I recently read Bob Woodward\u2019s new book: \u201cObama\u2019s Wars.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 It provides valuable insight into President Obama and his administration.\u00a0 The good news is that, at least with regard to national security, Obama does want to do what\u2019s best for the country.\u00a0 There is no evidence of the \u201cI hate America\u201d viewpoint of a William Ayers or a Reverend Wright.\u00a0 If he holds that opinion, he is hiding it from everyone, including his own staff.\u00a0 But upon reading this book, which is primarily based on first hand interviews, it is obvious that Obama has an incredible combination of naivety, arrogance and incompetence.\u00a0 In every instance, he views all subjects in terms of himself.\u00a0 For example the military, lead by Admiral Mullens, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General Petraeus was lobbying for more troops in Afghanistan.\u00a0 Woodward shows that the military was primarily motivated by fear of failure if they didn\u2019t get the troops they needed. \u00a0But, Obama viewed this primarily as a personal attack on him and was angry.\u00a0 Regardless of whom you think is right on the subject; the problem is that Obama could not view their actions objectively.<\/p>\n
\u00a0With regard to Afghanistan, it is clear that Obama inherited a really tough situation.\u00a0 I am not sure there is a good solution.\u00a0 The military wanted to send in all those additional troops, but they weren\u2019t exactly promising success.\u00a0 Instead McChrystal was talking about taking 8 or 10 years to get things under control to the extent that the Afghan government could take over their own security.\u00a0 No one was even hinting that a surge in Afghanistan would have results similar to those in Iraq.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0On the other hand Obama was primarily focused on the political fallout rather than the potential risk to national security.\u00a0 The entire basis for his strategy was based on two requirements.\u00a0 First, we would not consider just leaving.\u00a0 Second, we would not consider no leaving.\u00a0 The only question was with regard to the timing.\u00a0 He seemed to be primarily concerned that when things went wrong that he would not get the blame.\u00a0 In other words his primary motivation for approving the additional troop levels was to avoid being criticized from not doing that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Many people have criticized Bush for ignoring Afghanistan, but Woodward\u2019s book hints that the opposite was true.\u00a0 Bush had a bi-weekly video conference with the onsite commanders.\u00a0 He clearly knew what was going on.\u00a0 But Bush was not interested in escalating the war and he ignored the military requests for more and more troops.\u00a0 I suspect that Bush felt the status quo was probably the best result we could expect in Afghanistan.\u00a0 He was quite content to keep the Taliban under control and to make sure al Qaeda did not return.\u00a0 \u00a0That may not be very inspiring, but it just may be reality.<\/p>\n
\u00a0If there is one person in the Obama administration that had the same view as Bush, it was VP Biden.\u00a0 It surprised me that Biden seemed to be the only one who knew what he wanted to accomplish.\u00a0 Biden strongly opposed sending in more troops, with no expectation of actually winning anything.\u00a0 He felt that was the worst possible decision.\u00a0 He suggested that the U.S. should back off from a counter insurgency approach and \u00a0revert to a counter terrorism approach.\u00a0 That would involve leaving enough troops to keep the Taliban under control and to discourage al Qaeda from coming back, but to stop trying to do nation building when no one was even pretending that this was possible.\u00a0 In other words, Biden wanted to continue doing exactly the same thing Bush was doing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Hillary Clinton supported sending in more troops, but she really didn\u2019t think it would work, she just thought we should at least pretend we were really committed.\u00a0 She had strong support from Senators Graham and McCain.\u00a0 But frankly, I was unimpressed with any of them, because no one seemed to think this would really work.\u00a0 I have a hard time understanding why we would escalate a war if we had no intention or even hope of actually winning.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Ultimately Obama made the worst possible decision.\u00a0 He sent in more troops, but not as many as the military said was the minimum necessary.\u00a0 Then he required rules of engagement that concentrated on reducing civilian casualties by increasing the risk to our own troops.\u00a0 Finally he guaranteed failure by publically declaring that we were leaving in 2011 regardless of circumstances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0The interview of Obama, printed in the New York Times recently, combined with Woodward\u2019s book, offers a lot of insight into Obama.\u00a0 If you want to read the actual article, following is the link:<\/p>\n
