Have you noticed few people call Barack Obama “The One” anymore? “The Golfer” or “The Vacationer” is more like it. Something less than One, by any measure.
Still, with each passing day and each new, permanent crisis, it seems like BO just ain’t up to the job of President. Nothing new. When Jimmy Carter’s incompetence became obvious, the lefty press developed a theory that the job had simply grown too complex for one man. Don’t be surprised to hear it again shortly. They carried that meme right into the GOP convention of 1980 when Walter Cronkite decided that Ronald Reagan needed to appoint Gerald Ford his co-nominee rather than veep.
Of course, Reagan became President and proved, in short order, that not only could one person handle the job, the right person could do it in 6 hour days with a nap to boot. The trick, of course, is finding the right person. And America apparently failed at that challenge in 2008.
I don’t have a bunch of stats and numbers for this, but I do have an awfully strong hunch. Bill Clinton was dealt bad news from time to time, but he always seemed to land on his feet. Barack Obama has good news every now than, and he somehow manages to screw that up, too. Let’s look at headlines of the past week:
* [Wikileaks releases ten of thousands of sensitive documents](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-25/u-s-denounces-publication-of-classified-documents-on-war-in-afghanistan.html) about Afganistan** [Maureen Dowd reveals that Obama’s “white guys” pushed Shirley Sherrod](https://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/25/maureen-dowd-hints-it-was-the-white-house-not-vilsack-that-pushed-sherrod-out/) out of her job** [Hugo Chavez, Obama’s best friend in this hemisphere, threatened to cut off oil](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2514507120100725) to the US over Columbia** [Obama backed release of Lockerbie Bomber](https://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/07/obama-white-house-backed-release-of-lockerbie-bomber/), we learned
Did I say past week? That was TODAY!
Here’s the thing: today wasn’t a aberration. Every day of the Barack Obama presidency is like this. Or worse. In fact, a few weeks ago, former Obama fawner, Peggy Noonan, declared Obama a “snake-bit President.” And that ain’t good.
But Mr. Obama is starting to look unlucky, and–file this under Mysteries of Leadership–that is dangerous for him because Americans get nervous when they have a snakebit president. They want presidents on whom the sun shines.
Indeed. In 1981, the masters at Bishop DuBourg High School had us all watch Reagan’s Inauguration on TV. We saw it happen live, on CBS, if I remember correctly. Here’s the story from Defense.gov:
In stepped Reagan. After taking the oath of office, Reagan strode to the dais. As the new president began his inaugural address, the sun broke through the clouds. A woman in the crowd said that even Hollywood couldn’t have written a better script.
Reagan’s whole presidency was like that. Not scripted, but lucky. When Dutch (Reagan’s nickname from back in Dixon, Illinois) screwed up, something happened. He’d come out smelling like a rose.
Noonan was right, of course. We want lucky leaders. As goes a song from the musical Pippin, “It’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart.”
I would argue that intelligence, education, and experience, alone, are not enough to be president. Yet Obama appears to lack all of those, in addition to luck and instinct. We know he went to Harvard. But so did George W. Bush. And Hank Paulson. And the CEOs of most of the banks that collapsed in 2008.
So we have a lot of evidence that we hired the wrong dude to lead America. The question becomes “what do we do now?”
There’s only so much we can do, and some of you have been doing it for a while.
1. We can keep pressure on Congress to STOP enacting this snake-bit, incompetent President’s agenda.*2. We can support candidates who will stop Obama’s agenda in the next Congress.*3. We can recruit and train candidates for 2012 who will reverse the damaging growth of government.*4. We can pray that our country survives this present crisis of government. Until we have a Congress and President who understand the Constitution and voluntarily abide by its limitations on government powers, it’s up to us to remain vigilant against further government growth. And it’s also incumbent upon on us to understand what a colossal mistake we made by electing this snake-bit, failure of a man to our country’s highest office.