Credibility vs. Obama

Published 9:10 am Thursday, September 20, 2012

On the anniversary of 9/11 our country has been attacked.  The attack was a coordinated assault on the Embassy and the associated safe house.  The individuals that conducted the assault were armed with heavy weapons and had the benefit of very good intelligence.  Given the support and preparation, the military style assault resulted in the assassination of our ambassador and a number of the embassy employees.  After allowing our ambassador to be killed, and our embassy to be overrun, the state department and the Obama administration tell us that this is the spontaneous response by a group of religious individuals that were greatly offended by a movie trailer that had been on the internet for many months.

This is what you would expect from a President that started his administration with a wave of legislation that he would not allow to be read until after it had been passed.  Credibility is not a single act, it is a quality that I borne out of a way of life.  We have seen presidents surround themselves with the best and brightest and quietly worked to safeguard and protect the citizens of the United States of America.  We now have a president that has surrounded himself with corruption and, for reasons that are not yet apparent, allowed individuals to commit acts of war against our country.  The President has retaliated against those that committed these acts with a prompt apology delivered by the State Department.

Before the start of World War II, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain became infamous far a similar reluctance to confront the evil of Nazi Germany when he practiced a very passive form of diplomacy that became known as “Appeasement.”  The term that is now being used to describe Obama’s behavior is “Soft Power.”  Soft Power is a refinement of the walk softly and carry a big stick theory of diplomacy.  As practiced by Obama, we give radical Muslims the stick and ask them not to hit us.  In exchange for a soft hit, we offer our solemn promise of a rapid expression of religious understanding coupled with a public apology.

Our president at his inauguration solemnly promised to protect our country from enemies, foreign and domestic.  The operative word is “protect.”   Protection is not obtained from apologies or from capturing and punishing those that attack us.  Protection comes from the elimination of the means and will of our enemies to cause us harm.  The best weapons are those that are never used but our enemies must believe that we as a country have the weapons and the will to use them if attacked.  

The state of our nation leaves me one real worry, that our president will go off in search of a crisis to bolster his credibility and improve his re-election chances.  

Ed Tyler lives in Pell City. He may be reached at ed@edtylerinc.com