Suddenly, America is sick and tired of Barack Obama. He has become an embarrassment and, worse than that, a threat to the personal security and peace of mind of American citizenry as a whole. It is all too obvious that he is not up to the task of being captain of the ship of state at a time of increasing peril.
So what to do about it?
Should he be impeached? If so, for what crime?
You can’t impeach him for the “crime” of frivolity — or the “crime” of excessive partying at fund-raising junkets with his Hollywood pals during national emergencies.
You can’t impeach him for the “crime” of poor judgment — thinking back to the decision he made in June to release five Taliban commanders in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, an alleged deserter. He celebrated that “victory” by bringing Bergdahl’s parents to the White House and acting as though their son were a hero.
You can’t impeach him for the “crime” of vapidity — through weak and meaningless statements such as the one he made last week after Islamic terrorists beheaded American journalist James Foley, saying: “One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century.” How can he say that when ISIL (aka ISIS and the Islamic State) — thanks in no small part to his feckless leadership — controls more territory than Great Britain? Perhaps he was just musing — “ISIL has no place in the Century of Obama.”
Lastly, you can’t impeach him for cruel insensitivity — to Foley’s parents, and also to millions of others (including some of his most stalwart supporters) who were stunned and outraged by this most public and horrific of executions — having seen the video of it which ISIS placed on the Internet as a warning to Americans of much greater horrors to come. Moments after the press conference in which he condemned the beheading, the president was captured in a series of photos looking like the happiest kid in the world — flashing a big, toothy grin and doing fist bumps with his buddies on a golf course in Martha’s Vineyard.
Other still more serious “crimes” committed by Barack (“The Tide of War is Receding”) Obama include willful ignorance and false prophecy. From the earliest days of his presidency he and other members of his administration have steadfastly denied the existence of a serious threat to this country and the rest of the civilized world from the rise of Islamic militancy. Even after the slaughter of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans in Benghazi on the night of September 11/12, 2012, he and his spokesmen denied the reality of a terrorist attack — saying it was a spontaneous demonstration that got out of hand rather than hard evidence of mounting animosity against the U.S.
In an interview with the New Yorker in January of this year, he flippantly downplayed the growing menace of al Qaeda-linked militants such as ISIL as no big deal, saying “if a jayvee team puts on Laker uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.”
Even though there is an abundance of evidence showing that he is wholly unsuited to the job to which he was elected (and not just once but twice), none of the “crimes” that I have listed is truly a crime and none rises to the level of an impeachable offense. What’s more, the last thing this country needs is the distraction of impeachment proceedings taking up much or even most of the time left in the Obama presidency.
Last Friday, we witnessed the strange spectacle of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Secretary of Defense urging the American people — and the president of the United States — to prepare for a protracted war against the surging Islamic state. They spoke of its “apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision.”
I say it’s too late to bring the 44th president on board in any such effort.
So I have another suggestion. I say it’s time for president to resign from a job that he doesn’t seem to like anyway (apart from the fund-raising parties and vacations). Let him go off at taxpayer expense (no price too high) on a permanent vacation, maybe even join the PGA tour, if that is what he wants.
Let Joe Biden finish up Obama’s presidency in the same way that Gerald Ford mopped up after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in the middle of his second term.
Like Ford, Biden is another journeyman — even if (in Biden’s case) a goofball and a blowhard. Unlike his boss, however, Biden is not a slacker. I would guess that he cares more about this country and thinks more highly of its people. Expectations for a Biden presidency would be low, but that in itself could be a plus. He might actually be able to grow in the job.
People have joked that the gaff-a-minute Biden was Obama’s insurance policy against the possibility of impeachment. Right now, almost anyone would be better than the puffed up and “charismatic” Obama.
Andrew B. Wilson, a frequent contributor to The American Spectator and a former foreign correspondent, writes from St. Louis.
