Barack Obama: Is it Treasongate? Or Seditiongate?

Via Kim at WizBang:

The Prowler at the American Spectator has all the details on how Obama, in a closed door session with Iraqi officials, tried to persuade them to not negotiate a troop draw-down agreement with the US government until after Bush left the White House.

The Obama campaign spent more than five hours on Monday attempting to figure out the best refutation of the explosive New York Post report that quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as saying that Barack Obama during his July visit to Baghdad demanded that Iraq not negotiate with the Bush Administration on the withdrawal of American troops. Instead, he asked that they delay such negotiations until after the presidential handover at the end of January.

The three problems, according to campaign sources: The report was true, there were at least three other people in the room with Obama and Zebari to confirm the conversation, and there was concern that there were enough aggressive reporters based in Baghdad with the sources to confirm the conversation that to deny the comments would create a bigger problem.

Instead, Obama's national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi told reporters that Obama told the Iraqis that they should not rush through what she termed a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of U.S. forces until after President Bush left office. In other words, the Iraqis should not negotiate an American troop withdrawal.

This is another example of a politician saying one thing in public (pull troops out of Iraq immediately) and another in private (don't draw down troops until Bush is out of office). Obama has a pattern of saying one thing in public and the opposite in private, something Governor Palin touched on in her speech at the RNC when she reminded Americans that Obama spoke out of one side of his face to voters in rural Pennsylvania just to denigrate them out of the other side of his face in private to another group in San Fransisco.

But the more important and outrageous issue at hand is that he tried to undercut negotiations between a sitting US president and a foreign government. That's simply breathtaking in its disrespect and disregard for the President of the United States. A senator running for president does not have to right to march into a meeting with officials from a foreign nation and tell them to disregard any negotiations from the sitting President of the United States. Hubris is not a strong enough word to describe what Obama tried to do.

Hubris is too mild.  Treason I believe fits.

Bob from Confederate Yankee has an opinion or two on this:

Ed Morrisey at Hot Air excoriates Obama for his "me first, country second" arrogance.

First, Senator Obama has no authority to negotiate on behalf of the executive branch, which has sole authority to conduct foreign policy. Second and most important, Obama attempted to interfere against the interests of the United States. He can ask all the questions he wants, but when Obama started pressing Iraqi officials to stop negotiations with the executive branch — in other words, break one level of diplomatic contact and freeze a military alliance in time of war — that crossed a line and clearly violated the Logan Act. It also makes clear that Obama would do anything to get elected, even harm diplomatic relations between the US and an ally.

And while many are focusing on Obama's interference in foreign policy, Taheri also noteed in his Monday article that Obama tried to use his trip to pressure the military to support his political goals.

As he has made clear on numerous occasions, the first-term Senator has consistently pledged a date-based withdrawal built according to his own timetable, not a conditions-based withdrawal determined by upon security and political considerations and competencies on the ground.

Obama pressured U.S. commanders for a "realistic withdrawal date," a date that would have been used as a transparent sop to his radical left-wing political base, and an attempt to unethically put those U.S. military commanders in a position of potentially influencing the course of the 2008 U.S. presidential elections. Commanders declined to be baited.

Barack Obama attempted to compromise the pledge of military commanders to remain apolitical, while actively undermining the foreign policy of the current administration while our soldiers are still deployed.

Barack Obama clearly values what is best for Barack Obama, but does he value anything else?

Dictionary.Com reads as follows as to treason:

1.    the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign.
2.    a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state.
3.    the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.

—Synonyms 1. Treason, sedition mean disloyalty or treachery to one's country or its government. Treason is any attempt to overthrow the government or impair the well-being of a state to which one owes allegiance; the crime of giving aid or comfort to the enemies of one's government. Sedition is any act, writing, speech, etc., directed unlawfully against state authority, the government, or constitution, or calculated to bring it into contempt or to incite others to hostility, ill will or disaffection; it does not amount to treason and therefore is not a capital offense. 2. See disloyalty.

While the press is investigating whether or not Sarah Palin had a tanning machine in her home (I kid you not), Obama's issues of character, of judgment are ignored.  It's ridiculous.

