Obama: My Family ‘Fine’ With One Term

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obama-indiaAs his reelection campaign ramps up, President Barack Obama says his family is “not invested” in a second term in the White House. “Michelle and the kids are wonderful in that if I said, `You know, guys, I want to do something different,’ they’d be fine,” Obama said in an interview with NBC News that aired Tuesday morning on “Today.” “They’re not invested in daddy being president or my husband being president.”

“If family is doing well and Michelle is still putting up with me, then I’ve got enough energy to keep doing the work that I’m doing,” he said.

But Obama says there are some days “where I say that one term is enough,” but added that he’s motivated to win a second term because of “a belief that the work that we started in 2009 is not yet complete.”

And, if the first lady thought it was time for him to go, he’d listen.

“I think Michelle – if she didn’t think that what we were doing was worthwhile in moving the country forward, I think she’d be the first to say, ‘Why don’t you do something else that’s a little less stressful?'”

The president also spoke briefly about his daughters Sasha and Malia. “The girls seem to be thriving,” he said. “They continue to surprise me with how poised, well-mannered, kind they are turning out even in the hothouse environment of the White House.”

{Politico/Matzav.com Newscenter}


20 COMMENTS

  1. “And, if the first lady thought it was time for him to go, he’d listen.”

    How about if every normal American thinks its time for him to go??

  2. This is such self serving rhetoric. Obama pretending he doesn’t mind not being president again….please do me a tovah. Chazal say that once a person has had kavod and high station he has to be taken down by force. If Barak Obama thinks anyone believes this he is out of his keilim

  3. We are all fine with it – please Mr Obama, do what’s best for your family and our country and resign now – even a year with joey biden would be better than you

  4. “Obama says there are some days “where I say that one term is enough”……

    I finally found something which Obama & I can agree upon!

    President Barack Obama says his family is “not invested” in a second term in the White House. ”Michelle and the kids are wonderful in that if I said, `You know, guys, I want to do something different,’ they’d be fine,”

    Obama, Take your family’s advice!!!!!

    Don’t wait for the election. DO IT NOW!!!

  5. There have been several one-term presidents in recent history. Two were Republicans – the “original” Bush 1988-1992 (George Bush’s father, for those too old to remember) and Gerald Ford. Ford wasn’t elected – he was vice-President when Pres. Nixon resigned and became President, only to get beaten by Carter in 1976, the Democrat who got beaten by Reagan after one term. If you look back before the Depression one-term presidents were fairly common. It was only FDR who made being an incumbent into a supposed guarantee of re-election. That’s why the President can only serve two terms – the Republicans got that passed because they were afraid FDR would become a “life” president.

  6. Mr. President,

    Actually this is the first thing I (and many others) completely concur with you.
    We’re more than fine with you being a one term president.
    I would, if necessary, sponsor the moving truck.

  7. What work hasn’t he finished? Moving America further downstream chas v’sholom?
    He’s begun destroying the economy, has only worsened the Mideast crisis by siding the with Arabs, made a mess of the healthcare system.
    What else does he want to ruin next term, should he decide to rerun?

  8. A year after GW Bush’s now famous 2004 letter to Sharon, which Ariel Sharon used to get support for his Gaza withdrawal plan, George Bush hosted Abbas in the Rose Garden on May 26, 2005 and said at the Press Conference
    “Any Final Status Agreement Must Be Reached Between The Two Parties, And Changes To The 1949 Armistice Lines Must Be Mutually Agreed To.”

    It’s a shame President Obama gets trashed when he says the same thing and engages in same policy. It is due to propaganda by his opponents including the Republican Party and the Jewish Republican Coalition.

    The verbal pressure supposedly put on Netanyahu by Obama was not reported when Bush did it.
    This is exactly what Barack Obama said in the Mideast Speech on May 19, 2011:
    “We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps”.

    The next day May 20, 2011 Obama said to the BBC
    ” The basis for negotiations will be looking at that 1967 border recognizing that the conditions on the ground have changed and there are going to need to be swaps to accommodate the interests of both sides…”

    A few days later Barack Obama said on Sunday May 22, 2011 to AIPAC
    ” this basic framework for negotiations has long been the basis for discussions among the parties, including previous U.S. Administrations. But since questions have been raised, let me repeat what I actually said on Thursday. I said that the United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.
    That is what I said. Now, it was my reference to the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps that received the lion’s share of the attention. And since my position has been misrepresented several times, let me reaffirm what ‘1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps’ means.
    By definition, it means that the parties themselves – Israelis and Palestinians – will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It is a well known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides. The ultimate goal is two states for two peoples. Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people; each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace. If there’s a controversy, then, it’s not based in substance.

    Indeed it was used by GW Bush and Clinton.

    Arutz Sheva exposed Bush in an analysis on May 29, 2005 –
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/82861
    Arutz Sheva took on Bush for this in 2005 but the Republican onslaught and the Jewish Republican Coallition were silent and didn’t claim that GW Bush was trying to destroy the State of Israel, they didn’t claim GW Bush threw the State of Israel under a bus, and they didn’t claim that the Bush position was a danger to the State.

