Ed Henry thought he was going to get a free shot at President Obama during his overseas press conference when he asked Obama to address the critics who call his foreign policy weak (Fox News). Instead he got an earful.
“As you end this trip, I don’t think I have to remind you there have been a lot of unflattering portraits of your foreign policy right now,” Henry said. “And rather than get into all the details or red lines, etcetera, I’d like to give you a chance to lay out what your vision is more than five years into office, what you think the Obama doctrine is in terms of what your guiding principle is on all of these crises, and how you answer those critics who say they think the doctrine is weakness.”
“Well, Ed, I doubt that I’m going to have time to lay out my entire foreign policy doctrine,” the President responded, adding “And there are actually some complimentary pieces as well about my foreign policy, but I’m not sure you ran them.”
[...]
“The point is that for some reason many who were proponents of what I consider to be a disastrous decision to go into Iraq haven’t really learned the lesson of the last decade, and they keep on just playing the same note over and over again,” the President said. “Why? I don’t know.”
Then he landed a barb right between Fox News' beady little eyes. Making the point that much of his foreign policy has been about building up alliances and partnerships around the world and particularly in the Asia Pacific region, he wrapped up his remarks by saying:
“And that may not always be sexy,” the President concluded. “That may not always attract a lot of attention, and it doesn’t make for good arguments on Sunday morning shows. But it avoids errors. You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while we may be able to hit a home run.
Roger Ailes must be eating nails for breakfast.
Update: The original video was blocked by ABC, and has been replaced by a Fox News report where they ran the pieces I quoted.
