Ted Cruz

What happened when Barack Obama was president?

And I want to actually, I want to compare the two and give you that contrast.

So there was an article in Tablet Magazine several days ago, and it's called, Is This Time Different in Iran?

It's by an author named Peter Thoreau.

And here's what he said.

I want to read this at some length because I think it's really quite interesting and profound.

In 2009, what shocked me about President Barack Obama's lack of support for the Green Movement protesters in Iran was the failure to launch of the commander-in-chief's colossal ego.

Here were thousands of young Iranians filling the streets of Tehran to appeal to him, even with a wistful pun on his name.

Obama, Obama Bashid, Obama, be with us.

Anyone in government at the time knew that the Chicagoan lacked nothing in the way of ruthlessness, though he tended to save it for Republicans of the non-Islamic variety.

He applied the word enemy to

to the GOP, but never to the mullahs.

If righteous anger at the regime's murder of dissidents didn't meet the threshold for Chicago rules, I thought, surely vanity might do the job.

But opening to Iran had been an early theme of his presidency that same year, with a mushy Persian New Year message and a secret letter to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, of whom he knew little.

Quote, despite his title as Supreme Leader, Khamenei's authority wasn't absolute.

Obama preposterously intoned in his memoir, A Promised Land, in 2020.

Quote, he had to confer with a powerful council of clerics, the Guardian's Council.

Referring to the clerics, journalist Kareem Sajjapur observed that their average age is deceased.

Obama continued.

That's pretty funny.