Friday, December 16, 2016

Observer-in-Chief

Well, this blog began with a perception that Hillary was the leader Obama could never be, and today's press conference seems to have brought us full circle. He's a decent man, but he is constitutionally (pun intended) incapable of rising to this occasion, of fulfilling his oath to defend and protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Barack Obama has faced many obstacles in his presidency, but only one true crisis. A foreign power has attacked our institutions in order to install its preferred leader -- a man whose low character, disqualifying ignorance, mental illness and lack of self-control will damage America perhaps irrevocably, and which threaten the safety of the world. He is an extinction-level event, but he's putty in Putin's hands. Institutions of the government were complicit in this scheme -- notably the FBI, a segment of which constitutes a treasonous fifth column. But rather than fulfill his oath of office, Barack Obama has retreated into his reflexive decorum. He declined to reveal the true nature of the Russian cyber attack during the campaign, though he knew what it was, for fear of being criticized as partisan. He declined to rein in Comey, both in July and in October, allowing the ego-besotted FBI Director to deliver the fatal blows to Hillary's campaign not once, but twice.

And today, rather than take decisive action -- or any action at all -- to save the country when it is under assault, he chose to throw Hillary under the bus, to laud his own electoral success, to whine about how badly he's been treated, to defend Comey and even Trump, and to prevent any steps that might be taken to avert the impending catastrophe.

Abraham Lincoln took America to war to save it. Barack Obama has chosen a different path. History will not judge him kindly, if there's any history left to relate, or historians to relate it. Once again, the best lack all conviction, even in the face of the worst and their passionate intensity.