Jen assures us
The pain was palpable during this, Jen Psaki’s last State Dept. press briefing before moving over to the White House press staff. She was questioned at some length about whether the Obama administration still believes Yemen is a “counter-terrorism success story” as the President claimed only a few months before that country was taken over by Al Qaeda-linked Houthis.
It was probably more uncomfortable for the reporters covering the briefing. The overwhelming majority of which are and have been Obama abettors and no doubt were themselves squirming as poor Jen fumbled through her defense of the indefensible. The transcript of the Yemen part of the briefing is below. The full transcript can be found at the link provided.
Clearly Ms. Psaki , as demonstrated below in the official transcription of the press briefing, was both deserving and well-suited for her promotion to a greater role in White House communications. She has proven herself willing to bring the full force of her and her administration’s foreign affairs incompetence before the American people, look incredibly foolish in doing so, and still hold her head high.
But you should know that your Veritas correspondent was there after the mics were turned off and the reporters and Ms. Psaki participated in an “informal” conversation.
Following up on the Yemen discussion during the formal briefing, some reporters, given the president’s and Ms. Psaki’s determination that it has been an unqualified success, asked Jen if she could recall “successes” from history past and more recent.
Psaki was not at all reluctant to cite some, including:
– Emperor Hirohito’s challenge to President Truman, following the never before seen, unbelievably catastrophic Atomic Bomb attack on Hiroshima, “Bet you can’t do that again!”
– the German siege of Leningrad, one of the Wehrmacht’s greatest successes, according to Jen
– Obama’s own nearly $1 trillion “shovel ready” stimulus program early in his administration; challenged on her characterization, Ms. Psaki noted that while it didn’t produce many jobs, it saved the shovel manufacturing industry; unfortunately, it turned out that nobody was “ready” (but we all know who’s fault that was..’wink, wink’).
– More recent, Psaki cited Harry Reid’s recent “encounter” with his elastic exercise cord: “Sure, Harry took a few shots, but you should see the exercise cord”; She added that President Obama remarked that the former “turd weight” boxer ‘gave as good as he got, he’s a scrappy little guy…”
– and, finally, the departing State Dept, Spokesgirl noted the remarkable success so far in the Iranian nuclear negotiations. The only sticking point remaining, she hinted, was the demand by the Ayotollah Khameini that the US change its coinage to read “Inshallah”, instead of “In God We Trust”. Secretary Kerry has suggested that he doesn’t see this as an “unreasonable” demand.
On behalf of all of us here at Veritas, “So long, Jen, we’re gonna miss ya”.
Sadly, not a SNL skit
Below you can breeze through Obama Administrations spokesperson Jen Psaki’s clear exposition of how success against terrorists in Yemen is measured, having been kicked out of the country by terrorists.
QUESTION: Just following up: At the moment, are you successfully combating terror in Yemen? Because it looks by all account that al-Qaida is expanding territory under its control and operations; ISIS is now getting a foothold in the country. So what is the measure of that success right now?
MS. PSAKI: Well, Brad, I’m not in a position to kind of evaluate on the counterterrorism front publicly, but my point I’m making here is that we have means of monitoring, we have means of continuing to coordinate. We’re continuing to push back on a range of efforts. You can’t possibly know – nor can anyone – what the range of threats are. Obviously, it’s a difficult situation, it’s a volatile situation on the ground for a range of reasons.
QUESTION: What is the measure of counterterrorism success, then? Is it not to have less of a threat than before? Are you willing to say at this point Yemen is less of a terrorism threat than it was, I don’t know, a few years ago?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I don’t think that’s the question we’re posing here.
QUESTION: Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, if it’s a model of counterterrorism success, it must be something that it’s been successful at.
MS. PSAKI: Which is something the President said in September, and the fact is that we continue to have means of pushing back on al-Qaida in Yemen. We’re continuing those efforts. We typically can’t outline those efforts publicly.
QUESTION: But continuing efforts doesn’t quantify a success.
MS. PSAKI: Well —
QUESTION: I mean, a success has to do something.
MS. PSAKI: — understood, Brad.
QUESTION: What is the —
MS. PSAKI: But typically, we can’t outline our counterterrorism efforts publicly.
QUESTION: Well, you’ll understand, given that criteria, that people will look at that with a raised eyebrow at the least, given that you can’t explain why you think it’s a success.
MS. PSAKI: I don’t think I was saying that. I have explained that it’s a success and it has been a success for many years because of our efforts to push back and counter al-Qaida in Yemen. That’s something we’ve been doing for some time now. Now, there’s no question the situation on the ground has changed over the last several months as it relates to the volatility, as it relates to what our staffing is on the ground. These are all things we’ve talked about publicly. But we continue to have means of monitoring what the threats are and pushing back on those threats. We don’t give day-to-day evaluations of that.
QUESTION: Staying on the same —
QUESTION: Jen, would you – the base —
QUESTION: Staying on the same —
MS. PSAKI: On Yemen? Go ahead. Okay.
QUESTION: Yeah. The base that has fallen into Houthi hands is purported to be the launching for all the drone attacks and so on. Can you speak to whether some drones may have fallen into hands of the Houthis?
MS. PSAKI: No.
Go ahead.
QUESTION: It’s on the same lines, but Yemen has been projected as the center point from where the operations were being carried out against al-Qaida. Now where are these operations will be? Are they moved to another country? Have they moved to offshore ships? Where are those – center of those operations?
MS. PSAKI: Well, as I’ve mentioned, again, there are means of – there are many ways that we can continue to monitor and work on counterterrorism efforts and pushing – including pushing back on al-Qaida and threats posed from Yemen. It’s not the only place we do counterterrorism operations from. We do them from around the world, but I’m not going to outline that from here.
Not to worry
The baton has been passed
Related reading from Scott Johnson writing at Powerline available here: Psaki makes me psick
DLH
hehehe….funny. not really. if Obama did what the GOP supposedly want in Yemen, they would call him an Imperialist. C U election nite, neo Confedz!