Monica Crowley

About That Speech....

So in the end, President Obama gave President Bush a sort of half-hearted shout-out in his speech on Iraq tonight. It wasn't enthusiastic or graceful, and it lacked the class of a truly mature and distinguished character. It more or less amounted to: "Yo, Bush: Wassup?"

But at least he said SOMETHING about Bush. That made even more obvious what he DIDN'T say, either directly or indirectly: that the United States is engaged in these fights (Iraq, Afghanistan, the broader war on terror) for the long-haul and will not abandon the forces of good (or of "just ok"---this is the Middle East after all; everything is relative) to the forces of evil, darkness, terror, and tyranny. He also did not use this speech to lay out his vision for an American grand strategy and how he will use the American tools of power. The drawdown in Iraq: Bush's policy. The Afghan surge: his policy, with an expiration date (which he reiterated tonight). His foreign "policy" is not a coherent policy at all, but instead a confused patchwork of reactive tactics. He could have used tonight to announce a carefully-crafted vision for American power and influence in the world. He did not. Missed opportunity, indeed.

He did mention Bush---barely---and I didn't think he would, so I stand corrected. But it was what he didn't say that is the cause for deep and profound worry.

The O'Reilly Factor---TONIGHT!

Please join us for a LIVE "O'Reilly Factor" TONIGHT at 8pm ET on the Fox News Channel. I'll be the lead-off guest immediately following President Obama's address about Iraq.

Here's an irony: for a guy who loves to look back and mention his predecessor, Obama will not look back on the success of the surge, nor will he mention President Bush. He is incapable of giving Bush any credit for anything. He is incapable of being gracious and magnanimous. He is a petty and small man. If he does give Bush a meaningful and kind shout-out for pressing the surge when the war itself was unpopular and thereby turning the war around, I'll stand corrected. But I don't think I will have to print a correction here tonight.

If Obama were to acknowledge that Bush was right about the surge and about the relative success of Iraq, then that would undermine his 2008 campaign strategy, his presidential strategy so far, and his 2010 campaign strategy of blaming Bush for everything from the Icelandic volcano to "Jersey Shore."

Further: if he admitted that Bush was right about the surge, he'd be opening the door to acknowledging that Bush was right about other things. And by extention, he'd be admitting that he, Obama, was wrong about certain things.

He will not do that. He cannot do that.

The last extremely petty, small man to occupy the White House was Jimmy "My Name is Earl" Carter. And we know how that presidency ended: overwhelmed, in shamed weakness, in one term.

Words From On High

I'm on vacation watching skywriters flying over the beach with huge messages, and it hit me: wouldn't it be great to hire a skywriter to fly over the Obama's Martha's Vineyard compound with a particularly succinct message for him?

It's too bad that Obama's security detail shuts down the airspace above him, because we could have had some fun getting an enterprising skywriter to fly in with this message:

"Obama Sucks!"

Who cares that it's juvenile? It makes the point, doesn't it? We could have also considered, "Obama Lies, America Dies," or "Where's My Job, BO?" or "No, You Can't" or "Can You Hear Us Now?"

Or my other favorite: "Done Buying Shrimp Yet, You Guys?"

Of course, even if we could've gotten a skywriter to do our little flyover, there would've been no guarantee that the Bama would've seen it. He's apparently too immersed in playing golf with his buds, Scrabble with Valerie Jarrett, and stuffing his face with lobster with Michelle to notice anything else.

Yes, Obama Sucks!

The Bromance Is Over

What a difference a year and a half and a hyper-radical agenda make. In January 2009, right after the inaugural, President Obama's job approval among men stood at 64%, according to Gallup. Today, it is a barely-breathing 39%. (Women, apparently, are willing to give him a bit more of a break, although only a bit: today he stands at 46% approval among the fairer sex.)

However you slice it---by gender, income, even political party---Obama is losing his grip on the American voter. His overall job approval is in the 40% to 43% range. It took President Bush years and a war that the left-wing media pounded every day into deep unpopularity to get to this point. It took Obama 19 months.

What did it? A radical progressive agenda, staggering and stubborn unemployment, unprecedented government intervention and spending, yawning deficits, an unsustainable national debt, weakness abroad, and a personal and emotional remoteness that makes him further detached from the nation he leads.

If the economy improves, so will his poll numbers. But he has shown absolutely no inclination to change course, because he is a pure ideologue. And for ideologues---the ideology, the action, the transformation---trumps everything, including polls, politics, and even re-election.

