He should have seen it coming.
Our 1972 Olympic Basketball team got the same smackdown as the Soviets got more do-over’s in the final three seconds than a tot at a tee-ball game, and the IOC did nothing to rectify the farcical results.
The IOC’s susceptibility to the Salt Lake Organizing Committee’s loose spending habits, only cements their place in the books as an unprincipled band of hooligan’s incapable of taking any action that does cater to their own direct interests.
An astute President should have seen it coming. A nimble leader would have assessed the potential pratfalls and developed alternative courses of action with less risk, and a higher potential for positive return. A less egotistical President would have stayed home and let the chips fall where they may on such an unimportant issue.
Instead we have a self-absorbed narcissist as a President who believes that his mere presence and some vacuous oratory will carry the day.
Swing and a miss.
How did we get such a vapid minor leaguer as a President?
Don’t be shocked, it is the formula that gets liberals elected to office.
It is a simple formula. Get a relatively unknown politician, without much of a political history (read as voting record), promise change from the evil Republicans, and you win.
The Democrats have been unable to run a prominent politician successfully since LBJ, and even then, he rode in on a wave of sympathy following the JFK assassination. Baggage such as a lengthy voting record in the House or Senate prevents liberal politicians from getting elected in a national election.
The formula is simple, run from obscurity. This is the Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton formula. Come fast from nowhere, with little political baggage, let the polls define your positions, pander as required, remain an enigma as long as possible, be a good orator, avoid specifics, and win the Presidency.
It will take the populace a while to figure out that you’re not all that polished a leader, but with a little experience as a Governor of a small, uncomplicated state, you’ll manage just fine.
Obama was able to add a couple more ingredients into the formula, making it almost impossible to see how inept he would be once elected.
He had the Chicago Machine behind him. This push ensured that he would be able to get elected to any office in the State of Illinois without ever having to cast a vote that would have come back to roost. He could remain as innocuous and ineffectual as possible, and still advance his career, which he did.
He also had the adoring press snuggling up so close to kiss his feet, that they gave little scrutiny to his real potential to lead this country. They were busy schilling for Obama from the get go. Having the press aiding with a full-on sales campaign was another benefit that neither Carter nor Clinton fully enjoyed. Obama simply rode the wave of blathering adoration created by a tsunami of biased journalists and a paucity of critical analysis.
In fact they gave his lack of leadership no attention at all.
In the end, propelled by machine politics and propped up by a lap-dog press, America voted for Chauncey Gardener; an un-vetted, pseudo-savant, loosed into the real world from the protected sanctuary of Chicago politics, wholly unprepared to lead the most powerful nation on earth in one of the most challenging times in history.
And his unpreparedness shone as he was completely incapable of taking on the bush-league antics of the IOC. Don’t think that this lesson was lost on Iran, the Taliban, North Korea, and others.
The Commanding Officer of an infantry battalion has more leadership experience than Barack Obama, and is likely more effective at his assigned duties.
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