A post by Maynard
Yesterday, Tammy tweeted this link. Obama, in expressing his resolve to oppose terrorists, explained that “when four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal.”
This in the wake of Obama’s earlier words describing the murders as “bumps in the road”.
I’m flashing back to the Fort Hood shootings. When the terrible news went out, the networks cut to Obama. At moments like this, the leader is expected to reassure the nation. But that’s not what happened.
Instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a “shout-out” to “Dr. Joe Medicine Crow — that Congressional Medal of Honor winner.” Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms.
We expected a serious president and words of concern. Instead we got lighthearted banter.
An ugly fact leaps out: Obama doesn’t care.
Maybe I should say Obama doesn’t care about normal people. Oh, he was falling over himself to offer a few heartfelt words on behalf Trayvon Martin and the false narrative the media was pushing. He rushed into the fray to lecture the nation on that “teachable moment” when Cambridge police arrested Henry Louis Gates. But warriors that die in service of our country get form letters. (Obama did send a personal letter to the family of rapper Heavy D.)
We have become so used to dysfunctional government that we forget it wasn’t always this way. I’m thinking of Ronald Reagan and Libya…
In 1986, Ronald Reagan ordered a bombing raid on Libya. This was after Libyan diplomatic messages had been intercepted proving Libyan responsibility for the bombing of a discothèque in West Berlin in which a U.S. serviceman was killed, along with other deaths and injuries. The raid targeted Gaddafi, who escaped from his compound moments before the bombs fell.
When someone murdered Americans, Reagan took it seriously.
There had previously been a military clash with Libya in the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident. Libya had laid claim to international waters, and Reagan rejected that claim. American warships went to patrol the area, respecting internationally accepted boundaries. Libyan MIGs approached and fired upon American Tomcats from the aircraft carrier Nimitz, and the Americans returned fire. When the dust cleared, two Libyan fighters had gone down in the Mediterranean.
That was the meat of the story. But the aftermath gives us something of a punch line.
The Sidra clash came at night in Washington. Ronald Reagan was asleep. He was not awakened with the news.
The next day, the media pundits jumped on Reagan. Why didn’t his staff wake him up? Wasn’t this important enough to require the president’s immediate attention?
The decision not to rouse the president was made by Ed Meese. It’s said that Reagan was privately annoyed, and put out the word that he should be awakened immediately in future incidents. But, when publicly challenged by critics, he said this:
“If our planes were shot down, yes, they’d wake me up right away. If the other fellows were shot down, why wake me up?”
Reagan was the American president. He cared about us, and it showed.
The irony comes in retrospect. The 1986 bombing raid was opposed by France, Spain, and Italy. Bombers were dispatched from Margaret Thatcher’s England, and they traveled a circuitous route through the Straits of Gibraltar to avoid overflying the turf of our European “friends”. Of course the Lefties condemned the raid.
A generation later, those same allies that shunned Reagan would be begging Obama’s America for a military campaign against that same country and same leader, and without any of the justification of the 1986 raid. We had failed to kill Gaddafi in 1986, and he subsequently “reformed” (sort of) in the wake of the second Gulf War. But in 2011, we used our military to aid the people that captured and sodomized and murdered Gaddafi.
It’s a strange world, and we’ve done some strange things. Is it any wonder that our situation is “not optimal”?
I don’t know what is worse, that he doesn’t care or that we, as Americans, can not believe we have elected a POTUS who doesn’t care. It is a shock to our system and we don’t know how to repond.
Bulls-eye. Great post. I am old enough to remember these things and how Reagan made us proud to be American. Too many voters today are not old enough to know how bad things were under Carter and how Reagan put America back on the right track.
Reagan did it with conservative principles, not by spreading the wealth. Everyone benefitted. Doubtful that our kids are learning that truth in our public schools. We can only hope that on November 6, 2012, history will repeat itself. Young people, contrary to what you are being told, this is not the normal. Hope you get the chance to find this out. Any honest person who lived through the Reagan years can confirm this. God bless America.
Agree, it is a great shock to our system that we have a POTUS that doesn’t care. He not only doesn’t care, he hates American history. I think this is the greatest shock. The Democrat Party and the MSM have been shown that they side with someone who hates American history. America’s struggles have always been toward freedom and honor. To hate that is inconceivable because if you’re not for it, there is nothing that you can be for, not your family and not your soul.
James Taranto had an interesting take on that “non-optimal” bit in his editorial:
Dumb Bastard will care enough to send troops into Libya to shore up his election campaign.
Hoping/praying Nov. 6 is Obama’s permanent “bump in the road.”
Exactly right. I kept thinking how ironic it was that France was actualy leading combat missions over Libya this time. I even see old BBC footage on the european version of History Channel citing those barbaric attacks by the Americans. And Reagan always had forces within an hour flight of the embassy missions in Lebanon if they needed support or evac. It’s time to send the current amateurs in this administation packing. I’m sure they can find jobs in entertainment and media.