On Thursday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer dissected President Barack Obama’s statements earlier in the day on National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and his flight from the United States to Hong Kong and then Moscow.
At a media appearance in Dakar, Senegal, Obama said he wouldn’t be scrambling aboard fighter jets to take down a 29-year-old hacker and that it wasn’t protocol for him to interact directly with other heads of state in the situations.
Krauthammer declared Obama’s remarks and attitude exuded arrogance, and said that downplaying Snowden’s threat contradicts what his own secretary of state and NSA head have said of Snowden.
“So he doesn’t speak to the head of Russia and China because he doesn’t have to. It’s beneath him, you see. The mere sheer radiance of Obama ought to be enough to persuade them to turn over Snowden, and that apparently hasn’t worked yet. I mean, the arrogance that he’s of such Olympian stature, and then pretends that it’s just a 29-year-old hacker, when as you showed earlier in the show the Secretary of State said that this could cost lives, and the head of the NSA had said it’s extremely damaging.”
“So, I mean, obviously he’s trying to save face, but it’s making worse,” Krauthammer said. “And then at the end, he says the other reason I didn’t is because I don’t want to make this important enough that springing him becomes an issue on which I have to wheel and deal with the Russians and the Chinese. Well, has Obama been accused of wheeling and dealing successfully with anyone? How is the wheeling and dealing over the reset gone well over Syria, Iran, other issues? You know, he says he doesn’t want to be overtaxed. He’s got other stuff to do as he tours Africa.”