The President just can't get break. Everyone in the media has been focused on his detached style of being president and it only seems that even when he tries to act attached he can't get it right. The most recent example was yesterday when he again made a strategic error by being too busy to attend the Memorial Day services at Arlington National Cemetery, sending VP Biden in his place.
He was too busy because he was vacationing in Chicago where reports wee he did almost nothing over Memorial Day weekend except he was going to talk at the Chicago Memorial Day observance. Just when he was preparing to speak the lightning and rain struck with a fury forcing the attendees to race to their buses as the president announced the service was being canceled because of lightning.
His detachment from events Americans hold dear has been obvious since he took office. Perhaps the ultimate insult was when he sent his wife and Joe Biden's wife to throw out the ball at the World Series last year, an honor previously reserved for presidents and most have faithfully attended. The fact it was at Yankees Stadium in the greatest media market of the world made his absence more pronounced.
His fly bys to New Orleans since he took office, allowing 1-2 hours to get caught up with everything going on with Katrina first, more recently the BP oil spill which directly affects four or more states, national tourism and a large chunk of our sea food supply has been repeated three times.
A staged press op is hardly a sign of presidential interest, compassion or empathy for one of the greatest environmental disasters of all time. He was too busy each time to spend more than a couple of hours in the Gulf coast yet twice he jumped back on the plane for multi-million dollar political fund raisers in California. He had a whole bunch of hours available in his busy schedule for those affairs.
It seems the same odd luck undermines the president every time he attempts to take control of the peace process in the Middle East. This weekend, on the eve of the Prime Minister of Israel visiting Obama to once again start the peace process, the Israeli's attacked a convoy of humanitarian aid ships and killed 10 humanitarian workers.
The UN and world were outraged by the action and the trip was canceled. Last time Biden was in Israel and the government announced they were going ahead with building in the contested Arab settlement lands it undermined those efforts to start the peace process.
The frequency with which Israel takes an action contrary to the peace initiatives makes one wonder if they are convinced Obama has no choice but to support whatever Israel does, or they have so little regard for America, the greatest and most consistent defender of Israel in the world, that they think nothing of spitting in the president's eye.
Ironically it seems each of the Israeli blunders came after a visit or phone calls from Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff and former member of the Israeli army, supposedly to encourage Israel to stop destroying the Obama attempts to get the peace talks back on track.
This reoccurring bout with detachment by our professor president will in the end cause him to lose favor with the American people. We didn't hire him to preach to us or apologize to the world but to stand up for America and fight to overcome our problems. As we continue to wait for it to happen Obama continues to slip slide into oblivion in the polls and will drag the entire Democratic leadership and political establishment with him if he can't change.
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