Is Barack Obama simply too busy to be Chief Executive of the United States? Apparently. One of the primary functions of the president is to keep the nation safe, to preserve it from its enemies. To do that effectively, one would actually have to maintain something of a consistent level of attention to the moving pieces that directly influence how future events will unfold. During the five-plus years that we have been without a real president, meaning one who actually was aware of all aspects of the position and tried, even just a little, to perform them, everything that was predicted to occur during his tenure has materialized. We are weaker, less respected, less feared, less liked and, well, just less. No surprise there, really. No record, no experience, no consistency, no integrity, no background, no evidence of morals, no normal friends or associates, and no supporters who cared more about their country than about their silly self-congratulation over electing the first black man who seemed just like them: unserious. In every single crisis that has arisen since the beginning of Obama’s reign of error, he has had something else to do, something that was so much more important than the grenade going off behind him that he just could not find the time to address the crisis of the moment. The celebrity and the trappings of the position have always been vastly more important to this man than the responsibilities, so much so that when faced with the choice of focusing on something hard requiring judgment and decisiveness, and giving in to something easy and self-indulgent, he always goes with easy and self-indulgent. The day after Benghazi, with four dead Americans to explain, he gave a perfunctory speech in the Rose Garden and flew off to a fundraiser that somehow rated higher than a crisis of national reputation and security. The truth implicit in that action, which some recognized, was that Obama simply did not care that this apparent tragedy had happened. Or perhaps, equally troubling, he had known it was likely to happen because his surrogates did nothing to protect our people while carrying out this his orders, despite dire warnings, and he had already moved on. Either way, the business of governing never seems to get in the way of the absurd posturing and trying to seem cool. There’s always a television show, or fake cable interview between potted plants in which to push social chaos, that takes priority over actually being an American president. Giving speeches written by others that scroll on a teleprompter, or flying around the country doing and saying nothing constructive, is not working hard. Working hard means more than just showing up and hoping things don’t blow up on your watch. Leading a country, and committing your life for four or eight years to its advancement and preservation is working hard. We are still waiting on that one. I recall being momentarily surprised to learn that the president was golfing in Key Largo when the Russians predictably entered Ukraine, but quickly corrected myself. The surprise was a remnant of when our country was governed by serious people who cared and worked hard. In short, you get what we have right now: a fake grown-up, lacking a moral compass, whose protectors have allowed him to escape criticism for saying and doing meaningless and dishonest things, who is paralyzed by his own inadequacy in times of adversity. You get someone who never did his homework and read off classmates’ papers during the test. You get someone who has never had to make a really difficult decision in his life in which he stood to lose something important to himself, rather than something he could simply steal from others. You get an unprepared toddler. The grownups with evil designs can’t believe their good fortune. The grownups with a country to lose can’t believe it, either. Our future is in the hands of toddlers. Articles by Jeffrey T. Brown
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 14:31:22 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015