It was in the scroll at the bottom of the screen on Fox News' "The Kelly File" after President Obama's speech last night on ISIS. It said "In Major Reversal, President Obama Orders Military Campaign vs. ISIS."
I had to shake my head. "Major reversal"? Do they not remember that President Obama began airstrikes against ISIS on August 13, 2014 (almost a month ago) as well as gave humanitarian aid to the Yazidis who were forced up on a mountain when they were under siege by ISIS forces?
That campaign could be considered a success as many lives were saved. The strikes also helped the Kurds and other Iraqi forces regain the Mosul dam that had been lost to ISIS on August 18.
Does Fox News have amnesia? This is not the first example of them being out of touch with reality. They misled Mitt Romney (2012 GOP presidential candidate) into thinking President Obama waited two weeks before calling Benghazi an act of terror when he actually stated it in the Rose Garden the day after the Libyan attack.
It's deja vu all over again. Did Fox not hear the speech that the president gave on August 20 after the beheading of American journalist James Foley? I will refresh their memory. President Obama said:
We will be vigilant and ...relentless. When people harm Americans anywhere, we do what is necessary to see that justice is done....There has to be a common effort to extract this cancer so that it does not spread...There has to be a clear rejection of this kind of nihilistic ideology...We will do everything that we can to protect our people and the values that we stand for.
Strong enough words for you? All Fox News reported was that the president, who was on vacation, went to play golf after his speech. Obama acknowledged later that the optics of that did look bad, but in my mind it does not take away from what he was saying and his intent to protect Americans. (And who can forget George W. Bush giving a terrorist speech at the golf course and then saying "now watch this drive"?)
After the second beheading of an American journalist, Steven Sotloff, on September 3, President Obama said in no uncertain terms: "Our objective is the destroy ISIS." So what is the major reversal?
Some Fox pundits seemed surprised at the president's assertions that "This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America you will find no safe haven."
Maybe it doesn't fit in well with the myth they have been creating about our president being weak when it comes to foreign policy. Once again they have collective amnesia: Osama bin Laden taken out in Pakistan in 2011, ring a bell?
Not getting as much attention are the deaths due to drones of al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in 2011 and more recently al-Shabaab terrorist leader Ahmed Abdi Godane on September 5, 2014 in Somalia.
So that statement "we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country wherever they are...in Syria as well as Iraq" should not be such a shock.
So the question now is will the president's opposing party in congress (represented in the media by Fox News) join forces with the Commander in Chief to try to eradicate this "cancer" called ISIS? Or will they continue their rhetorical war on our president for their own personal gain?
I remember hearing Dick Morris (formerly of Fox News) comment recently on the radio that when Obama decided to authorize air strikes against ISIS to help the Kurds "this will destroy Obama because his base will be opposed to it." Why is it that the first thing the right wing media does is attack our president at times when we need to come together the most? Who is the real enemy, President Obama, the GOP, or ISIS?
When are both parties going to put the country's protection and interests above their bitter partisan bickering? If not now, when?
The major reversal I would like to see is Fox News and the GOP uniting behind our Commander in Chief and nation to end an evil threat not just to America but to the entire middle east and beyond. The mid-terms be damned. Let's put politics aside. The party of national pride needs to display some patriotism right about now and the president and his party need to welcome their support. United we prevail, divided we fail.