Posted by
Patrick Henry on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 12:45:09 PM
General Stanley McChrystal apparently joined his staff in ridiculing the
civilian politicians to whom he is accountable. Though most of the jibes
were attributed to his staff, McChrystal is still accountable for the tasteless
joking and the lack of respect for civilian authority it suggests. Undoubtedly
he will pay the price. But there's more to this story.
The Obama administration is floundering on nearly every front. Overmatched
by the BP oil spill, Afghanistan, a stubborn, deep recession with concomitant
unemployment, deep national disagreement over a swath of big government
initiatives and his party facing an electoral bloodbath in November, Obama has
dithered, delayed, politicized and pandered. So, perhaps the real question is
one of whether McChrystal and his merry band of jokesters is simply giving
vent to what many Americans now believe: that as president, Barack Obama IS
the joke.
While the U.S. was suffering serious reversals in Afghanistan and McChrystal
was begging for reinforcements, Obama spent months of hand-wringing before
giving him PART of what he requested. Sixty-one days after the BP spill the
federal government is still more a part of the problem than the answer to it,
leaving states to fend for themselves in many cases. Obama has now halted the
building of desperately needed sand berms off Louisiana as hurricane season
rapidly approaches. Why? Because he's not sure exactly where they should be
placed. But he has managd to make two political decisions, using the spill
for justification to kill the oil industry by shutting it down for six months and
promote his cap-and-tax energy boondoggle for passage by the senate. His
policies are taking a merciless beating in all the polls, and his party's
candidates cannot run on his miserable record. He has given the powerful
and corrupt labor unions the keys to the White House and the U.S. Treasury,
and frustrated every judicial attempt to keep them in check. Dither, delay,
politicize and pander.
Obama could use a stiff dose of Winston Churchills motto, "action this day."
America doesn't need a philosopher, an ideologue or a brainiac in the White
House. It needs a decisive, confident leader, something Obama is not and
likely will never be. Nobody wants thoughtless, shoot-from-the-hip policies,
but everybody wants visionary leadership that thinks ahead, engages in
comprehensive risk management and can quickly formulate and execute
a plan of action in crisis. Obama's not that either. And at the very moment
when differences should be set aside and the nation pulled together to fight
a common enemy, Obama has chosen to pit liberals against conservatives and
environmentalists against business interests in a crass and cynical attempt
to advance his own big government political agenda.
Add in the national discomfort that Obama considers himself wholly owned
by big labor, and what you get is a total loss of credibility and its corollary,
the inability to govern brought on by the fact that when the chips are down
Obama disdappears into a closet with his "experts," who are, in reality, just
partisan political hacks. Barack Obama and his heralded presidency have
become a national laughingstock, as has his clown prince, Vice-President
Joe Biden. McChrystal and his staff aren't saying anything that an awful
lot of Americans aren't thinking. The big difference is that unlike McChrystal,
Obama can't fire us. But we CAN fire him!