The pictures of our smiling president enjoying himself with dictator Raul Castro–he did The Wave with Castro!–at a ball game in Havana only hours after word of the horrendous terror attacks in Brussels are disgusting.
This is the second time in four months that a European capital has been hit in a devastating terror attack. ISIS has claimed responsibility. Many of those who survived will face struggles with terrible injuries:
Marc Decramer, head of? a hospital in Leuven? where some of the airport victims were being treated, said that at least one of the bombs apparently contained glass and nails. “Most of the injured are heavily wounded; fractures, burns, and also deep lacerations,” he said.
I don't know what the protocol for a president responding to a terror attack that killed more than thirty people and wounded an as yet unknown number of people. But it isn't this. And we wonder what fueled the rise of Donald Trump!
As Michael Goodwin of the New York Post pointed out, his would be successor didn't do that much better:
Hillary Clinton’s comments yesterday reflected the trap, as she tried to talk tough without actually saying anything that would challenge current White House policies: “Today’s attacks will only strengthen our resolve to stand together as allies and defeat terrorism and radical jihadism around the world.”
She might have added, “Blah blah blah.”
As for President Obama, imagine if he were seeking re-election instead of a legacy. In that case, he would have raced home from Cuba as soon as he understood the scope of the European horror to assume the image of an engaged commander-in-chief and assure his countrymen that their government was on guard.
Instead, safe from voters for the rest of his life, he was content to mouth a few platitudes about sympathy and solidarity with Brussels, then stick to his script in Cuba as if nothing had happened. His boast that “I have come to bury the last remnant of the Cold War” seemed especially hollow, given the gory images of mangled bodies emerging from the scene.
Winning a medal or something for stating the obvious, a New York Times headline proclaims, "Brussels Attacks Raise Questions on Readiness." Well, yes.
President Obama claimed that disrupting his vacation–I mean historic visit to Communist Cuba–would be just what the terrorists want. We know better: this is a man who is not going to interrupt his pleasures come hell or high water. In Belgium, it's hell right now.