Lyles: Where is our commander in chief?
By Dick Lyles
After 2008, anyone who thought the major television networks or national news publications would not be acutely biased for Mr. Obama in 2012 simply wasn’t paying attention. But how many thought the blind devotion to their pro-Obama, anti-Romney mantra would permeate so-called news reporting to the current levels?
During his presidency (and during his brief stint as U.S. senator) Mr. Obama proved his skill set is limited to campaigning — not leading. And he can only do that well when he uses a Teleprompter. Take that away and his true philosophies emerge to work against him. Remember his impromptu gaffs such as, “those people cling to their Bibles and their guns,” and “you didn’t build that?” But now that his campaign is failing, the extent to which the major media is covering for him is preposterous. Look at two recent examples.
Every poll (including Mr. Obama’s internal polls) shows that if Mr. Obama’s performance becomes the issue, he loses in a landslide. Accordingly, the Obama campaign spent about $150 million so far this year on what everyone (except the hardcore Obama Kool-Aid drinkers) agrees is the meanest, angriest, most divisive, personal-attack-focused and dishonest media assault in history.
Yet despite these record-setting vicious attacks, most polls show Mr. Romney holding his own. Rasmussen, which was the only poll even close to predicting the last election, has Mr. Romney up by three points. This is an amazing campaign fete by any standards.
Yet the national media has spun this with criticism saying “Romney must not be a good candidate if he can’t separate himself more from Obama after all this campaigning.” Maybe Mr. Romney knows something these “news” hacks don’t. The election is in November, not September. He doesn’t need to win now, he needs to win then. To stay close enough to win or be slightly ahead now is a major victory, given the assaults he has endured. The second issue has to with the most recent attacks on our embassies in the Middle East. The administration proclaims these attacks are not attacks against America or the Obama administration, despite the fact that the protestors are killing American diplomatic staff, burning American flags and shouting “death to Obama.” They are not burning DVDs, attacking YouTube or, smashing their computers in response to a video most people have never seen.
Emerging evidence clearly shows the recent attacks were planned in advance and were orchestrated to commence on September 11. They were not spontaneous and coincidental. According to Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif in an NPR interview, “The idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous. We firmly believe that this was a pre-calculated, pre-planned attack that was carried out specifically to attack the U.S. Consulate.”
How should America respond? I agree with Kirsten Powers who says how not respond: “… our leaders shouldn’t let our enemies know that when they kill our people and attack our embassies that the US Government will act like a battered wife making excuses for her psychotic husband.” Under Mr. Obama the battered wife syndrome has become America’s current pathology. He’s saying, “Go ahead. Beat us up. We’ll make excuses for you and probably even support your misguided aims.”
No one now expects Mr. Obama to lead in the formulation of an American response. He clearly lacks the skills. But he should at least participate in forming a response rather than continuing to campaign uninterrupted. We need a commander in chief, not a chair left empty by a “campaigner in chief.”
Dick Lyles, a Poway resident, is a business/management consultant and best-selling author.
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Posted by Steve Dreyer
on Sep 19 2012. Filed under Columnists.
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I agree with you Dick that attack on the consulate was planned. It seems like too big a coincidence that the attack occurred on the anniversary of 9/11 attacks, however, part of the issue surrounds the definition of “planning.” Was this something in the works for months, which intelligence had missed, or was this an opportunistic event, planned just 24 or 48 hours earlier, that could not have been prevented? U.S. officials do not discount the possibility of the latter, but thus far there is no evidence of the former. Gen. Petreus briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee and there was bipartisan consensus that the Administration had no actionable evidence of the attack. As far as the Administration's response, there was no apology. The consulate statement Romney referred to was: "the [American] embassy opposes continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions." How is this an apology?
And, speaking of politics, it was 100% pure politics for Romney to claim there was an apology (which he claimed in a statement PRIOR to the attack on the consulate). The Admin. has condemned the attacks and violence on numerous occasions. so for you to cherry pick your quotes in order to support the claim that the Administration is asking for it is just plain unfair.
How do you propose we respond instead?
Also, by the way, today's Rasmussen tracker has Obama up by 2 points: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/po...
Yes Dick, how do you propose we respond? You asked the question, then proceeded to detail what you feel we shouldn't do.
The problem with your "battered wife" analogy is this: It's very easy to punish an individual act of violence. Unfortunately, things are much more complicated. Do you propose we punish an entire country for the actions of a a handful of radicals?
Taking a lesson from this experience, here’s your answer on how we respond from now on.
We know our embassies are at high risk of attack – planned or otherwise – in certain countries. If we want to maintain embassies in these countries, we need to renovate these facilities to include newly fortified defense barriers as well as underground, heavily fortified ‘safe’ bunkers for quick escape and occupancy of civilian staff and representatives. We also need to have a sufficient body of heavily armed U.S. marines stationed at these embassies at all times. We need to have heavy and mobile U.S. military forces, especially jets and helicopters, at the ready and within range of backup. We also need to heed any advance intelligence about such a threat of attack from now on. We also need to completely authenticate and certify foreign embassy workers for a maximum security clearance
Thus, if our embassies are attacked, we won’t need to verbally respond to anyone. Our response will be swiftly and soundly saving our embassy facilities and the lives of our embassy personnel.