to supporting military commission trials by 2009…despite the fact that the lead JAG prosecutor of the Guantanamo military commission trials resigned in protest against the completely unfairness of what he called “kangaroo court trials.”
This is a president who campaigned against the criminalization of marijuana, then switched to ramping up federal DEA raids on legal state marijuana dispensaries to record all-time highs.
This is a president who campaigned against Dubya’s kidnapping and torture of bystanders (misnamed “extraordinary rendition”), then switched to signing the NDAA into law.
This is a president who campaigned against the Wall Street financial crime lords, then refused to order the Department of Justice to mount a prosecution of a single one of them.
[Insert vague boilerplate inspirational word salad while Obama continues to order the assassination of 17-year-old girls and the drone bombing not only of wedding parties, but of the rescue workers who try to save the screaming mutilated women and child who survive those wedding party bombings.]
I’m still waiting for Obama’s greatest and most uplifting speech.
[FADE IN ON BARACK OBAMA STANDING AT A PODIUM WITH HIS EYE UPRAISED SOULFULLY]
OBAMA: “I believe in human rights. I believe in the inalienable right of every human being, no matter who weak or how helpless, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
[OBAMA REMOVES A LUGER FROM HIS SUIT AND PLACES IT AGAINST THE HEAD OF A CHILD KNEELING IN FRONT OF A SLIT TRENCH. OBAMA PULLS THE TRIGGER. THE CHILD”S BRAINS BLOW OUT AND HE TUMBLES INTO THE SLIT TRENCH.]
OBAMA: “I believe in the greatness of the American people. I believe in our compassion and our capacity for mercy.”
{BANG! OBAMA BLOWS OUT AN OLD MAN’S BRAINS AND WALKS PAST HIM AS HE TUMBLES INTO THE SLIT TRENCH.]
OBAMA: “I believe in justice and decency, not just for the rich, but for the least powerful among us.”
[BANG! OBAMA BLOWS OUT A PREGNANT WOMAN’S BRAINS AND SAUNTERS DOWN THE LINE OF KNEELING AMERICANS AS THE WOMAN’S CORPSE FALLS INTO THE SLIT TRENCH.]
OBAMA: “I believe in the moral obligation of every human toward every other. I believe that we as a people have a responsibility, a sacred duty, towards one another.”
[Insert programmatic ritual applause by the Obots at this point with the usual murmurs of “genius! and “magnificent!” juxtaposed against the customary screams and scorched flesh of the third world women and children.]
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Obama sounded extra presidential today. Very leadery. He would make a good UN secretary.
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck: What if he met them because he passed them on the road?
dmsilev
@mclaren: You might want to find a new routine; this one’s been boring for a long time.
shelly
These twits think that running for the Presidency is as simple as joining in on a Monopoly game. Will they fight over who gets to be the Top Hat, Race Car or Shoe?
Violet
@shelly: No, they’ll fight over who gets to be banker.
Frankensteinbeck
@catclub:
In fact, this riddle is pre-automobile. When walking or riding down a road between cities, meeting others going the same way was commonplace. Everybody who merges onto your on ramp on the freeway? Back then, they had time to chat and go ‘St. Ives, huh?’
dogwood
@Mnemosyne:
Shouldn’t be a surprise that people who believe a president can get any law passed if he simply wants it bad enough are aghast at finding out that we spy on other countries.
Hal
@Violet:
Has Scarburough ever thought differently? Also, Rand Paul thinks Justice Roberts should be forced into Obamacare. Which is not an insurance plan. And Roberts already has insurance. But detail, shmetails.
Violet
@Hal: Haven’t a clue. Don’t pay any attention to Scarburough. Think it’s funny that in his fifth year as president they’re still analyzing whether he WAS ready to be President. Who the hell cares? He IS President. “Was” is over and done. Typical Republicans–looking backwards.
Jeremy
@different-church-lady: Yep.
Mnemosyne
@dogwood:
It was actually pretty interesting to read the interviews that Snowden was giving to the South China Morning Post after he defected, er, fled Obama’s jack-booted thugs. He seemed to be genuinely aghast that the US was spying on other countries — including our allies — and that seemed to be the behavior he was really interested in stopping. The US citizen stuff was kind of a sideshow as far as he was concerned.
Marc
From the OP:
This is a negative?
PopeRatzo
@Mnemosyne:
Barack Obama: Keeping America safe from Brazil.
So on the one hand, you want us to believe that this new-style enlightened president is trying to attenuate the heavy hand of the US in meddling in other countries, and that it’s so wonderful that he’s taking such a mature and honorable approach to foreign policy, and on the other hand, you’re telling us “America, you better believe we’re fucking spying on those goddamn Finnish.”
Sounds like bullshit to me, dear.
Emma
@mclaren: Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.
fuckwit
Seems a good speech. Started off with a bunch of standard US dickwaving propaganda and self-justifying bullshit, then got down to the good stuff.
I’m proud to have an administration taking multilateralism seriously and finally asking the UN to get their shit together as a peacekeeping force.
He also subtly, but clearly to my mind, points out why the UN has NOT been eager to get involved in civil wars: it’s not in their charter to do so! The UN was formed to resolve conflicts BETWEEN member nations, not WITHIN them. It’s a flaw in the UN organization, and I think he indicates strongly enough that it needs to be fixed to meet the 21st century challenges. This kind of Syria/Libya/Egypt conflict will happen again and again, and the USA doesn’t need to be the cop who deals with that.
