America and the Obama Factor

Our current President has grown increasingly bizarre. I saw his press conference last Friday and have seldom seen a more disjointed and incoherent presentation. He rambled and mused and babbled, while seldom giving a real answer to the questions. Also, he seemed to carefully hand pick the reporters who got to ask questions. Thus he was assured soft ball questions and he had difficulty answering those.

Then, we have the horrific attack in Germany. That was Monday. As I write this, it is Wednesday morning and we still have no statement from the President. He could at least issue a statement of condolence, but, so far nothing. We do, however, have a lot of pictures of him playing golf in Hawaii. By the way, he has an awful golf swing.

He is still praising his administration's efforts in Syria. That is quite odd since Syria has almost been reduced to rubble and the death toll is at least in the hundreds of thousands. The rebel forces we are backing are being stomped. I am still not sure why we armed these rebels because, even though they oppose Assad, many are closely tied to ISIS. And we armed them. Contrary to the old saying, the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. To conduct foreign policy based on such inane drivel is juvenile, yet for years it has seemed to be the basis for much of our foreign policy.

In addition, between rounds of golf and sipping  Mai Tai's on the beach, he is busily signing Executive orders banning oil drilling in the Atlantic. Forget the fact that we need to stop depending on Arab oil, forget the fact that we can create good jobs by drilling, why is he bothering. Trump has made it clear that all those Executive orders are going away very quickly.

He is also signing Presidential pardons at a furious clip. No one has had the time yet to review just who is being released and, no doubt, some of them deserve release, but I will bet huge sums that the release of some of the folks will turn out to be a bad idea. That's always the case and while Obama does have the right to pardon, a wee bit of restraint may have been a good idea.

Then, we have Gitmo. Today, he is ordering the release of 22 of its inmates and it seems likely that the facility will be emptied by the time he leaves office. These inmates are the worst of the worst, and, given the terrorist organizations they come from, that is saying something. This will not end well.

I seriously believe that Hillary's failure and the inevitable dismantling of his legacy, something he seems obsessed with, has so rattled him that he has become a bit unglued, Blessedly, we have only 30 more days before he has to hand over the reins to Trump.