Obama's Lack of a Coherent Strategy
Neil Snyder, in "Obama's Strategy? He Doesn't Have One?" in the April 14th, 2011 American Thinker (http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/obamas_strategy_he_doesnt_have.html) points out a specific aspect of our Emperor's lack of clothes.
One thing stands out in my mind about President Obama's so-called "budget strategy." He doesn't have one.
He goes on to argue that Obama's pronouncements regarding the Federal budget are very obviously reactionary in the literal sense: he says things in response to the last Republican critic. When he does make policy proposals or float plans, he is as likely as not to contradict them within a few weeks.
It's been said, and it's true, that talk is cheap. Talk seems to be the only arrow in Mr. Obama's quiver.
Indeed. He not only doesn't have a plan, he doesn't even seem to feel this as a lack. To Obama, every day is a day on the campaign trail, and he says whatever he thinks will score points with a particular audience. This is a chaotic way even to campaign: it doesn't even count as national leadership.
If the president had a strategy for dealing with our deficit and debt problems, he would have presented it long ago -- in detail. He could have used his budget commission's plan to get our fiscal house in order as the launching pad to introduce his strategy, and he would have if he had one.
He has had, after all, over two years now as President to do just this. He can no longer rationally claim that he is still dealing with Bush's budgets, nor that he hasn't had enough time to study the issue. He's sure had a lot of time to make speeches and play golf, after all ...
The president's "plan" to call on legislators to find a solution to our deficit and debt problems by the end of June a week after Rep. Ryan submitted his plan to the House of Representatives is laughable. Again, that's not strategy. It's just empty words.
Precisely. "Calling on legislators" to solve his problems means that he has no solutions, and he expects others to do his job for him. Or, if he does not really expect this, at least he is setting it up as an excuse, so that months down the road, when he still has no realistic budget formulated, he can whine "Congress didn't do its part."
What Obama seems not to grasp is that he is the only President in the White House. He is expected to provide unified national leadership, presenting proposals to the Congress, not just sit around helplessly while everyone else makes the hard decisions for him. If he can't or won't lead, then why the HELL did he run for President? There were other people -- even other Democrats -- who also wanted the job. Did he imagine it to be some sort of pretty prize with which he might adorn his mantel?
Mr. Obama's strategic void has been on display in the Middle East since the Arab Spring began in January. For instance, consider Egypt. Obama stood with our long-time ally, Hosni Mubarak, and then he didn't. Then he stood with him again until the political winds shifted, at which point Obama announced that it was time for Mr. Mubarak to go. Our president has demonstrated the same lack of strategic resolve on matters related to Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Our president's inability to grasp strategic concepts is so pervasive that the King of Saudi Arabia said recently that President Obama is a threat to Saudi Arabia's internal security. I think he's a threat to our internal security as well.
... and this has been particularly painful to watch, because this is a crucial moment of history, one of those points at which the whole course of events for decades to come hinges on relatively small decisions at the critical nexus. It's the sort of moment that one would expect to be haunted by time agents, were this a science-fiction story.
Obama has had no clear policy. He's argued for whatever seemed popular at the moment, shifting back and forth with every stray event, leaping hither and yon in an attempt to get on the bandwagon -- any bandwagon. It's gotten so bad that the French actually provided the main diplomatic leadership in the Libyan crisis.
Scholars for decades, maybe centuries to come, will talk about how Obama frittered away these key months. And the worst of it is that Obama doesn't have a clue how badly he's failing, doesn't even realize, as far as I can tell, that anything other than some entertaining foreign news is going on. He's oblivious.
Neil then makes a key point about Obama's election campaign:
It's looking a lot like someone or some group carefully orchestrated a comprehensive strategy to take an obscure Illinois lawyer specializing in community organizing from nowhere to the White House. That plan will go down in the annals of history as a strategic masterpiece -- a stroke of genius. No one deft enough to devise a scheme for Obama's political ascension could be so strategically clumsy in office.
I normally dislike "puppetmaster" theories, because anyone who becomes President has the power to laugh at any who would presume to cut him orders, but it's starting to look exactly as it would if we had an incompetent President. And, as I always predicted would happen, the puppetmaster has clearly lost control: instead, the puppet is making his own decisions, but -- being the sort of imbecile who would agree to be a puppet in the first place -- making them badly.
I look forward to 2013, when we'll have a real President. I'd even take Hilary Clinton -- at least she has coherent notions of what she's aiming at -- if the Republicans can't run a decent candidate. But six more years of Obama would be a national, indeed international disaster -- think about how much damage he could cause, simply by letting the country drift, if he gets to stay in the Oval Office until 2017!
