Where was Presidential Criticism From Popovich/Stephen A. Smith During Obama?

Then-US President Barack Obama takes a shot while playing basketball during the annual Eas

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith aren’t fans of President Donald J. Trump.

“I feel like there’s a cloud, a pall, over the whole country, in a paranoid surreal sort of way that’s got nothing to do with the Democrats losing the election,” Popovich said before Game 1 of the NBA Western Conference Finals. “It’s got to do with the way one individual conducts himself. It’s embarrassing. It’s dangerous to our institutions and what we all stand for and what we expect the country to be. But for this individual, he’s at a game show, and everything that happens begins and ends with him, not our people or our country.”

“[Trump] is tweeting attacks on Stephen Colbert and Lord knows who else,” Smith said after Popovich’s comments. “As petty as it gets. As a result, if you are Popovich, if you know nothing else about Popovich, the one thing that he is intolerant about is pettiness. And so, a lot of times when people are watching us talk about this right now, understand we are not talking about a party. We’re not talking about elected officials. We’re talking about the behavior of an individual who is 70 years of age that some people look at and say he is engaging in stuff reserved for 15 and 16-year-olds. That is a problem.”

“When you are the leader of the free world, who representing all of us, the one requirement that I think is universally understood is that people expect you to be a grown-up. And if you are not conducting yourself like a grown-up, it’s going to have a profound effect on the people you supposedly represent because they don’t like the fact that your behavior is emblematic, supposedly, of what we are when we are not that way.”

A few questions for Popovich and Smith: Was Obama calling ISIS “a jayvee team” acting like a “grown-up,” Mr. Smith? Especially since that “jayvee team” controls more territory than any terrorist organization in history, and has slaughtered thousands of Shiites and Christians. Wasn’t that “jayvee team” comment “embarrassing,” Mr. Popovich?”

Speaking of ISIS, one could argue they were created because Obama pulled all U.S. troops out of Iraq, creating a huge void the terrorist group filled. Obama did this to appease his progressive base, and ignored military experts who suggested he create a status of forces agreement. For Obama to ignore generals, and act on his own, doesn’t that sound a little “petty,” Mr. Smith? Wasn’t that decision, and the bloodbath that followed, “embarrassing” to you, Mr. Popovich?

Was Obama doubling the national debt during his eight years in office acting like a “grown-up,” Mr. Smith? Wasn’t it kind of like treating the country like “a game show,” Mr. Popovich?

The Obama administration initially blamed the Benghazi attack on a YouTube video, and jailed the innocent man who produced it. Is that a “grown-up” thing to do, Mr. Smith? Is that what “we expect the country to be,” Mr. Popovich?

Selling more than 2,000 guns to Mexican drug gangs (Operation Fast and Furious), resulting in the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and scores of innocent Mexicans, wasn’t that operation “dangerous to our institutions and what we all stand for,” Mr. Popovich?

Mr. Popovich, wasn’t the Iran Deal, which sent $150 billion to the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, something that cast “a cloud, a pall, over the whole country?”

Mr. Smith and Popovich, you don’t have to like President Trump, but where were you guys from 2008-2016 when these Obama actions came to pass?

Surely, many Americans would consider the moral narcissism being displayed by Popovich and Smith, “petty” and “embarrassing.”

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