Presidential Leadership

For over two hundred years US presidents have faced the challenge of upholding the Constitution, securing the borders, and protecting American citizens. Some have been more successful than others, but it could be said of most of our presidents that they at least tried to do what was right for our country. That has changed.

Now we have a president who, by appointing unelected and unconstitutional “czars,” by the use of Executive fiat, and by the appointment to the Supreme Court of anti-American jurists, is trying to overturn the Constitution. He disdains the sovereignty of the country he was elected to lead and protect by refusing to secure our border with Mexico, and he could care less about the security of American citizens. While drug warlords in Mexico have spilled their war into Arizona, the president is holding border security hostage to his plan of comprehensive immigration reform. Give 12-18 million illegal aliens amnesty and he’ll build the border fence is essentially what he told Arizona Senator John Kyl in a private White House meeting.

Can the president really be believed? He promised 1200 National Guard troops to help the Border Patrol police Arizona’s border. To date the troops have received no orders. He promised 500 million to build the fence. To date nothing has been appropriated. The only thing the Obama administration has done is put up signs warning people as far as 80 miles north of the Mexican border that it is dangerous to travel any farther south, but it has done nothing to alleviate the problem. Moreover, the Justice Department is filing suit against Arizona for taking measures to protect its citizens into its own hands because of the dereliction of the president.

Even if the president got his immigration reform he still wouldn’t build the fence. The track record has proven him to be a consummate liar. He doesn’t want the fence no matter what he says about it. In fact, it is now being alleged that since he apparently doesn’t have the votes in Congress to pass his reform bill he is going to grant amnesty to illegal aliens by executive order.

Obama is showing himself to be an absolute failure as a leader. His community activism was obviously not sufficient to prepare him for the demands of office or the decision making needed in times of crisis. Even MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, the one who gets tingles up his leg when Obama speaks, declared he is lacking in leadership after his address to the nation on the Gulf oil crisis.

The only thing he has done lately that even looks presidential is removing General Stanley McChrystal from leading NATO forces in Afghanistan. McChrystal, much like MacArthur sixty years ago, took his criticism of the president to the public. That was something the president could not abide and still maintain the dignity of his position as Commander-in-Chief. Truman had to relieve MacArthur, and Obama had to relieve McChrystal.

What was most disappointing, however, was that McChrystal didn’t stand by his criticisms when he was called to the White House. He should have known at that point his career was over, so why apologize? Rules of engagement under Obama are so similar to the ROE of Vietnam that one has to wonder if the president really wants to win that war. Our troops cannot shoot first, and when fired upon they have to wait an hour in order to determine the intent of the enemy before defending themselves.

Irony of ironies, the man Obama has chosen to replace McChrystal is General David Petraeus, the one liberal Democrats including Obama were calling “Betray us” in 2007 when he truthfully told them the surge in Iraq was working. For the ordinary right thinking person it would be humiliating to rely on Petraeus now, and for the Democrats in Congress it ought to be a slap in the face. But Democrats have no shame and now, without even an apology for his previous unjustified criticism, Obama anoints General Petraeus as the hero we must have to win. I am all in favor of this choice, but Obama needs to take the handcuffs off the soldiers and let them fight to win or the late Senator Kennedy’s prediction that this will become another Vietnam quagmire will come true.

We are suffering, and have been suffering for a long time, from a real lack of firm leadership in the presidency. JFK betrayed the Cuban freedom fighters at the Bay of Pigs while he dallied in the White House with Marilyn Monroe. LBJ took us deep into Southeast Asia with trumped up charges against North Vietnam, and then refused to let military commanders on the ground win the war. Richard Nixon could have been a great president but protecting crooked cronies on his cabinet became more important to him than the truth and it cost him everything. Gerald Ford failed to understand the mood of the country and suggesting we send troops to fight the communists in Angola caused the country to fear another Vietnam and cost him the presidency.

Jimmy Carter didn’t understand Economics 101 and led the country into a malaise (his own word). Bush 1 started out well but lost his chance at reelection when he broke his promise and raised taxes leading to a recession he denied was happening. Bill Clinton was a philandering playboy who put his own selfish lusts ahead of the interests of the country. Bush 2 also started out well but he turned out to be a globalist with no will power to keep spending under control, and no plan to see the War on Terror through to a positive conclusion.

And now we have Obama. If all we could say was “1.5 trillion dollar deficits,” it would be enough. But we can also say “Gulf oil crisis,” “Arizona border,” “Illegal immigration,” “health care,” “cap and trade,” “unemployment,” “failed stimulus package,” “attempts to buy off Congressmen,” “union payoffs,” “ACORN,” “denial of Second Amendment rights and selling our sovereignty to the United Nations,” “no understanding or appreciation of America’s history,” “disrespect abroad,” and on and on it goes. His approval rating according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is at 45% and dropping.

What we lack in American politics is leadership that puts America first; that loves our country more than life; that is proud to be called American, proud of America’s Christian heritage, and proud of the United States Constitution, the greatest government document ever written; that is proud of America and its accomplishments rather than apologetic for its greatness; that has a vision for the future of a free people unrestrained by excessive government regulation and socialist programs designed to make everyone equally poor; leadership that does not fear special interest groups and political correctness, but has the common sense to do and say what is right for America.

What America needs today is a statesman, a patriot in the White House. We need someone who believes the following:

“There is, in America, a greatness and a tremendous heritage of idealism, which is a reservoir of strength and goodness. It is ours if we will but tap it. And because of this – because that greatness is there – there is need in America today for a reaffirmation of that goodness and a re-information of our greatness.”

These words were spoken at a Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., March 20, 1981, by the only president in the last fifty years to have seen America as the ultimate moral good in the world, and who used that standing and influence to bring to its knees the ultimate immoral evil in the world, the Soviet Union. His name was Ronald Reagan.

What America needs today is a leader with the positive vision, the morality, the humility, and the love of country that Ronald Reagan had. Reagan was the last true statesman we have seen in American politics. The answer to our leadership problem is someone like him, but where on the horizon can we find one?