President Obama missing the point

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

The latest “pain” inflicted by the sequestration was the furlough of air traffic controllers.

It has been widely speculated in the press that the Obama administration is trying to find pinch points whereby the sequestration can be made most painful to the population with the premise that then the Administration can blame the Republicans.

It took Congress and the president exactly one week to fold to public pressure on this one.

This is a perfect example of applying high school-level logic when adult logic would better serve the president’s purposes.

The president is self-inflicting a double-whammy with this approach.

First, he is reinforcing the view shared by at least half the population that government is ineffective and we want less of it. He thinks more government is better, contrary to this half’s view. If we can’t rely on the government to do the things with which it has already been tasked, how can he possibly think this lack of service helps make his case for bigger government?

Secondly, this line of action makes him look weak.

“I can’t do anything because of the Republicans.” Really?

That makes me feel real good about national security. Suppose North Korea actually manages to lob an atomic bomb at Austin, Texas? Is that going to be the Republicans’ fault, too?

If he really wanted to make his case, he would have acted as follows: “I am the president and under my authority, despite those nasty Republicans, I am going to move some budgetary items around and make sure the planes fly on time, the trains run on time, and the national security is at its highest level for the government has made these promises to you and it is my sworn duty to make sure they are kept. Now, in the meantime, this means we are going to have to postpone some things that can be postponed, but please call your representatives and put some pressure on them because we cannot postpone them forever.”

If President Obama would take this stance, he looks strong and he looks like he wants the government to serve the people. No one could possibly argue with him if he took this approach.

Instead, besides the weak, wimpy stance he has taken toward sequester, when we see his power displayed it is in a way it does not win him friends.

So, often we see him say that since Congress did not pass bill ______ (fill in the blank), he is going to use Executive Orders to go around Congress.

This is back to high school – it is like the bully who just does what he wants to do because he can push the other kids around.

Worse still, in the bigger picture, is how actions like this affect our enemies. We don’t need a weak looking president when the likes of Syria, Iran, North Korea, possibly China and others are out to test our mettle.

World leaders pay closer attention than our own population to the leadership and decisive qualities of our president. He has already “gone wobbly” on Syria’s use of chemical weapons.

Israel says Iran will have a bomb by late this summer. There is no reason to believe this President will do anything about these matters and his own lack of resolve on domestic issues only reinforces this.

Iran played this game before. Under the feckless Jimmy Carter they held our citizens hostage for 444 days. They were released within minutes of President Reagan taking the oath of office.

Iran’s skills and the skills of others like them, in sizing up our leaders, have not diminished.

If the president is following his own counsel, or being guided by others, his approach is completely missing the big objectives.

However, I guess that is not surprising — he has been playing “small ball” all along.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga., following decades of wandering the world, and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.