Obama, Sarkozy Trash-Talk Netanyahu at G20 Meeting
Reporters Sworn to Secrecy After Microphone Gaffe
They never remember to turn off the microphone.
In one of the most bizarre stories in recent memory, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama were caught making catty comments about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a “private” moment at the G20 conference.
“I cannot stand him. He is a liar,” declared Sarkozy, speaking to Obama in one of the private rooms but having left his microphone running for all the media to hear. “You’re fed up with him?!” remarked Obama, “I have to deal with him every day!”
The conversation continued for nearly three minutes before the microphones were shut off, but incredibly went mostly uncovered by major media outlets in the wake of the conference. Reports that the members of the media on-hand were made to sign an agreement not to report the story have not been confirmed, but one journalist present said there was a “discussion” held after the gaffe and everyone “agreed not to publish the comments due to the sensitivity of the issue.”
The bumbling attempt at covering it up worked for a few days, with no major outlet covering the scandal after the Thursday talks. They only came to light today when media watchdog Arret sur images covered the gaffe, along with the efforts to “intimidate” the press into not covering it. Incredibly, those present were quick to confirm that they were cowed into not covering it.
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charly
November 7th, 2011 at 10:20 pm
haha i love it. they are all liars to us, but i think sarkozy was reffering to among friends.
Ian
November 8th, 2011 at 12:14 am
"While the cat's away, the mice will play."
I doubt either of these 'patriots" will challenge Netanyahu in public.
Amir Goy
November 8th, 2011 at 12:34 am
So the press can regurgitate lies, but when some rare truth slips out they are 'cowed' into not covering it'? What's a 'Free Press' for anyway?
William Dalton
November 8th, 2011 at 1:00 am
This is considered a "scandal"? Did anyone presume that world leaders do not talk about one another behind their backs? Even before last year's Wikileaks revelations? That Obama can't stand Netanyahu is well known in the United States, by the President's friends and critics alike. Perhaps the same is know of Sarkozy in France. In any event, the scandal is that these leaders of two of the world's great powers can't stand up to the Israeli prime minister, even when he is leading down the primrose path to national economic destruction.
@Unforgiven_01
November 8th, 2011 at 4:07 am
Ahhh, sweet unscripted moments.
Sheikh Yamoni Maker
November 8th, 2011 at 4:17 am
Why should we all assume the microphone was left on 'accidently'?
Druthers
November 8th, 2011 at 5:10 am
Oh the great independent American media.
How many times have they promised not to tell?
tomofsnj
November 8th, 2011 at 5:43 am
Actually it would only be news worthy if they stated what a butcher. The guy is as bad as sharon. Liar is nothing for a person who would start an operation like Caste Lead. Bibi is a guy who acts like he lived and suffered during the worse of the holocaust. His father was a highly paid university professor and bibi grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth on the rich main line of Philadelphia. Bibi only suffering was when his family drove past the poverty of West Philadelphia on the way to their mansion on the Jersey shore.
Lets hope the people of Israel will fire him again and stop the needly wars that bibi work so hard to start.
curmudgeonvt
November 8th, 2011 at 5:59 am
The real scandal is that the media signed away their purpose for being where they were. They seem to have forgotten that they were/are supposed to seek and report the truth – not perform as a trained monkey regurgitating only what the Archons wish to have reported. At least that is what I was taught when I took journalism classes. Not one American "journalist" reported on this, not one – not even Faux News!!
I bet Netan-yahoo wet his pants when he heard this. Not that it would have been new to him but that it was made public – just when he's trying to bludgeon Obama into starting a war with Iran for him.
Dahoit
November 8th, 2011 at 6:27 am
Now watch the MSM make Obomba and Sarkosi the bad guys,and undermining Israeli security.(An oxymoron,they are the most insecure people on earth,with Americans at their heels.)
Teri
November 8th, 2011 at 8:05 am
Please don't be naive and fall for another ruse put out there by these two "narcissistic, Zionists
who have thrown the Palestinians under the bus over and over again. They wanted the leak to
corral their idiotic, neo-liberal constituencies into voting for them again. Sarkozy and Obama face
re-elections soon with very low approval ratings. You don't believe that they expected each and every
microphone to be turned off. Come on. Obama is a master of "chicanery". It was totally staged
for the gullible pathetic electorate. Everybody has a dislike for Netanyahu. It was an easy trick
to set up; not much of a risk!
Jamal
November 8th, 2011 at 8:33 am
Before any election they lie to their teeth to get elected.., after that they start another war.., this time with Sarkozi the lier and a thive himselfe. But remeber.., Bebe Nontannayahoooooo., is not better then these two or for that matter Raiss – moussen – the head of NATO.
ML3
November 8th, 2011 at 9:09 am
They were saying what we're all thinking!
Nettan-yahoo is not President of the World, and hopefully he takes criticism as well as he takes US Kongressional adulation.
He is a lowlife Nazi punk with undue and undeserved influence within the US political system. Being suffocated to death beneath a pile of dead Palestinian children is too good for him.
John Ellis
November 8th, 2011 at 9:38 am
NEWS NOT
This is news not to any activist, for by bitter experience we know that news is private property until it is given to the public. For laws governing freedom of the press there are none and the news you discover, you may sell it, keep it, broadcast it, warp or distort it to make misinformation out of it, expose it as darkness or proclaim it as light.
And if you are General Electric Corp. the world’s largest manufacturer of war materials, you own NBC and can create fiction polls to control the direction that maddening crowd public stampedes, and interviews that make one politician look like a genius and his opponent look not fit for office.
Sheikh Yamoni Maker
November 8th, 2011 at 9:46 am
In which case…do ya s'pose maggots would even have the stomach for him?
John Ellis
November 8th, 2011 at 9:49 am
Multinational corporate power combines have hand picked and campaign funded all three, the presidents of France, Israel and Empire USA. So, we are being thought controlled into believing that Israel, one of the smallest, weakest and not too rich dictatorships, is god-king over all the earth.
Die Wahrheit zählt
November 8th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Perhaps the MSM will refer to it, like Israel defenders referred to the latest Gaza flotilla, as a "provocation" to Israel, undermining the (non-existant) "peace process", giving comfort to Israels "enemies" (of which there are justifiably many), and of course that old reliable, "anti-semitic".
John_Muhammad
November 8th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Because Obama and Sarkozy seem to be in agreement that Netanyahu is a) a liar and/or b) insufferable we can easily deduce that both leaders are obviously anti-semitic. The fact that Netanyahu is indeed a) a liar and b) insufferable has no bearing on the matter whatsoever- the implication of voicing that opinion is everything, though.
Now if we can just get them to say the same things in a open, public press conference, then we will have progress in applying the proper labels to Netanyahu.
Homer
November 9th, 2011 at 11:46 pm
Interesting to know who the President talks to every day.
I wish Obama would talk to an unemployed American every day. And then maybe stop spending billions on wars and defense and intel that all support Israel. An unemployed American who's been cutting back on his own spending could easily recognize that Israel belongs in the 'can't afford that any more' pile.