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President Barack Obama's 15-minute TV network speech Sunday night disappointed many of his previous followers, including at least one top Pentagon General and also sharpened his critics' pencils even more as they laughed at his vapid attempts to convince the public it was safe from new terrorist attacks in the United States.There already have been at least a dozen in the past three years but the President chose not to mention those incidents. Instead, he launched into the same-old, same-old so-called policy statements he has already provided to bored listeners.
In his Sunday night speech, Obama had hoped to convince the public it is safe--safe from a small group of radical Islamic Muslims who have been terrorizing the world in the past four years and in no way represent the three million law-abiding Muslims now residing and working in the U.S.
I don't know about you but I didn't feel safe after the President's speech. I didn't feel as if there would never be another horrendous massacre of 14 innocent persons and 17 critically injured persons in San Bernardino, CA as there was last week.
I think there might be. I didn't feel safe at all.
Obama critics are saying the California murders were the worst on American soil since the Manhattan, NY Twin Towers airplane attack by 15 Saudi Arabian-born killers in September 2011.
Obama presented his Sunday night speech in the same dull, lifeless tones as his dozens of other speeches have been presented over the last seven years. The President showed no animation in his presentation; no rage; no disgust; no feeling. Just a sterile robotic-like attitude.
I also didn't care for the "objective" comments after the speech from CBS News commentator Scott Pelley and CBS News Reporter Major Garrett. They didn't offer one line of criticism on the context of the President's speech. Their so-called straight-forward "analysis" was as boring and as educational as the President's 15-minute oration.
In his speech, Obama continued delivering an erroneous impression that he and his Administration already have "contained" the Islamic State terrorists to whom he refers to as Isil. Everyone else refers to the killers as ISIS. But there is at least one higher-up in the Pentagon who is not buying that line.
He is Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Asked recently by Rep. Randy Forbes, a Virginia Republican, on the ISIS situation, Dunford emphatically stated: "We have not contained ISIL currently."
Last month, Obama stated in an ABC News interview: "I don't think they (ISIS) are gaining strength. What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them."
The president spoke on how he and his Administration have formed a coalition with at least 30 other countries to make Europe safe from further terrorist attacks. He explained on how the military would perform against an attack in Europe and spelled out the assistance the U.S. would continue to provide to such a defense.
But he didn't spell out how he and his Administration were going to protect Americans from home-grown terrorists popping up regularly in the U.S. He had no strategy on that possible occurrence.
But to get an inkling of what such a strategy might contain when directed by another President, you had to listen in on an interview 12 hours earlier, that same Sunday, Dec. 6, on the Face the Nation Show, also on CBS.
CBS Moderator John Dickerson was interviewing Presidential candidate Donald Trump by phone. Unlike Pelley and Garrett, Dickerson shot pointed arrows at Trump and Trump fired back instantaneously.
If he were President today, Trump said, he would first "go after" the families of the terrorists involved in the California shootings. Trump argued the families must have known something was amiss and could have contacted authorities in time to prevent the killings.
Trump said, "I'm not playing on fears. I'm playing on common sense. We have a problem. The World Trade Center came down. And, by the way, speaking of coming down, they (15 Saudi Arabian terrorists) put their families on airplanes a couple of days before, sent them back to Saudi Arabia, for the most part.
"Those wives knew exactly what was going to happen. And those wives went home to watch their husbands knock down the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and wherever the third plane was going, except we had some very, very brave passengers, wherever that third plane was going.
"Those wives knew exactly what was happening.
DICKERSON: You mentioned the families, going after the families. What does that -- what does that mean? How would it work?
TRUMP: Well, I would go after -- well, at least I would certainly go after the wives who absolutely knew what was happening.
And I guess your definition of what I would do, I'm going to leave that to your imagination. But I will tell you I would be very tough on families, because the families know what is happening.
Even in this last instance, I see everybody knew. So many people knew. They thought that this man and this woman (the two California terrorists), whether he was radicalized or how he became, they thought something was going on. Why don't these people report it to the police? Why wouldn't they report it to the police?
"Now, they said it was profiling. They didn't want to profile. Can you believe this? They didn't want to profile, even though they thought something very bad was going on.
DICKERSON: But his sister said she didn't know what was going on. She was crestfallen for the victims here.
TRUMP: I probably don't believe the sister.
DICKERSON: You don't believe the sister.
TRUMP: No.
DICKERSON: So, you would go after her?
TRUMP: I would go after a lot of people, and I would find out whether or not they knew. I would be able to find out, because I don't believe the sister.
DICKERSON: Do you worry about creating more terrorists?
TRUMP: No. We have to stop terrorists. And the only way you're going to stop them, in my opinion, is that way.
"You know, they say they don't mind dying. I think they do mind dying. But I can tell you this. They want their families left alone. We have to stop terrorism.
DICKERSON: But this idea of tracking Muslims in America, that's the thing. Where are you on that?
TRUMP: You have people that have to be tracked. If they're Muslims, they're Muslims. But you have people that have to be tracked.
"And we better be -- I use the word vigilance. We have to show vigilance. We have to have it. And if we don't, we're foolish people.
"You know, we're really -- we're being led by people that don't know what is happening. When you have President Obama talking about global warming is our biggest problem, we have a president that is just not with it at all."
TRUMP: Look, we are having a tremendous problem with radical Islamic terrorism. And you can say it, or you don't have to say it.
"And we have a president that won't issue the term. He won't talk about it. So, we're having this tremendous radical Islamic terrorism. OK? A lot of people don't want to even say it. Not a lot of people. We have one person that I really know of, and it's called President Obama.
"Until he admits that this is a problem, we're never going to solve the problem. But he's only going to be there, fortunately, a little bit more than a year, because the problem will get solved when he gets the hell out."
You may not care for Trump's innovative approach in trying to secure the Republican Party's nomination to run for President, but you at least have to give him high marks for bringing issues out in the open and laying them on the table.
He may not have all the answers to solving those issues but he at least is showing the American public the topics the President and his Administration shy away from.
Trump continues to be ridiculed by critics in his own party and also by Democrats, that he doesn't look, act or talk like a U.S. President. Well, would you say Gerald Ford and George W. Bush acted, talked and looked Presidential when they were in the limelight only a few years ago?
So far, 36 percent of the American public has said in polls it thinks Trump would be the right person to go up against Hillary Rodham Clinton in the November 2016 Presidential Election. I do, too.
The real test, however, may come a little sooner. The Republican Party's Iowa primaries are slated for January and February. If Trump makes that hurdle, he will be tough to beat.
And that's the way it is at this moment.