    Following is from the article Title: “News Analysis: Bush Policy Pushes Israel Back to 1949 Armistice” Link to this article: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/82861
    “…U.S. President George W. Bush’s statement welcoming PA leader Mahmoud Abbas into the White House Rose Garden on May 26, provided a highly transparent view of the administration’s policy toward Israel and an unsettling perspective on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s claims that Bush has agreed to allow Israel to retain large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria.
    [ from White House Transcript are GW Bush’s own words in the Rose Garden May 26, 2005, in the press conference with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas: quote:….]
    GW BUSH: ” Israel must continue to take steps toward a peaceful future, and work with the Palestinian leadership to improve the daily lives of Palestinians, especially their humanitarian situation. Israel should not undertake any activity that contravenes road map obligations or prejudice final status negotiations with regard to Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem [ ed; this means part of Jerusalem will be given to the Palestinians]

    GW BUSH: “Therefore, Israel must remove unauthorized outposts and stop settlement expansion. The barrier being erected by Israel as a part of its security effort must be a security, rather than political, barrier. And its route should take into account, consistent with security needs, its impact on Palestinians not engaged in terrorist activities. As we make progress toward security, and in accordance with the road map, Israeli forces should withdraw to their positions on September the 28th, 2000.”

    GW BUSH: “Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and changes to the 1949 Armistice Lines must be mutually agreed to. A viable two-state solution must ensure contiguity on the West Bank, and a state of scattered territories will not work. ( There must also be meaningful linkages between the West Bank and Gaza). This is the position of the United States today; it will be the position of the United States at the time of final status negotiations. The imminent Israeli disengagement from Gaza, [and] parts of the West Bank, presents an opportunity to lay the groundwork for a return to the roadmap. All parties have a responsibility to make this hopeful moment in the region a new and peaceful beginning.”

    [ transcript: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050526.html ]

    Arutz Sheva continues: The most unsettling, if not shocking remark by the president was a direct reference to the 1949 “Armistice lines” agreed to by Israel and Jordan at the end of the War of Independence. Those lines, the famous “Auschwitz borders” as they were called by the late Israeli Labor-party statesman Abba Eban, leaves Israel’s heavily populated coastal plain, just 9-11 miles from the border of what would be Palestine.

    Not only are none of the major settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, such as Ma’ale Adumim included in those borders, but neither are the Western Wall, the Old City of Jerusalem, the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Ramot, Gilo, Neve Yaakov, East Talpiot, Pisgat Ze’ev (to name a few), nor the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway (Route 1) as it crosses into the Latrun area.

    [Arutz Sheva continues…:] Yet President Bush, standing next to the man whom he would like to become the first president of Palestine, told Abbas and the rest of the world, that the reference point for negotiating the future boundary between the two states was the 1949 lines, and that any change to that border “must be mutually agreed to” between Israel and the Arabs.

    [Arutz Sheva continues…:]
    “In other words, as far as Bush is concerned, Abbas must approve Israel’s annexing the Western Wall or even part of the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem highway to the Jewish State. Conversely, without his agreement, those areas are slated to be part of an independent State of Palestine.

    Where then, is the great quid-pro-quo for the Gaza withdrawal, the highly-touted and heavily-marketed Bush promises to Sharon that the U.S. recognizes the facts on the ground in Judea and Samaria, the settlement blocs that preclude a withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice lines?

    According to Yoram Ettinger, a consultant on U.S. Israel relations and former liaison for Congressional affairs in the Israel Washington embassy, Bush’s April, 2004 letter supposedly guaranteeing U.S. support for retaining major settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria “was grossly misrepresented by the Prime Minister and his spokesman. Bush has not committed the United States to recognizing anything beyond the 1949 cease-fire lines. Bush doesn’t recognize any single settlement or blocs of settlements.”

    Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak concurs with this analysis of Bush’s view of the future border between Israel and a Palestinian state. In a recent interview for Haaretz, Barak said: “A campaign is under way here whose gist is to mislead the nation about substantive issues in order to prevent it from asking what the quid pro quo for the disengagement is. Sharon’s claim that he made painful decisions in Gaza and in return obtained an unprecedented achievement in Judea and Samaria is not correct…
    [ Barack continues:] “After all, it is obvious that the U.S. administration is against the Ariel-Kedumim bloc and against Ma’ale Adumim and is even against Efrat [locataed in the Gush Etzion bloc]…Sharon is not telling the people the truth. He is treating us all as though we are infantile and incapable of debating our own fate.” [ end of Ehud Barack quote from haaretz article]

    [ arutz sheva continues its analysis: ]
    It is not surprising therefore, that Bush, instead of emphasizing the importance of Abbas fighting terror and keeping his obligations under the road map, focused mostly on Israel’s roadmap obligations, primarily to halt all settlement construction in Judea and Samaria and remove what he called, “unauthorized outposts.”

