Posted by
Patrick Henry on Friday, October 09, 2009 9:50:12 PM
Anyone who ever watched Monday Night Football knows that a team can't win without a quarterback.
The QB is so important because he calls the play, reads the defense and then intiates or changes the
play depending on what he sees. If the United States of America was a football team, we would
undouvbtedly, by now, have been flagged for delay of game? Why? Our quarterback seems to be MIA.
When the quarterback doesn't do his job, nobody knows what play to run. Healthcare? Afghanistan?
Ring any bells? In both cases sweeping generalities, changes of signals and killing delays seem to be the
order of the day. Maybe if we sent Obama and his "War Couucil" to Afghanistan they could talk the
Taliban to death or starve them out while they're waiting for a decision. Healthcare is flailing its way
through the halls of congress, and the president has yet to call a specific play, i.e., put forth his own
plan.
While the quarterback dithers, the other team's fans are going wild with applaise. No one is enjoying
Barack Obama's indecision more than Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Alzawahiri, Mullah Omar and the
throngs of al Qaeda supporters in Pakistan and other Middle Eastern countries. And no one is cheering
louder than European pacifists who perceive that Obama will give them what they've always dremed
of: peace at any price.
When the quarterback seems conflicted about winning, it's a sure thing that the other team isn't.
Before the surge in Iraq, the insurgents and al Qaeda were killing people every day, just as the
Taliban and their fanatical supporters are doing in Afghanistan now. Most coaches will tell you
that the objective of the game is to win, and that if you don't have the will to do that, you don't
belong on the field. Truman wouldn't let MacArthur win in Korea, and now we have Kim Jong Il.
Johnson wouldn't let Westmoreland win in Viet Nam, and thousands of America's fine young
people died for nothing. Obama says that the goal in Afghanistan may not be to win. Then what,
pray tell?
Quarterbacks who remain indecisive, waiting for the perfect play to unfold usually get sacked.
And when that happens, their team loses. Barack Obama is being hounded by the left of his own
party, by elements from the right, by special interest groups and by players like Vladimr Putin who
have their own agendas that have nothing to do with helping us win) The "deer in the headlights"
syndrome is what we see in quarterbacks who have been sacked so often they're just expecting
it to happen again, and soon. Indecisiveness costs time, money and, in Afghanistan, precious
lives. In 2012 Obama may get sacked for real, just like Jimmy Carter who had the same problem.
The brutal truth is that "perfect plays" aren't diagrammed on coaches' clipboards. They most
often result when the people on the field improvise, adapt and overcome. Little of worth will be
achieved by unending meetings and hearings on the war, or dressing up a few sycophant doctors
in manufactured white coats. Real quarterbacks get their uniforms dirty. Ours has just been handed
the Heisman trophy three games into his first season (the Nobel). That doesn't solve any problems
either. But it does suggest that the people who are supposed to WORK for us are more preoccupied
with show biz and backroom dealing than with getting down and dirty with real solutions to real
problems.
I'll say it again. America needs a quarterback!