The Mendacity Behind Obama's Mockery of the Cash-for-Iran Story
By
Claudia Rosett
August 5, 2016
"It is not at all clear to me why it is that cash, as opposed to a check or wire transfer, has made this into a news story."
-- President Barack Obama, Pentagon Press Conference, August 4, 2016
Thus did President Obama scold those who are now asking why his administration secretly airlifted $400 million worth of cash to Iran this past January, just as Iran was releasing four American prisoners. By Obama's account, there's nothing to see here. Not only did Obama deny, despite the striking coincidence of timing, that the payment was a ransom. He also mocked anyone who might see the story of the cash itself as troubling news, or newsworthy at all. Obama dismissed such reactions as "the manufacturing of outrage in a story that we disclosed in January."
Welcome, once again, to the vertigo of the Obama "narrative," in which the priority of his "most transparent" administration is not to deal honestly with the American public, but to spin a web of half truths, enmeshed in complexities, to cover up highly questionable uses of power -- and then, if caught red-handed, use the bully pulpit to deride and dismiss the critics.
In this case, the thrust of Obama's remarks was to write off the story of the cash shipment to Iran as a bit of out-dated trivia, the sort of thing no serious person would care about. At his Pentagon press conference on Thursday, he went on to speculate that maybe the tale is generating interest simply because it is colorful to picture pallets of cash: "Maybe because it feels like some spy novel or some crime novel."
Yes, it does. But there are reasons that spy and crime novels -- plus a fair number of felony cases in U.S. courts --
-go to links-
-- President Barack Obama, Pentagon Press Conference, August 4, 2016
Thus did President Obama scold those who are now asking why his administration secretly airlifted $400 million worth of cash to Iran this past January, just as Iran was releasing four American prisoners. By Obama's account, there's nothing to see here. Not only did Obama deny, despite the striking coincidence of timing, that the payment was a ransom. He also mocked anyone who might see the story of the cash itself as troubling news, or newsworthy at all. Obama dismissed such reactions as "the manufacturing of outrage in a story that we disclosed in January."
Welcome, once again, to the vertigo of the Obama "narrative," in which the priority of his "most transparent" administration is not to deal honestly with the American public, but to spin a web of half truths, enmeshed in complexities, to cover up highly questionable uses of power -- and then, if caught red-handed, use the bully pulpit to deride and dismiss the critics.
In this case, the thrust of Obama's remarks was to write off the story of the cash shipment to Iran as a bit of out-dated trivia, the sort of thing no serious person would care about. At his Pentagon press conference on Thursday, he went on to speculate that maybe the tale is generating interest simply because it is colorful to picture pallets of cash: "Maybe because it feels like some spy novel or some crime novel."
Yes, it does. But there are reasons that spy and crime novels -- plus a fair number of felony cases in U.S. courts --
-go to links-
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