Desperate Men Do Desperate Things
A wild animal is most vicious when it’s cornered. When the survival instinct kicks in, it will use every claw, fang, tooth, tail, muscle and anything at its disposal to protect itself.
The same is true of the human animal. The verbal description here, however, is a bit different. For humans, the warning is that a desperate man in desperate circumstances does desperate things.
So be wary. A desperate man is now center stage.
President Barack Obama is desperate. Three weeks ago, he was riding high. He was so far ahead of Mitt Romney in the polls that he felt disdainful of that simple man sharing the stage with him on October 3.
His lack of concern, for whatever reason, resulted in a dramatic shift in the polling. The race is now polled as either dead even or with a slight edge for Romney.
The result has pushed the President into a corner. Vice President Biden, his first line of defense, failed miserably Thursday evening in trying to neutralize Paul Ryan and return the contest to a more even count.
The corner is created when his abysmal domestic record meets a foreign policy that resulted in four American diplomats losing their lives because reports of danger were ignored.
The tragedy of Ambassador Steven’s assassination might have been minimized as a campaign issue if the Obama camp had not tried to cover it up. The coverup was exasperated Thursday evening when VP Biden smilingly contradicted administration intelligence sworn testimony by responding that “we” did not know this was a terrorist attack.
So Obama was faced with having to take the gloves off in the debate or forum Tuesday evening and come out swinging. He had the daunting task of supporting his failed domestic policy and justifying his excuse of waiting for the facts to be developed in the Steven’s murder.
The facts of Ambassador Steven’s and his guards’ sacrifice are as clear as they will ever be for anyone who wants to look. They were the result of a well planned and executed attack by al Qaeda, carried out on an anniversary of 9/11, were not preceded by other demonstrations, and had nothing to do with a degrading video of Muhammad that had been released months earlier.
Because of the deadline for this publication, these words were penned before the forum last night. So I did not know when they were written how the President tried to fight his way out of the corner.
I am guessing that, as there will be no prepared remarks to read from Teleprompters, he will recite a prepared soliloquy quite different from one of his highly regarded predecessors.
Last week I drew a distinction between Obama and Teddy Roosevelt by noting that Obama’s philosophy was to speak softly and not carry a weapon of any kind. Now it is time to note that Obama is no Harry Truman.
President Truman is often remembered for the sign on his desk that read “The buck stops here.” Unfortunately, Obama is no Truman. His spiel will be that, “the buck never got here. It was stopped in the State Department.” There goes Hillary Clinton under the bus again. Will she take it this time?
The administration’s black eye from the Steven’s assassination is darkening so quickly that Obama may not be able to heal it before November 6. His excuse that the incident is still under investigation may not protect him until election day, so he is desperate to create a distraction.
In the three weeks remaining before the election, there is nothing that he can do domestically that would have an instant, dramatic effect to turn the tide. The closest he could come on something in that arena would be to approve the Keystone Pipeline project. That would be welcome, but would be of interest to so few voters that it is hardly worth the effort.
There are several boiling pots in foreign affairs, however, that are potential election savers for Obama. Each requires him to interfere in the internal affairs of Muslim governments. But these are desperate times for a desperate man, so watch out.
The event most likely to occur is an intervention in Syria. After many months of sitting idly by while tens of thousands of Syrians were murdered or forced into squalid refugee camps in adjoining countries, the great humanitarian Obama may say, “enough is enough,” and commit American forces to the rescue. Tuesday of last week, there was a quiet, little noticed announcement that U.S. Army personnel and equipment had moved to the Jordanian/Syrian border. Why? Most of the refugee traffic is across the Turkish/Syrian border.
Another possibility is to launch bombing attacks against the Iranian nuclear program. This is a strike that might require the joint action of Israel and the U.S. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is anxious to take such action. Currently, however, he has such distain for Obama that he probably would refuse any action that might help the president get reelected. The PM is probably willing now to wait another three weeks.
So here’s the perspective.
Syrian intervention could sway large numbers of committed and uncommitted voters to go to the polls on November 6 to vote not to change horses in the middle of a war stream.
A military intervention in Syria would cost more American lives. So what? An election hangs in the balance, and desperate men do desperate things in desperate times.
enough
