Mar 16 2011
Incompetent In Chief
I am, like a rapidly growing number of Americans, horrified by how incompetent and crass our young President is looking in the face of the historic natural tragedies unfolding in Japan. His first press conference on the matter this past weekend was terrible. He spent a few brief minutes spewing canned ‘concerns’ and then spent most of an hour talking gasoline and oil. Finally he awkwardly called on a Japanese reporter (in a lame effort at stagecraft) who asked him a softball question he still flubbed. I was hoping that was just a bad moment in a tough day, but since then President Obama has simply been stunningly detached and lost.
Many of us have experienced this jolting disgust with our leader. For example, this was in the Politico today:
With Japan’s nuclear crisis teetering on the verge of catastrophe, with Libya and Bahrain in violent turmoil, and with financial markets crashing in response, President Barack Obama has been adamantly sticking to his own political and policy playbook.
That has meant muscling past the red-siren headlines to hammer away at the jobs-and-education message that will be the centerpiece of his 2012 campaign, the kind of discipline that is a hallmark of his new senior adviser, David Plouffe.
And it also meant refusing to scrap a five-day trip to Latin America on Friday that will take him to sun-dappled Rio de Janeiro, among other places, rather than staying home to focus on the increasingly disastrous international news confronting his crisis-weary White House.
Is this discipline or fear based avoidance? Is this a strength, or a blaring warning sign that our incompetent-in-chief cannot act beyond his zone of self absorption? There are tens of thousands of people dead, millions without the basic necessities of shelter, food and water, and the triple whammy of earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear reactor meltdowns – while a totally oblivious President Obama is golfing and making is final four picks.
Our president is AWOL at a moment of historic human devastation and suffering. His coolness has transformed from a level head into a person frozen in place by the sudden gap that has appeared between his skills and his responsibilities. I don’t think I have ever been so embarrassed by a national leader as I am right now. A massive humanitarian disaster is playing out and our President is taping his final four picks for ESPN.
You could never script such a monumental blunder as this.
I do not know how a supporter could do anything other than look the other way or change the topic or drag in a red herring in the face of the golf, the long-winded answers that fizzle into nothingness, and grins and the basketball charts at this time of crisis. The supporters I know have just stopped following the news or depend solely on news people who cling to a hatred of Bush for intellectual air. God help us.
It is a shame that this country has to be embarrassed like this. Many people recognized from Day one that Obama was an empty suit. Unfortunately, many will cling to him as the last great hope of progressivism or socialism, whatever, but he has never had a job before this one except as an organizer and his failure at that has been well documented. Seems as if failure follows where ever he goes.
To borrow a phrase from S. Weasel, Dude isn’t even playing President on TV anymore.
Victor Davis Hansen has an article out whose title is “President Hamlet”. Aptly written.
We used to see Obama travel and give speech almost every day. Not lately.
I see that the fifth circuit has stayed Feldman’s ruling on the oil permits. They didn’t rule them unconstitutional but were convinced by Salazar that there were problems with the applications. So the fifth circuit wants time to look at the applications and all.
How many permits has Salazar approved so far? Two? And Obama thinks we have the highest domestic oil producing record in the last seven years?
His coolness has transformed from a level head into a person frozen in place by the sudden gap that has appeared between his skills and his responsibilities.
My only nit-pick here is that there is nothing “sudden” about that gap.
–
Paul,
It was sudden to Barry and his worshipers.
I have to agree with both of you. We (meaning us far ‘right wingers’) did know what we were getting with President Obama, but many on the other side of the political scale did not. My wife is still in denial.
I never thought it could happen but Obama has made me long for the dynamic leadership of Jimmy Peanuts. Obama his fulfilled every meager expectation I had for him and still managed to lower the bar substantially. He is a total loser.
I am not surprised at how Obama handled Libya and the no-fly deal. His own Air Force guys told him, “Too little, too late”.
The rebels have lost.
UK Paper: Barack Obama – The Weakest President in History?
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/235196/Barack-Obama-The-Weakest-President-in-history-Barack-Obama-The-Weakest-President-in-history-#ixzz1GxHKF1ps