I very clearly, distinctly remember watching the 2004 Democratic Party Convention keynote address by the virtually unknown junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, and remarking to my wife, "He will be the first African-American president." It wasn't really a fast forward, we were fully engaged in Iraq, Afghanistan, littler conflagurations with Jihadists at home and abroad, and then the housing/mortgage swamp was emerging to be murkier though not deadlier than Katrina.
It was, it seemed even then, an inevitability that Obama would prevail over the most honed politician the times could ever call for. I don't mean John McCain, obviously. I mean Hillary Clinton. How could someone not even with eighteen months' tenure in the U.S. Senate (and pathetically fewer days/hours/minutes in real time) prevail over the first truly viable, albeit liberal, female politician who'd vanquished Whitewater, Lewinsky and her own husband's achilles heels PLURAL, became a powerhouse senator in a state that prides itself on lend lease representatives (Bobby Kennedy) LOSE to a smoove talking community organizer from the Chicago machine? In-con-THIEV-able (sorry, Princess Bride.) John McCain? Who? The hero from Hanoi Hilton? John McCain? Cat food.
Little by little, the light of day shone upon him whom blowhard Hannity called "the Annointed One" for the interminable days of his first term. We learned that Obama was above really punching the time clock in the Illinois State Senate, and if he did he either was just "present" or really dug his heels in when it came to officially prohibiting basic life support in abortatoriums should the fetal matter actually breathe under its own power after the late term effort to make its life ceast and desist. But, now president, Obama would take to Capitol Hill such an obtuse vision of universal health care. He would throw billions of paper dollars at banks, auto manufactors and other entitled on borrowed currency owned by the emergent odd capitalists in the PR of China. And he would cross his arms when begged to engage congress in the backroom messiness of real governance not because he cloaked himself in transparency, (how prescient) but because he preferred flying all over the country, nee the globe in Airforce One just on the premise of showing the earth and whatever aliens might be picking up our signals (joke) just what America and real change "looked like." And he kissed the Saudi King's ring.
What became apparent to anyone, including his own cabinet members who bailed, is that in no way could this man be called an executive. He simply never showed up for the gig. He never really showed up for anything but a party or an honor being bestowed for his benefit. And he betrayed everyone and everything he said from 2004-2012 insofar as returning America to its status as both a haven and harbor for justice, truth and true freedom. He can't manage.
This has nothing to do with his rival tonight, Mitt Romney. The election, book (as in bookies) and jury is out on him unless and until he should prevail.
But, Obama not only cannot, but will not manage to fulfill his responsibilities should he prevail. And I desparately hope I'm proved wrong should that be the case. But if he treats global competitors like Putin (via his whispers to Putin's woebegone messenger Medveyev) like his BFF, God help his enemies. He can't manage.
And that's all I have to say about that.
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