I do not think it means what you think it means

Lately I have noticed a sentiment that is bubbling up in the ranks of conservative punditry after two years of the Obama presidency.  There seems to be this notion that Obama could be a remarkable president if only he would take hold of the mantle of leadership, reject the failed Leftist policies he has heretofore championed, and tack to the center as Clinton once did.  He could go down in history as the president that led the country to reform our unsustainable entitlements of Social Security and Medicare, decrease our alarming deficit, cut spending, strengthen our defense, etc.

Fred Barnes wrote, “On almost every major issue since he took office in January 2009, Obama has dumped responsibility on someone else, merely paid lip service, or let the issue quietly fade away. Just this year, the issues that have gotten the no-leadership treatment from Obama include: the deficit, the debt, Medicare, Social Security, Medi-caid, energy, corporate taxes, medical liability, immigration, and Libya.”

Let us back up a bit.  As an attorney Obama did…nothing of note, except for his defense of Acorn—the now defunct, but still around as another name, community organizing association.  As a community organizer he did…nothing.  He knocked his political opponents out of races through legal maneuvers by challenging petitions and then as a State Senator, Barack Obama did…nothing.  He voted “present” on issues where a simple “yes” or “no” was apparently too overwhelming, and is credited with no major legislative initiatives.

He was elected to Congress as Illinois’ Senator against an opponent–Alan Keyes–that entered the race with three months to go and who was a reflection of the disarray the Illinois Republican Party was in then and now.  There Senator Obama also did…nothing.  He did not sponsor a single significant piece of legislation, and after two years of service believed he was qualified to run for the President of the United States.  After his January 16, 2007 announcement to enter the race he missed a stunning amount of roll call votes, leaving the citizens of Illinois, for all intensive purposes, without representation.

Source: govtrack.us

The only campaign where he had an worthy opponent was for the presidential race, and then he had a brilliant staff, millions of dollars, and the whole “white guilt” syndrome going for him, along with being an “…articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” (Vice President Joe Biden), who had a “’light-skinned’ appearance and speaking patterns ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.’” (Senator Harry Reid)

It is not really a matter of, as Barnes’ byline states, “Lead? President Obama would prefer not to,” but as I have pointed out, more that he never has and is possibly incapable of it.  Not even the decision to kill Osama Bin Laden dispels this specter, since could you imagine a president not making the decision to take out America’s number one enemy given the chance to do so?  Hardly irrefutable proof for viewing Obama as a decisive leader.

And regarding his incoherent and inconsistent foreign policy, Caroline Glick writes, “To date, Obama’s stewardship of US foreign policy has been marked by gross naivete, incompetence and a marked willingness to demean and weaken his country’s moral standing in the world.”

While Barack Hussein Obama’s narrative is a great American “rags to riches” story, why do we seem to be expecting so much more?  This intelligent, articulate forty-nine year old man has no history of remarkable feats except the winning of the presidency on a flimsy resume, brilliantly packaged for mass consumption by a capable staff, propelled by an economic crash of biblical proportions and the fawning adoration of the Lame Stream Media based on the dawning of “Hope and Change.”  Unfortunately no one bothered to ask, “Hope for and change to what?”

There is also another perspective, if we assume that Obama is the intelligent, decisive man that some say he is: he is doing exactly what he means do be doing when he is doing nothing on those matters which matter most, because that is his intention.

So which is it: naive and incompetent, or brilliant in his intention to destroy the American way of life that the freest people in all of human history have enjoyed the fruits of thus far, along with the diminishing of our superpower status?    None of these conclusions are very comforting.

Copyright 2011 Julie Schmidt.