A Failure to Lead

The Colonel was the least effective leader to ever make rank in the history of the United States Marine Corps (maybe even in the history of organized armies), but even he cringes at the total lack of leadership on display at the White House this Spring. The young man from Chicago/Harvard/Indonesia/Hawaii/Kenya has a a truly enviable oratorical ability, but every lance corporal in the last rank of the third platoon of any rifle company knows that a speech from the man in charge is just that--a speech. The Colonel knows--he's given quite a few speeches over the years that fell lightly on the auditory systems of those over whom he held a position of authority and yet caused not one muscle-moving synapse to fire.

Speeches don't lead--action leads.

One needs only a cursory glance at the headlines to see examples of leadership failure by this President and his administration. Every page front portrays weakness on every battle front. The three of you who regularly waste valuable rod and cone time perusing posts hereon don't need the Colonel to tell you what is going on.

Gonna tell you anyway.

The destructive slick of oil washing ashore in Louisiana on the otherwise gentle waves of the Gulf of Mexico is analogous to the dangerous slick of criminality riding the otherwise gentle waves of migrants crossing our border with Mexico. Our national leaders have done nothing to prevent either. In response to both national emergencies, the Obama administration has done little more than give speeches pointing fingers at others (BP and Arizona, in particular) for what the administration portrays as "inappropriate" actions to protect the American people from the destructive effects of both.

News flash, Mr. President--of all of your responsibilities to the citizens of these re-United States, keeping us safe from invasion--be it human or chemical--is your paramount priority. The great irony is that you want the federal government intimately inserted into every orifice of our lives and yet sit fiddling like Nero as two immense threats to our domestic ease sweep over us like fire.

There is even further irony to consider. The world, for which our President pines to be the Messiah, sits precariously this warm season on the precipice of hot war. As the Colonel tippy-taps this missive, Israel prepares to strike Iran's nuclear capability; the powder keg on the Korean peninsula has a lit fuse; China is flexing its new muscle in the Western Pacific; and our troops in Afghanistan are preparing for what may prove to be the most pivotal campaign in the entire Global War on Terror (or whatever other misnomer by which our fight with radical Islam is referred today). In response, our President is attending political fund-raisers in California and playing golf with cronies in Chicago.

And to top it all off, President Obama delegates the duty of attending the Memorial Day commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery to the man who would prefer that the title "Capital of the Free World," for which the men and women lying in honored repose therein gave their last full measure, be given to Brussels instead of Washington.

To quote what our current Vice President claims he told President Bush, "Look behind you, Mr. President, nobody is following you."