Obama is not some babe in the woods who doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing.

He may have lost men and independents, and may be in the process of losing women and even more mainstream members of his own party, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care if the bromance is over, because his side of it was all a tease anyway. He seduced, and then he stopped returning your messages, emails, and texts.

And only fools would still be standing by the door with flowers, waiting for him to once again return their affection.

Gone Fishin'

I am trying to take some time off this week, although it's raining on the East Coast, which is severely limiting beach-related activities. And not just for me: the President is a few miles north of where I am, vacationing in that playground of the liberal East Coast elite, Martha's Vineyard. He cannot swim in the ocean this week, however, and not just because of the rain. The bay in front of his lavish rented estate is apparently teeming with fecal matter, making it wholly unsafe for him and his family to take a dip.

Two ironies:

1. He should have schlepped the family to the Gulf Coast instead. At least it's safe to swim in those waters.

2. A full-of-crap guy has chosen a vacation spot that is literally full-of-crap.

Speaking of full-of-crap, Bill and Hillary Clinton are vacationing this week in that other pocket of poverty: the Hamptons. They used to frolic on Martha's Vineyard until the Bamas played their "current president" trump card. So the Clintons decamped to the Hamptons, where Bubba celebrated his 64th birthday the other day with Paul McCartney, Katie Couric, and Christie Brinkely, among other celebs. Vice President Joe Biden is also cooling his heels and putting up his feet in the Hamptons.

The full-of-crap crowd finds each other.

If You've Lost Martha's Vineyard, You've Lost America

President Obama and family left today for a 10 day vacation on Martha's Vineyard. The Vineyard is a slice of summer heaven: lovely, charming, sweet. And very, very liberal. In many instances, it's even more liberal than the rest of Massachusetts, which is not easy to do.

Many card-carrying members of the Hollywood Left keep summer homes on the island, which made it a favorite vacay spot for Bill and Hillary Clinton. James Taylor would sing, the Clintons would sway, and everyone would eat lobster rolls. The island folk loved having the Clintons there. Those Clinton vacation weeks were like a Democratapalooza.

Last year's Obama visit held similar excitement, although Obama didn't circulate among regular people the way Bubba did. Bubba worked it, even on vacation. Obama stays to himself.

Maybe that's one reason why the Vineyard folk aren't looking forward to Obama's visit this year, at least not to the extent they did last year. It could also be because the unemployment picture keeps getting worse, not better, and the economy still stinks.

The Boston Globe website (www.Boston.com) quoted a Vineyard merchant, Alex McCluskey, as saying that last year, he sold 4000 "I vacationed with Obama" T-shirts.

His hot item this year?

T-shirts of former President George W. Bush that ask, "Miss Me Yet?"

Yes. Yes we do.

I'm not sure Obama's ego can take such a reversal of fortune. If the evil antichrist George W. Bush is more popular than Obama on Martha's Vineyard, you can imagine what the rest of the country thinks. Obama just might lose it over the T-shirt bellwether.

Meanwhile: welcome back, W. Welcome back.

Animal Farm, 2.0

First, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg stepped in it over the proposed Ground Zero mosque by sanctimoniously declaring his support for freedom of religion. That was a real profile in courage, since he knew very well the issue had nothing whatsoever to do with freedom of religion. No one was telling the mosque developers that they couldn't build the mosque. We were asking politely for them not to build it where jihadists incinerated nearly 3000 Americans on September 11---in the name of Islam. That point was clearly lost on the Mayor, who was lost in his own arrogance, ignorance, and foolishness.

Then, President Obama stepped in it, by first being for the mosque before he was against it, while being for it the whole time. Instead of providing clarity and calm, he muddied and inflamed the issue. Heckuva job, Barry!

Next, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stepped in it, by breaking from Obama's support of the mosque and stating that it should be built "somewhere else." This led the Far-Left to call him a coward and other epithets while sparking a major division in the Democrat party.

And last (at least for now), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stepped in it by calling for an investigation into the 70% of Americans who oppose the mosque being built at Ground Zero. "I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded," she told KCBS radio.

A few questions for Dear Speaker:

1. Whom, exactly, is calling for an investigation into mosque opponents? I haven't heard anyone seriously suggest that, except for Pelosi right there.

2. Would these dark forces driving the opposition to the mosque be the same evil forces that began the Tea Party movement, which Pelosi so hilariously referred to as "Astroturf?"

3. Note that she wants to investigate how the opposition is being funded but is apparently unconcerned with how the actual mosque is being funded.

