When John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane crashed into Atlantic Ocean off
the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in July 1999 some
observers said he had gotten himself into a “square box,” meaning
that he had run into the limits of his experience and his
imagination.
Barack Obama is in a square box, and observers are now beginning
to talk about his inevitable crash.
There was some question about JFK Jr.’s flying experience.
There’s no dispute about Barack Obama’s executive experience: he
has none. In fact, he is the least qualified person ever to be
elected president.
Prior to being elected, he had done almost nothing. Certainly
nothing requiring, or teaching, executive ability.
He served in some capacity as a “community organizer,” which
Sarah Palin might say is like running a Sunday-school picnic, but
without the kids.
He worked as a civil-rights attorney, whatever that means. And he
taught at a law school, which may be why he always sounds as if
he’s lecturing to twenty-somethings.
He served in the Illinois legislature for a few yeas, but spent
most of his time voting “present.” Then he served in the U.S.
Senate, but for only two years.
Would the directors of any mid-sized company have asked him to be
its CEO? He wouldn’t even have qualified for — in Ross Perot’s
memorable phrase — middle management.
He is a man without significant executive experience in
life.
He also seems to have little imagination. His supporters say he
is tremendously brilliant. Maybe. But how do we know? Obama has
never released his college or law-school grades, and, given the
educational institutions he attended (Columbia College and
Harvard Law School), we are entitled to assume he may have been
an affirmative-action admittee. As he was to the White House.
Besides, the relationship between brains and imagination is not
clear. Harvard brains are obviously not a necessary condition for
a fertile imagination. President Reagan went to Eureka College.
But he had the imagination — the vision — to reduce taxes and
win the Cold War. He inspired America and was the most successful
president of the 20th century. (Roosevelt only won a war. Reagan
won a war and saved the economy.)
Certainly nothing Barack Obama has done since becoming president
shows much imagination. He is a complete knee-jerk liberal. Not a
single action he has taken makes you say, “Wow, that was
clever.”
His economic policy is straight from the FDR-progressive mold.
And although, like Roosevelt’s, it has failed miserably
(skyrocketing deficits, persistent unemployment), he lacks the
imagination to try something else. Even his speeches are turning
into liabilities. Exhibit A (or are we up to Exhibit Q now?): his
Oval Office speech on BP, which his friends panned.
His foreign policy is now a Washington joke. Rude to America’s
friends, obsequious to her enemies, he leaves people wondering
what disaster will be next. He got off to an awful start by
taking the wrong side in the Honduras crisis. The good guys threw
out the bad guy, and Obama backed… the bad guy.
It has only gotten worse. Iran seems set to get the bomb. Israel
is friendless in this administration, even when it seeks to keep
the bad guys out of Gaza, Israel’s Cuba. In Europe he is known as
“Obama the Impotent.” The president of France wonders out loud if
he is “weak.” Obama has even dissed our best allies, the British,
repealing (to the extent one man can) the long-term “special
relationship.” And much, much more.
Some people are suggesting that if the Republicans win big in
November, Obama may make a midterm course correction, as
President Clinton did. But Clinton was a man of experience. (He
was also a Rhodes Scholar.) Before he became president, he had
been elected governor of Arkansas, defeated for reelection, then
reelected two years later. He figured out what people wanted and
gave it to them. He even realized that America wanted welfare
reform, although he didn’t.
Clinton, George Will said, was not our worst president; but he
was the worst man ever to become president. Obama is not the
worst man ever to become president. But he is certainly the most
incompetent, as Americans, watching this weak community organizer
flail impotently against the BP oil spill, are now coming to
realize.
Obama’s performance will not get better, because Obama lacks the
experience and the imagination to make it better. His crash now
seems inevitable.
Mayday!