\u00a0http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/10\/17\/magazine\/17obama-t.html?_r=3&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0Obama really believes that he is brilliant. Several people commented that Obama always thinks he is the smartest person in the room.\u00a0 He has convinced himself that he is uniquely gifted and entitled to power.\u00a0 A few weeks ago I wrote that the number one characteristic of an incompetent person is that they do not know they are incompetent.\u00a0 Obama has absolutely no accomplishments that justify his arrogant opinion of himself.\u00a0 His academic record is mediocre.\u00a0 From all accounts he couldn\u2019t even write his own memoirs and had to dump the assignment on William Ayers.\u00a0 He has no significant political accomplishments and has never demonstrated real leadership on any issue.\u00a0 It is basically the equivalent of someone who never played organized football, at any level, deciding he is a better quarterback than Bret Favre.\u00a0 If you read the characteristics of an extreme narcissist, this appears to be a common trait.\u00a0\u00a0 When one considers how Obama was abandoned by father, his step father and his mother, it is easy to understand why he might develop these traits.<\/p>\n \u00a0Regardless of why, Obama is in a state of denial regarding his own ability.\u00a0 The following quote from the above article is very revealing:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong>Given how much stuff was coming at us,\u201d Obama told me, \u201cwe probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics right. There is probably a perverse pride in my administration \u2014 and I take responsibility for this; this was blowing from the top \u2014 that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who\u2019s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can\u2019t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0No President has been more involved in marketing and PR than Obama and no President has been give more favorable treatment by the main stream media, but Obama fails to understand that.\u00a0 Instead, he thinks that every decision he made has been right, except that he has not done a good enough job of explaining to people why he is right.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0The reporter reminded Obama about his speech after receiving the Democratic nomination, when he said the following:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cwe will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n When the reporter pointed out that so far Obama hasn\u2019t exactly done any of this, Obama responded with the following:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong>I make no apologies for having set high expectations for myself and for the country, because I think we can meet those expectations,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, the one thing that I will say \u2014 which I anticipated and can be tough \u2014 is the fact that in a big, messy democracy like this, everything takes time. And we\u2019re not a culture that\u2019s built on patience.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong>In other words, Obama still thinks he made all the right policy decisions and he actually believes that he alone is capable of saving the planet.\u00a0 It is one thing for a political candidate to say that, but for a President to naively think he is actually capable of that, when so far his policies have been a total disaster, \u00a0is beyond arrogance, it is delusional.<\/p>\n \u00a0A comment by Ken Duberstein, a former Chief of Staff for Ronald Reagan who incredibly admits to voting for Obama in 2008, is very revealing:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cWhen he talked about being a transformational president, it was about restoring the faith of the American people in our governing institutions,\u201d <\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong>An even more revealing remark was made by Peter Ozburg, White House Budget Director who recently left the administration.\u00a0 He was apparently shocked to find out that the business community had a totally different view of things than the Obama administration.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When describing the obvious disconnect between the business community and the Obama administration he said the following:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cI\u2019d thought it was an 8, but it\u2019s more like a 10,\u201d he told me. \u201cAnd rather than wasting time debating whether it\u2019s legitimate,\u201d he added, referring to his former colleagues, \u201cthe key is to recognize that it\u2019s affecting what they do.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong>Ultimately, we are dealing with a President and an administration that is incapable of recognizing reality.\u00a0 It is hard to imagine anyone making good decisions in that environment.\u00a0 When you combine this with the unprecedented level of personal arrogance, it provides a pretty good explanation for what has happened and what is likely to happen in the future.\u00a0 Obama is traveling all over the country trying to save Democrats from disaster.\u00a0 Yet in most cases he is making things worse.\u00a0 Today he said that the reason people are voting for Republicans is that they are too scared to think straight.\u00a0 Perhaps I am wrong on this, but I never felt that insulting voters was a good strategy for winning an election.\u00a0 I expect Republicans to score a historic victory in just over two weeks.\u00a0 I also expect that Obama to continue believing that he is right and that everyone else is wrong.\u00a0 He will blame Bush, he will blame Republicans, he will blame the media, he will blame Democrats and he will blame the American voters, and ultimately he will even blame our democratic system of government.\u00a0 But he won\u2019t even consider the possibility that he might be wrong.\u00a0 After all, he is always the smartest person in the room.<\/p>\n \u00a0TDM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I recently read Bob Woodward\u2019s new book: \u201cObama\u2019s Wars.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 It provides valuable insight into President Obama and his administration.\u00a0 The good news is that, at least with regard to national security, Obama does want to do what\u2019s best for the … Continue reading