Meet your leaders, America.

With the exception of Reid (who only made his opposition clear because he's locked in a tight race with Sharron Angle), these people are completely disconnected from the American people they lead. Nearly 70% of us want this mosque placed somewhere else out of respect for the souls who were murdered there by Islamists. And yet, our "leaders" think it's a swell idea, are passionately defending it when they rarely get passionate about anything else, and are looking to investigate us for having an opposing point of view. The opposition to the mosque isn't coming out of some dark, shadowy conspiracy. It's the majority opinion. This is so typical of the elites: they simply cannot understand middle America and how we think. The minority in the leadership is now exerting a tyranny of power and opinion over the majority.

This is Obama's America. It's Animal Farm, isn't it?

And it ends in November.

Imus In The Morning

I'll be a guest with Don Imus TOMORROW (Wednesday) morning at 8:30am ET. Please tune your radio to "Imus In The Morning," listen to it streamed live at www.WABCRadio.com , or watch it on the Fox Business Network.

Reid Goes Rogue

After decades of being a Democratic pantywaist, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid finally found his independent voice. He chimed in yesterday on the exploding (no pun intended) controversy surrounding the proposed Ground Zero mosque. Although he agreed (with everyone else) that the developers had the "right" to build the mosque there, he stated that it should be constructed "somewhere else."

Let's set aside for the moment that this issue isn't about religious freedom or a horrible shortage of Muslim places of worship in New York (there are over 100 mosques in the NYC area.) Set aside the fact that the point of this mosque is not to be a place of worship but to be a symbol of Islamic triumph and supremacy and to be a foothold for sharia in the United States.

President Obama waded into this mess a few days ago, supporting the mosque. He then did his "on the one hand, on the other hand" routine and backed away from his initial comments, ever so slightly. His first instinct was to support it. He probably should have stuck with that and go down with the ship. Instead, he muddied the waters and made a bad situation worse.

This is not presidential leadership. It's not leadership at all.

This is why you now see Democrats coming out of the woodwork to distance themselves from the mosque. A new CNN poll shows that a whopping 68% of us do not want this particular mosque built in this particular location. We'd like to preserve our sacred ground, thank you very much.

Obama showed no emotional connection to that concept, or to us. He hasn't since becoming president, which is a huge reason why he's down to a paltry 42% job approval.

Democrats smell blood in the water with Obama. They see his polls too. They know the American people have lost faith in him. They also know they can't count on him going into November.

Thus: behold Reid. He's getting blistered by the Far Left for opposing the GZ mosque. Of course he's only doing it for political reasons heading into his own tight re-election race. It's opportunism, pure and simple.

But if Obama were in a stronger position, Reid would not have freelanced. You'll see more and more Dems peeling off.

It's every man for himself now in their party, and they know it.

For the Mosque Before He Was Against It While He Was For It

Over the weekend, President Obama made it clear that he supported the proposal to build an Islamic mosque and "community center" within a stone's throw of Ground Zero. He made his remarks at a Ramadan dinner at the White House, where he was surrounded by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, whose mission it is to infiltrate, undermine, and ultimately destroy the American republic.

"As a citizen and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right...to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan," he said.

Holy Allah broke loose after those words passed his lips. How could the commander-in-chief, whose sole job it is to protect us, support the mission of these mosque-building Islamists, whose sole job it is to destroy us from within? How could he be so callous? Short-sighted? Insensitive? Ignorant?

How could he....support the enemy?

The next day, Obama changed direction, albeit ever so slightly: "I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there."

This is a Clintonian equivocation extravaganza. If we wanted more of that, we would've voted in Bill and Hillary again.

After this maddening and irresponsible back-and-forth, the White House essentially claimed that Obama stands by his remarks and that "politics" had nothing to do with what he said.

Maybe politics didn't have anything to do with it, but Islam certainly did. And does. Obama was born to a Muslim father, which under Islam automatically made him a Muslim. He says he converted to Christianity as an adult, which under Islam makes him an apostate. He grew up in Indonesia, which is the most populous Muslim nation on earth. His stepfather was also a Muslim. He was steeped in Islam thoughout his formative years, so it should come as no surprise that he has loyalties to Islam. During the 2008 campaign, he even slipped and claimed that the United States has "57" states, instead of 50. The number of Muslim states in the Organization of the Islamic Conference is 57.

It may not come as a shock that he appears loyal to Islam. The question is: can he be both loyal to Islam and loyal to the United States?