    [Arutz Sheva continues…:] “George W. Bush is a president who means what he says. After mentioning the 1949 lines, Bush said the following: “A viable two-state solution must ensure contiguity of the West Bank, and a state of scattered territories will not work. There must also be meaningful linkages between the West Bank and Gaza. This is the position of the United States today, it will be the position of the United States at the time of final status negotiations.”

    [Arutz Sheva continues…:] Territorial contiguity in Judea and Samaria for a viable Palestinian State is not a prescription for accepting settlement blocs anywhere.
    It’s about time the Israeli public recognizes that the “Bush vision” as expressed repeatedly by the President and his Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, does not include any territory east of the 1949 lines. Rather, it holds the disengagement plan as the first phase of an ongoing process of Israeli withdrawals back to what the Labor party leader termed “the Auschwitz borders.”
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/82861
    [ this is the end of Arutz Sheva article]
    _______________________________________________

    June 24, 2004: President GW Bush brags on Irish Radio:
    ” I’m the first American President to have called for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the first one to do so. Because I believe it is in the Palestinian people’s interest; I believe it’s in Israel’s interest.”
    [later in the interview…]
    “I’m the first President to ever have called for a Palestinian state. That’s, to me, sounds like a reasonable, balanced approach.”

    “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.” —George Bush Speech in Greece, NY, May 2005

    President GW Bush said at Annapolis November 2008, as 10,000 rockets are falling onto Southern Israel, In the aftermath of the Gaza Withdrawl, Bush and Cheney make their pronouncements of American foreign policy 15 months prior to leaving office : ( from the transcript…)
    “They [Israel ] must show the world that they are ready to begin —[ Israel must ] bring an end to the occupation that began in 1967 through a negotiated settlement. This settlement will establish Palestine as a Palestinian homeland, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people. Israel must demonstrate its support for the creation of a prosperous and successful Palestinian state by removing unauthorized outposts, ending settlement expansion and finding other ways for the Palestinian Authority to exercise its responsibilities without compromising Israel’s security.” publicly delivered words of President GW Bush at Annappolis.
    ( end quote)

    Ehud Olmert stated that on “August 31, 2008, three weeks before he resigned, he offered 100 percent of West Bank land ( 6.8% in land swaps), 10,000 Palestinian refugees returning to Israel’s final borders, and the holy basin of Jerusalem’s Old City coming under joint Israeli-Palestinian-American- Jordanian-Saudi control. He last met with Abbas on September 16 of that year – five days before he resigned, and more than six months before he left office – and Abbas did not respond or make a counteroffer.” http://www.jpost.com/Features/FrontLines/Article.aspx?id=218340

    George Bush bragged about his part in this offer to Abbas of 100% of the miles of the West Bank in his book “Decision Points”.

    Jerusalem Post January 8, 2009:
    “Rice, who was accompanying Bush en route to Israel overnight Tuesday, said that “the United States doesn’t make a distinction between settlement activity in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and that Israel’s road map obligations, which include a building freeze, relate to settlement activity generally.”
    http://newstopics.jpost.com/topic/George_W._Bush

    The “Road Map”, authored by President George Bush the Quartet – without the Israeli’s approval:
    Road Map quote regarding The Settlements Quote: “Government Of Israel freezes all settlement activity including natural growth of settlements.”

    Now George W. Bush has weighed in with Decision Points:
    “Shortly after Annapolis, the two sides opened negotiations on a peace agreement, with Ahmed Qurei representing the Palestinians and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni representing the Israelis…,” Bush writes. “We sent financial assistance and deployed a high-ranking general to help train the Palestinian security forces…
    “The negotiations resolved some important issues, but it was clear that striking an agreement would require more involvement from the leaders. With my approval, Condi [Rice, the secretary of state] quietly oversaw a separate channel of talks directly between Abbas and Olmert. The dialogue culminated in a secret proposal from Olmert to Abbas.”

    from
    http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?ID=195039&R=R1
    By DAVID HOROVITZ
    11/12/2010

    After detailing that proposal, the former president continues: “We devised a process to turn the private offer into a public agreement. Olmert would travel to Washington and deposit his proposal with me. Abbas would announce that the plan was in line with Palestinian interests. I would call the leaders together to finalize the deal.
    “The development represented a realistic hope for peace,” Bush writes. “But again, an outside event intervened. Olmert had been under investigation for his financial dealings… [and] he was forced to announce his resignation in September.
    “Abbas didn’t want to make an agreement with a prime minister on his way out of office. The talks broke off in the final weeks of my administration, after Israeli forces launched an offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas rocket attacks.”

    from the Jerusalem Post January 8, 2009:
    Rice, who was accompanying Bush en route to Israel overnight Tuesday, said that “the United States doesn’t make a distinction between settlement activity in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and that Israel’s road map obligations, which include a building freeze, relate to settlement activity generally.”
    http://newstopics.jpost.com/topic/George_W._Bush

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