Maureen Dowd So Accurately Portrays our President’s Reluctance to become More than a Cowardly Conniver — Why Does President Obama Consider Himself Immune from Moving the Burden of Life Responsibly Forward?

© 2011 Peter Free

 

27 June 2011

 

 

It often takes a woman’s insight to be bitingly accurate

 

Maureen Dowd’s opinion piece starts this way:

 

Our president likes to be on both sides at once.

 

In Afghanistan, he wants to go but he wants to stay.

 

He’s surging and withdrawing simultaneously. He’s leaving fewer troops than are needed for a counterinsurgency strategy and more troops than are needed for a counterterrorism strategy — and he seems to want both strategies at the same time.

 

Our work is done but we have to still be there. Our work isn’t done but we can go.

 

© 2011 Maureen Dowd, Why Is He Bi? (Sigh), New York Times (25 June 2011) (paragraph split)

 

She continues with equally concise and telling examples.  Insightfully delivered genius.

 

Read her essay here.

 

 

Why Dowd’s criticism and the President’s irresponsible performance matter

 

I often criticize President Obama.  But because I am not (usually) an excessively negative person, I equally often wonder if I’m being unfair to him.

 

What is it about President Obama’s performance that so offends me?

 

Dowd’s essay points exactly to the quality I loathe in ineffectual leaders — an unwillingness to decide, commit, and actually lead.  A reluctance to carry the ball with committed purpose.

 

The occupations and professions that I come from (and I suspect most of my readers also come from) all require a willingness to commit to courses of decided action.

 

All of these ordinary occupations require the self-discipline to bear the burden of inevitable mistakes and failure.  A few require that we be willing to risk our lives or (worse) bear the deaths of those for whom we are responsible.

 

The President offends us because he flees in such a cowardly way from making the decisions and bearing the burdens that we recognize that we routinely have to carry in our everyday lives.

 

 

The ultimate question

 

Why does President Obama consider himself immune from bearing the burden of moving life responsibly forward?

 

Where is his sacrifice?

 

Dowd nails President Obama’s spineless political character to the National Wall of Shame.