Looking for love, Obama looks weak
Like so many politicians I have known, the man we elected president wants to be loved. He wants to be loved passionately and daily by the 69 million who voted for him and even some of the 60 million who voted for John McCain.Rollins gets to the essence of the anger at Obama, at least on the right. The left is looking to prosecute the people that were trying their best to defend us. In the jury of public opinion the moral preening on the left is going to be a loser if a witch hunt is pursued.He wants to be loved by the Democrats on the Hill and even the Republicans who have still not given him any love.
He wants to be loved by the Europeans who have made a career out of badmouthing U.S. presidents and their policies.
The real example of searching for love in all the wrong places was last week's lovefest south of the border when, in effect, he appeared to be hugging Castro, Ortega and Chavez who have spent their lives fighting everything the United States stands for.
The problem, President Obama will find out as time goes on, is that he is not a rock star or a celebrity. He is certainly famous, and for the foreseeable future everyone will want to see him, touch him and hear him. But the job of president is about making choices. And right now he has the toughest job in the world at one of the toughest times in U.S. history. Every time he makes a choice, he will make the losing side mad.
This last week was the best example. The president decided, as he promised in the campaign, that he would ban torture -- a decision I agree with but many don't. Then he decided to release four Bush-era Justice Department memos that gave legal guidelines to the executive branch on "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Many wanted these documents released, and the president, after a month-long internal debate, gave them up. At the same time he said he had no intention of prosecuting the drafters of those memos or anyone else in a federal agency, mainly the CIA, who followed those guidelines.
The Right went nuts over the release of the documents. The CIA felt betrayed. The Left went nuts over the contents of the memos and pressed to have the authors -- high Justice Department officials in the Bush administration -- prosecuted, investigated and maybe even tortured! The president went to the CIA and gave them a cheerleading speech.
The next day he reversed himself and said it's up to Attorney General Eric Holder and the Congress to determine if any laws were violated by the former officials.
He waffled big time. Now all sides are mad at him and he looks weak. Weakness is the death knell for a president. With 1,366 days to go before this term is up, Obama's got to get tougher or he will be viewed as a personality who reads well from a teleprompter.
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We were playing under a new set of rules and in a way making it up as we went along. What I am trying to say is the CIA doesn't need to be handcuffed again or demoralized. It needs to know its mission.
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Releasing the Justice memos opened a door and the contents repulsed many people. But these were not evil men who drafted the memos. These were not evil people who carried out the methods authorized by them. They were our fellow citizens who were trying to protect us from the real evildoers.
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I am a 71 year old Republican who prays for this President on a daily basis....Prayers because I am terrified for future of our 4 children and 9 grandchildren. This President is naive, inexperienced and sadly ill equiped to run this country. Whatever decisions he makes he makes to enhance his popularity and further his socialistic agenda. I am convinced he is a Jihad sympathizer, an agnostic, an anti-Constitutionalist and a man more concerned about being popular than providing protection to our country.I think that although he may be able to read a teleprompter, he cannot retain what he reads nor learn what it truly means to be an American. It is hard to sleep at night knowing that Barack Hussein Obama is in charge of our country. For the first time in my adult life, I am not sorry to be as old as I am.
ReplyDeleteSome of us find solace and security in a world of certainty and clearly defined elements. The good guys where the white hats and the bad guys where the black hats. This cowboy motiff reduces everything to its simplest, least shaded form and then draws all of its conclusions from that child-like view. That's how George W. Bush looked at the world. It's easy to speak with strident clarity when you define the world in black & white terms and fail to grasp its fundamental complexity. This is why some people are uncomfortable with Obama and are incapable of trusting him. He thinks too much and just doesn't seem 100% sure of himself 100% of the time. Human history is littered with examples of populations cheering for leaders who were always 100% sure of themselves. They were called dictators. A dictator has a clear, perfectly defined view of the world, and a lot of people find comfort in that. It makes the world more predictable and seem easier to control. Of course, that's an illusion. President Obama is a pragmatic thinker who is capable of grasping the nuances of a fractious world. I can see where he would make some of you nervous. On top of that, he's black and his middle name is Hussein. Reasons enough to assume his disloyalty and incompetence. I take a slightly different view. For the last 9 years, I watched a man lead this country who couldn't put two words together and who was so incompetent that his advisors would only allow supporters to attend his so-called press conferences. He was handed a budget surplus and turned it into a gigantic mountain of debt and got more than 5,000 of our kids killed in a war that shouldn't have been fought. Worst of all, he failed to find Osama Bin Laden and he allowed the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan to deteriorate to the point that a nuclear power may fall into the hands of terrorists. If you slept well while George W. Bush was president, you're a moron.
ReplyDeleteI've just realized who Howard Rollins really is. He's Grumpy, one of the seven dwarves. Put him in a pointy hat and he would be the spitting image of old Grump. The man personifies unhappiness. It's written all over his face and his commentaries. His occasional potshots at President Obama are always based upon some flawed premise. In this case, he claims that Obama wants to be loved and that he is a wannabee rock star. I'm sure it may seem that way to Grumpy, after 8 years of George W. Bush, aka Dopey.
ReplyDeleteTo JohnRJ08,
ReplyDeleteFirst, let us start with your statement that Pres Bush was handed a budget surplus. No, Pres Bush was handed a Recession, and the so-called Budget Surplus did not inlcuded the Billions that Clinton took from Social Security and Medicare. Basically, Clinton stole from Peter to Pay Paul, but left out those numbers on his Ending Budget report.
Second, Pres Obama has to travel with 20 teleprompters to ensure he can even put a sentence together. When he wqas caught without the teleprompter he sounded worse than Pres Bush.
Now, I am willing to discuss the many blunders during the Bush administration because there are a lot. But keeping this country safe after 9-11, he succeeded on that one. On the Iraq and Afghanistand Wars, when you committ our troops to go to War, you let them do their job and win the War. The military does not exist to win the Hearts & Minds of the enemy, the U.S. military exists to win! Did we win the Hearts and minds of the Japanese in WWII, NO! We defeated them. Did we win the Hearts and Minds of the Nazi's? NO! We defeated them. So, that is the biggest mistake the Bush administration did do.
But, Pres Obama is mre worried about being an A-List celebrity than being a strong president. With 25 years of military service under my belt, I can tell you we are LESS Safe under Obama than we were Bush!
To JohnRJ08,
ReplyDeleteFirst, let us start with your statement that Pres Bush was handed a budget surplus. No, Pres Bush was handed a Recession, and the so-called Budget Surplus did not inlcuded the Billions that Clinton took from Social Security and Medicare. Basically, Clinton stole from Peter to Pay Paul, but left out those numbers on his Ending Budget report.
Second, Pres Obama has to travel with 20 teleprompters to ensure he can even put a sentence together. When he wqas caught without the teleprompter he sounded worse than Pres Bush.
Now, I am willing to discuss the many blunders during the Bush administration because there are a lot. But keeping this country safe after 9-11, he succeeded on that one. On the Iraq and Afghanistand Wars, when you committ our troops to go to War, you let them do their job and win the War. The military does not exist to win the Hearts & Minds of the enemy, the U.S. military exists to win! Did we win the Hearts and minds of the Japanese in WWII, NO! We defeated them. Did we win the Hearts and Minds of the Nazi's? NO! We defeated them. So, that is the biggest mistake the Bush administration did do.
But, Pres Obama is mre worried about being an A-List celebrity than being a strong president. With 25 years of military service under my belt, I can tell you we are LESS Safe under Obama than we were Bush!
I too Pray for our Country everyday as well as all our citizens!