His line about choosing to deal with this problem or accepting the consequences (“mass graves”) is by far the strongest in the speech. Hooray.
Also good that he vents about the idiotic double standard that the USA is evil because it involves itself too much in foreign affairs and is also evil because it doesn’t involve itself enough in foreign affairs. Finally, someone points out how unproductive such accusations are.
It’s also funny how he and Putin are having a little hissy fit with each other over Amercan Exceptionalism: Putin finds it a dangerous idea– probably mindful of the mass graves littering his own country and its neighbors following its relatively recent and horrific experience being attacked by a country who thought they were innately exceptional and better than anyone else–, and Obama just refuses to back down from that belief and assertion.
I’m proud when America does good, but I’m not sure I’m that keen on American Exceptionalism. Maybe if Obama did a tour of Ukraine and Poland he’d get a better sense of where a sense of national exceptionalism can lead, and why it might not be such a great idea.
Emma
@PopeRatzo: For crying out loud. Brazil is a place we need to listen to at this point. Big economy, big ties to China. Doesn’t mean Obama’s going to send in the Navy.
Every country listens in. I will bet you anything that Brazil is listening in to its neighbours.
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: Why was the NSA spying on Petrabras? That would have nothing to do with US security. Why is the NSA sharing all of it’s information with Israel? Isn’t that treason?
fuckwit
@Thoroughly Pizzled: That is so awesome I want merely to gaze at its beauty.
Ben Franklin
@fuckwit:
Truly, it is in the eye of the beholder.
Jay C
@mclaren:
And really, dude: you took time out from watching the premiere of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” to post this sh*t???
Mnemosyne
@cathyx:
You mean Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company? Gosh, I can’t imagine what keeping an eye on fossil fuels could possibly have to do with US security. It’s not like we’ve ever fought a war over access to petroleum or anything. They must have been doing it just for shits and giggles.
Here, I’ll try to explain it very slowly. If the US government decides it’s okay to share information with Israel, it’s okay to share it. If you get information and decide on your own to share it without authorization, then that’s treason.
I still don’t understand why this is a difficult concept. Have you never held a job? If your boss gave you confidential company information, were you allowed to share it with anyone you wanted without authorization from your boss, or were you supposed to keep it confidential until your boss told you it was okay to share it?
Mnemosyne
@PopeRatzo:
Oh, honey. You really think that Finland isn’t gathering intelligence in the US for the benefit of themselves and their local companies? Really? You honestly think that the US is the only country keeping tabs on everyone else and Finland would never, ever do such a thing on behalf of, say, Nokia?
You’re so sweet and naive. It’s adorbs.
cathyx
@Mnemosyne: That is total crap. You have an authoritarian mindset that I completely don’t agree with. Whatever the government decides is in our best interest is ok with me. Ugh!
Suffern ACE
Jeebus. I am not certain that letting the folks in China know that we’re spying in them is much more treasonous than letting the German people know we’re spying on them, or the Finns for that matter. are we at war with any of them? Have they threatened us recently and I missed it?
PopeRatzo
@Mnemosyne:
Look who’s all of a sudden on board with an oil-first foreign policy.
When Bush-Cheney did it, Oil Imperialism was the devil itself. Now, it’s simply pragmatic because in your eyes, the guy in teh White House can do no wrong. Funny how the worm turns, and look who’s the suddenly the worm.
cathyx
Shorter Mnemosyne: Whatever big daddy, I mean the government, does in my best interest is just okie dokie with me. As long as they keep me safe and warm. And if they think no one needs to know what they’re doing, then they must have a good reason, and I won’t question it. In fact, it’s treasonous to question what big daddy does, I mean, the government. They are good and beyond reproach.
Ben Franklin
@PopeRatzo:
She’s reely knowledgable about film, though.
PopeRatzo
@Mnemosyne: In fact, there’s good evidence that they are not. They don’t have the same reverence for military and black budgets that countries like the 2013 United States have. And there aren’t that many countries like the United States. Of course, the USSR and 20th century China didn’t need black budgets because their entire budget was black when it came to public awareness.
There are no other countries on Earth, have never been any countries on Earth, that collect the amount of data – secretly – that the United States collects on its own citizens, much less on the citizens of other countries.
And you still haven’t explained how hacking into our allies’ public and private communications systems equals the enlightened and honorable foreign policy that you claim is the great achievement of the Obama administration. We should at least cover that much before we move on to the 50-1 ratio of innocent civilians to terrorists that the Obama drones program has killed. That’s a lot of enlightenment.
xian
@Thoroughly Pizzled: thank you!
it was that or research seal team babykiller squads
Yatsuno
@PopeRatzo:
Stasi sez o hai!
different-church-lady
@Yatsuno: Oh poo — the Stasi didn’t make a secret of it.
SmallAxe
POTUS toasted with water at the UN today, minor point I know but seriously? He knows better. Where the heck is his body man with a flute of bubbly when you need him.
A Humble Lurker
@different-church-lady:
It hasn’t been a secret for over ten years, at least. That is if you’ve forgotten the Red Scare.
ruemara
@different-church-lady: Shhhh, don’t say that. Everyone knows the worst, most biggest, most spyest government ever is the United Spy States of Spying America. And let’s ignore Brazil’s crackdown on journalism and spying on its own citizens. The Us is still worstest.
Botsplainer
@Ben Franklin:
There’s a fucking surprise.