Shameful Displays

Derek Hunter | Mar 02, 2014

In a week when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused cancer patients and millions of upset and frightened Americans who’ve lost their health insurance of lying about their Obamacare horror stories, you’d think his hubris couldn’t be topped. But as disgusting and corrupt as the man the Democratic Party picked to lead them in the Senate is (and he is), the man that same party picked to lead the country takes the crown.

President Obama’s week should have ended with him being presidential. Russia had just sent forces into Ukraine, our allies in Europe were caught off-guard and the world looked to the United States for reassurance and leadership. Rather than offer it and stay on top of the situation, Barack Obama marched into the White House pressroom, read a statement that had been written for him and left the room.

Running away from questions like a 5-year-old boy running from the “cooties” might have been understandable had the president run into the Situation Room or to a waiting phone call from world leader. But rather than stay directly involved in a developing situation with major potential geopolitical implications and actually do the job of a president, Barack Obama…went to a party.

The Democratic National Committee held its winter meeting in Washington this week, and the president was scheduled to speak at it Friday. Were it just a Friday, the president giving a partisan speech to an audience of barking seals would not be new or news. But the president of the United States running off to speak to supporters and donors barely a half-hour after delivering a hastily-cobbled-together wet noodle of a statement warning the Russians they shouldn’t do what they’d already done hours earlier was a new low on the leadership meter.

That the president would read such a statement before running off to speak to donors shows either disinterest or ignorance of the seriousness of the situation. That his administration would describe the Russian invasion not as an “invasion,” rather as an “uncontested arrival” demonstrates this.

There is a silver lining, of sorts. We should be thankful the president put his Syrian crayon set away and didn’t draw any red lines in his statement. Again, when you set the bar for success so low you need a shovel to find it, you take your victories where you can.

While at his party, barely 30 minutes after “addressing” a world crisis, President Obama found time to read a joke. He told his adoring minions, “Well, it’s Friday, it’s after 5:00. So this is officially happy hour with the Democratic Party.”

Hilarious, right?

That the president wouldn’t cancel or even delay a speech to the Democrats – a speech so political in nature even the Obama throne-sniffers at the Associated Press said it struck “a decidedly partisan tone”—says even more about his character than the fact he wrote two autobiographies before he’d accomplished anything.

President Obama loves himself, and he surrounds himself with people who love him almost as much. But a condition placed on that love appears to be a willingness to remove the word “no” from your vocabulary.

Did no one in President Obama’s inner circle even wonder about the optics of the leader of the free world running off to a political event in the early stages of a crisis? Did no one worry what this says about how he views himself and his job? He loves being president – he just doesn’t like the work that comes with the perks. But one of the perks is the president gets to decide what work to do and when.

We’ve seen this arrogance from him before – on Sept. 12, 2012. Four Americans, including an ambassador, had been murdered in a terrorist attack in Libya. Dig in, do the work of finding the perpetrators and making them pay? No. Not this president. For him, it meant a 10-minute delay in his flight to a fundraiser in Las Vegas – just long enough to read a prepared statement that included a lie about a YouTube video and to pretend to give a damn.

In both cases, the lapdog media did not question the president and did not report the disconnect and unseriousness of the man who spent enormous energy to campaign for the job then even more to avoid doing it. The mainstream media has earned its treats from this administration. And while “MilkBone journalism” may endear these reporters to the White House, it’s a disgrace to their profession.

Come to think of it, perhaps President Obama didn’t commit the most shameful display of hubris this week. After all, he only did what he’s been doing his whole life. On the other hand, those MilkBone journalists who cover for his failures have sold out their profession, the country, and now a good chunk of the world. And for what? Thirty pieces of kibble and a place at the foot of the throne? That they continue to call themselves journalists is perhaps the most shameful display of all.