Monologue-Obama on Fort Hood

Let me share with you some thinking that I’ve been doing on this whole business of the attack launched by a man who is puzzling, to say the least.  Namely, the character of this fellow, and the kind of warning signals that he was giving off to anyone who had the wit to look, make it very peculiar that he was even in uniform, let alone that he was promoted to a field officer position.  This is despite the fact that he had been telling his colleagues that he opposed the war, that Muslims had every right to rise up, that Muslims should kill Americans, etc.  This is not the kind of guy that you want in the foxhole with you.  I also don’t think you want him providing psychological counseling to those who were coming back from war.

All of this is worrying, but I wanted to express some bemusement at the way President Obama handled this yesterday.  I owe Lars Larson, for putting me onto this because I haven’t seen the entirety of the president’s remarks, but perhaps you did.  The president started off his remarks yesterday before the Tribal Nations Conference, and it was apparently decided some hours after the story at Fort Hood broke that the president would publicly address what happened at this speech.

For two full minutes at the beginning of his remarks the president went on and on in what can only be described a light-hearted way, about the Native American tribes, the great work being done, and how much he appreciates his cabinet members and other officials for the time they’ve spent on these issues.  It was a full fledged pandering to an interest group, but how completely inappropriate in the face of what had just happened.  It was only after two minutes after these shout-outs to  people in the audience that the president finally worked himself around to a statement about the attack.

What this strikes me as suggesting is that this president is ill-equipped to serve as Commander-in-Chief, not only in background and experience, but by disposition.  The juxtaposition of this pandering before he expressed sympathy, let alone tried to shed any light on what had just happened is evidence of a real short coming that bodes ill for our national security.  We may have a politician in chief, but we lack a commander in chief.