With the presidential contest gathering steam on the Republican side, is President Barack Obama gearing up as well for his 2012 reelection bid? According to ABC’s “This Week” panel, he is.
During the online “Green Room” segment on ABCNews.com, senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl looked at the president’s recent overseas trip and assessed whether or not it was a plus or minus for the president politically.
“I don’t know – there was some criticism over here on this trip while disaster hits Joplin,” Karl said.
However, former DNC interim chair and ABC “This Week” regular Donna Brazile protested such criticism of the president being away in the midst of natural disasters and questioned why his presence was needed in these situations anyway.
“That was just a cheap shot,” Brazile said. “Nobody knows when these disasters will occur. I was in Louisiana last week. I mean, I saw the Mississippi River was swollen. Should the president be there? What the hell is he going to do, put out a sandbag?”
But Washington Post columnist George Will explained that there was one strategic defeat Obama suffered while he was in Europe. He explained that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demonstrated he has more of a grasp on foreign policy than Obama with the U.S. Congress.
“While the president was overseas, Netanyahu speaks to a joint session of Congress,” Will said. “At the end of which you could ask the question whose Middle East policy has more support in the Congress of the United States – the president’s, or the prime minister of Israel’s? The answer is the prime minister of Israel’s policy.”
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