One thing stands out in my mind about President Obama's so-called "budget strategy." He doesn't have one.
He goes on to argue that Obama's pronouncements regarding the Federal budget are very obviously reactionary in the literal sense: he says things in response to the last Republican critic. When he does make policy proposals or float plans, he is as likely as not to contradict them within a few weeks.
It's been said, and it's true, that talk is cheap. Talk seems to be the only arrow in Mr. Obama's quiver.
Indeed. He not only doesn't have a plan, he doesn't even seem to feel this as a lack. To Obama, every day is a day on the campaign trail, and he says whatever he thinks will score points with a particular audience. This is a chaotic way even to campaign: it doesn't even count as national leadership.
If the president had a strategy for dealing with our deficit and debt problems, he would have presented it long ago -- in detail. He could have used his budget commission's plan to get our fiscal house in order as the launching pad to introduce his strategy, and he would have if he had one.
He has had, after all, over two years now as President to do just this. He can no longer rationally claim that he is still dealing with Bush's budgets, nor that he hasn't had enough time to study the issue. He's sure had a lot of time to make speeches and play golf, after all ...
The president's "plan" to call on legislators to find a solution to our deficit and debt problems by the end of June a week after Rep. Ryan submitted his plan to the House of Representatives is laughable. Again, that's not strategy. It's just empty words.
Precisely. "Calling on legislators" to solve his problems means that he has no solutions, and he expects others to do his job for him. Or, if he does not really expect this, at least he is setting it up as an excuse, so that months down the road, when he still has no realistic budget formulated, he can whine "Congress didn't do its part."
What Obama seems not to grasp is that he is the only President in the White House. He is expected to provide unified national leadership, presenting proposals to the Congress, not just sit around helplessly while everyone else makes the hard decisions for him. If he can't or won't lead, then why the HELL did he run for President? There were other people -- even other Democrats -- who also wanted the job. Did he imagine it to be some sort of pretty prize with which he might adorn his mantel?
Mr. Obama's strategic void has been on display in the Middle East since the Arab Spring began in January. For instance, consider Egypt. Obama stood with our long-time ally, Hosni Mubarak, and then he didn't. Then he stood with him again until the political winds shifted, at which point Obama announced that it was time for Mr. Mubarak to go. Our president has demonstrated the same lack of strategic resolve on matters related to Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Our president's inability to grasp strategic concepts is so pervasive that the King of Saudi Arabia said recently that President Obama is a threat to Saudi Arabia's internal security. I think he's a threat to our internal security as well.
... and this has been particularly painful to watch, because this is a crucial moment of history, one of those points at which the whole course of events for decades to come hinges on relatively small decisions at the critical nexus. It's the sort of moment that one would expect to be haunted by time agents, were this a science-fiction story.
Obama has had no clear policy. He's argued for whatever seemed popular at the moment, shifting back and forth with every stray event, leaping hither and yon in an attempt to get on the bandwagon -- any bandwagon. It's gotten so bad that the French actually provided the main diplomatic leadership in the Libyan crisis.
Scholars for decades, maybe centuries to come, will talk about how Obama frittered away these key months. And the worst of it is that Obama doesn't have a clue how badly he's failing, doesn't even realize, as far as I can tell, that anything other than some entertaining foreign news is going on. He's oblivious.
Neil then makes a key point about Obama's election campaign:
It's looking a lot like someone or some group carefully orchestrated a comprehensive strategy to take an obscure Illinois lawyer specializing in community organizing from nowhere to the White House. That plan will go down in the annals of history as a strategic masterpiece -- a stroke of genius. No one deft enough to devise a scheme for Obama's political ascension could be so strategically clumsy in office.
I normally dislike "puppetmaster" theories, because anyone who becomes President has the power to laugh at any who would presume to cut him orders, but it's starting to look exactly as it would if we had an incompetent President. And, as I always predicted would happen, the puppetmaster has clearly lost control: instead, the puppet is making his own decisions, but -- being the sort of imbecile who would agree to be a puppet in the first place -- making them badly.
I look forward to 2013, when we'll have a real President. I'd even take Hilary Clinton -- at least she has coherent notions of what she's aiming at -- if the Republicans can't run a decent candidate. But six more years of Obama would be a national, indeed international disaster -- think about how much damage he could cause, simply by letting the country drift, if he gets to stay in the Oval Office until 2017!