More on preserving Obama's infallibility

As I said in this post, when dear Obama makes a decision or effects a policy which stands in contradiction to what his adulators expected of him, there is a tendency among Obamists to shift the blame to someone else. "It's not him. It's them" is the mantra.

So I've appointed myself a collector of such arguments. And here is another one:

Apparently, against the explicit wishes of the Jewish community, Israel, and Canada's presedence, Obama decided that the US will participate in Durban II. So Marty Peretz, of the New Republic, who is as infatuated with Obama as the next man, is now struggling to figure out how this could be. And, predictably, comes up with the answer: "It's not him. It's them".

"them" is Susan Rice and Samantha Power:

"Maybe Ambassador Rice should have been sent. Apparently, that the U.S. should attend this pre-extravaganza extravaganza was her cause. But there is no indication that she wanted to be directly saddled with the costs of going herself. She certainly grasped what the likely results would be. My guess, moreover, is that, contrary to the right-wing blogoshpere, Samantha Power was not especially hot on this experiment in public diplomacy. The two ladies are old antagonists, sharing only the affections of the president. Can you imagine Ms. Rice before some college audience when some smart-assed undergraduate like I was, holding Ms. Power's A Problem from Hell, (co-published by New Republic Books), begins to read: Rice said, "If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing what will be the effect on the November elections?" Rice later confessed that her remark was "inappropriate" and "irrelevant." But that was only if we planned to do nothing, which is exactly what we planned."

Here is what one commenter wryly suggests:

"Sanda said:

Sorry Mr. Peretz! You can't have it both ways. I have read in amazement what you (and the rest of the TNR, all in one corner, campaigning away - not one dissenting opinion) had to say (nay, practically promise) for the past year. That included (with zero evidence and some hints to the contrary) your assurances about Obama, Rice, and Powell and how good they were going to be for Israel. We are now collecting on this, but you can't act as if this is a surprise, explain it away, or promise again that it will all work out. We have change."