Obama’s Strange Dichotomy

It’s a strange dichotomy. On the one hand, President Obama is fully engaged, while on the other, he’s about as disengaged as a president can be. What am I talking about? On his watch, government has become more intrusive than ever, yet America has nearly disappeared as a world power. I say that’s strange, but the more I think about it, it actually makes sense in an Obama kind of way.

He believes fervently that government direction and control over people’s lives is “better” for them. Government is wiser and more altruistic, in his view. Consequently, he takes over the entire healthcare system (or at least tries to—the jury is out on that, fortunately) and issues executive orders for things a president has no authority to do. Congress, he claims, is too slow and inactive, so he simply must do all of this on his own. He won’t let a little thing like the Constitution stand in his way. He even dares others to try to stop him:

Sue Me

“I have a pen and a phone,” he warns. “So sue me,” he taunts. Those statements won’t exactly go down as some of the most memorable in American presidential history:Legacies

For the record, I think FDR’s famous line was rather meaningless, but that’s another entire blog post—I’ll skip my thoughts on that one for now.

So our president seems to want to put all Americans in a stranglehold when it comes to their individual choices and he seeks to amass more power for the executive branch than at any time in the American experience. Yet while he focuses on those goals, the world’s problems don’t seem to engage his attention much at all. America, he believes, has been the big bully in the world and needs to step back now. Mouth the right phrases once in a while—Israel has a right to defend itself—but don’t do anything to interfere with the drift into world chaos. In fact, send your secretary of state over to the hot spots like the Middle East and try to win Israel over to all of Hamas’s demands. This is a serious departure from traditional American foreign policy and a near-desertion of one of our staunchest allies.

What does President Obama do while conflagrations abound all around him? He continues to do what he does best:

Oblivious

And fundraisers—don’t forget fundraisers.

While he lives in his fantasy world of government largesse at home and abandonment of global responsibilities, the rest of us suffer the consequences.