What should be even less surprising are Trump's attempts to bend reality around his comments. The first official comment on the matter seemed to confirm the President's words with the explanation that "Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people". Sources within the White House also predicted that the comment would "resonate with his base" and reported that Trump was taking a "victory lap." With the controversy not dying down, he took to Twitter to declare that reports were wrong as "this was not the language used." Apparently, instead of saying "shithole" he maintains that he said "shithouse", which seems to be a distinction without a difference. When the "denial" did not work, Trump surrogates pulled the Obama card and claimed that his predecessor had referred to Libya as a "shitstorm".
While the talking point states that the press did not cover Obama's comments, articles were easily found through a Google search. Turns out that Obama was criticizing British Prime Minister David Cameron and referring to the fact "that the intervention [in Libya] 'didn't work' and had left the country a 'shitshow'", which is exactly the same criticism that Republicans lodged against Hillary Clinton. What Obama did not say was that these conditions should be a reason to refuse admission of Libyans into our country. That would not happen until Trump attempted to institute his Muslim ban.
The problem with a house of cards is that pulling one card can cause the others to fall. Within Obama's same criticism of Cameron's handling of Libya was a warning "that the 'special relationship' between Britain and America would be lost if he refused to commit the UK to spending the Nato target of 2 percent of GDP on defense." That seems to fly in the face of Trump's earlier assertions that his predecessors ignored this issue. Perhaps that is one reason why Trump's NATO speech has gone missing from the White House website. If only we could apply that 404 error to the occupant of the Oval Office.
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Carl Petersen is a parent and special education advocate, elected member of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council and was a Green Party candidate in LAUSD's District 2 School Board race. During the campaign, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action and Dr. Diane Ravitch called him a "strong supporter of public schools." His past blogs can be found at www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com.