The Anchoress relates:

If the press wants to have a scintilla of credibility after this election, they will give this situation the exposure and gravity it deserves. But perhaps they don’t care about their credibility, anymore. If Obama gets in, perhaps they won’t have to. Pelosi is already talking about regulating the internet.

Pass all this on folks.  It needs to get out there.

Comments

[Mommynator]

How kind of Obama to pave the way for McCain to complete the victory in Iraq, and establish permanent bases and relations with that government!

What a guy!

/snark

[chuck aka: xtnyoda]

Simply unimaginable that Barack would dare do such a thing. Unimaginable. There are no words of grief for this action.

I noticed from the films of Barack in Iraq, that as they had the military filing by to "shake" his hand that none of them would actually look at him, they were looking straight forward...now I know why.

Much like when Bill was president the marines on HX1 would salute facing away from him, when Bush enters or exits they salute facing him. Says volumes if one knows what one is seeing.

semper fi

[tim aka The Godless Heathen]

Obama breaks the law, let there be no doubt that this is what this is, to try and prevent the troops from come home after completing their mission. A mission he wanted them to fail at and a mission he can’t bring himself to admit has been a complete success. All so he could win an election.

McCain sticks his neck out and supports the Surge, risking losing an election rather than losing a war.

When Sen. John McCain says that it’s country first, only a fool wouldn’t believe him.

If Obama says country first, (though I’m not sure he ever has), we all know, less the Kool-Aid drinkers, he’s full of shiite.

Interesting that all of the Constitutional scholars who were screaming about Pres. Bush starting an “illegal” war, that Gitmo prisoners have "rights" are no where to be heard today. I’m shocked.

[Mommynator]

If that person interferes with my son coming home and being discharged . . . he will be in for a great outcry and protest the likes of which will shock him.

Who does he think he is?

[c thomas]

why is this not being discussed in the media?

this is by far the most dangerous transgression Obama has made so far!!!!

[Florida]

Why isn't this being reported in the media?

Probably because it's a complete fabrication. Just because you saw it on the internet doesn't make it true.

[Lands’nGrooves]

Florida,

The NY Post, NBC isn't part of the media in your world?

"Complete fabrication" that Obama talked to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and asked that the US forces not be withdrawled until after President George W. Bush leaves office?

http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/main/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/68/Obama-tries-to-stall-Iraq-withdrawal.aspx

"The Obama campaign response to the allegations emanating from the Iraqi governments and US general staff is portrayed in the few media outlets actually covering the story as a flat denial. But in its response, Obama’s campaign admits he had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a “Strategic Framework Agreement” governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said. That is a confirmation of Taheri’s column, not a denial.

As Taheri explains in a second column September 17: “The Obama campaign has objected. While its statement says my article was “filled with distortions,” the rebuttal actually centers on a technical point: the differences between two Iraqi-US accords under negotiation - the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA, to set rules governing US military personnel in Iraq) and the Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA, to settle the legal basis for the US military presence in Iraq in the months and years ahead)…."

Here is how NBC reported Obama’s position on June 16, after his conversation in the US with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari: “Obama also told Zebari, he said, that Congress should be involved in any negotiations regarding a Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq. He suggested it may be better to wait until the next administration to negotiate such an agreement.”
"In other words, Obama wanted a delay on the Status of Forces Agreement, not on the Strategic Framework Agreement - as his rebuttal now claims.

The NBC report continues: “Asked by NBC’s Lee Cowan if a timetable for the Status of Forces Agreement was discussed, Obama said, ‘Well he, the foreign minister, had presented a letter requesting an extension of the UN resolution until the end of this year. So that’ s a six-month extension.’”

That Obama was aware that the two accords couldn’t be separated is clear in his June 16 words to NBC: “Obviously, we can’t have US forces operating on the ground in Iraq without some sort of agreement, either a further extension of the UN resolution or some sort of Status of Forces agreement, some strategic framework agreement. As I said before, my concern is that the Bush administration -- in a weakened state politically -- ends up trying to rush an agreement that in some ways might be binding to the next administration, whether it was my administration or Sen. McCain’s administration."

Just because you saw it on the internet doesn't make it false either. Grow up.

[Florida]

Hawaii Free Press? Sorry, never heard of it. Reads like our local "Independent News."

Actually, I was almost with you until the "grow up" comment. If you want to do the schoolyard name calling thing then I invite you to go f**k yourself.