Obama's Speech Yesterday

I had the TV on during President Obama's national security speech yesterday while I was working, and there were more than a few things that I found appalling. Unfortunately as he decided to talk for nearly an hour I just don't have enough energy to go through the whole speech. You can find the full text here, although I must say that reading the entire speech, more so than waterboarding, should qualify as torture. But I digress. There are two things I want to touch on.

The first is that Obama said the following in his speech.

"I took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief, and as a citizen, I know that we must never, ever, turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake."

I invite you read the role of the President in Article II of the Constitution. Although I vehemently disagree with what Obama is doing in regards to national security, he does have the constitutional authority to pull troops out of Iraq, close Guantanamo should he choose, or ban enhanced interrogation techniques. I think closing the prison and giving constitutional protections to terrorists as well as broadcasting to those who wish us dead what we will or will not do to extract information is unwise to the highest degree. This naivety is one of the reasons I see Obama as so unfit to serve as President.

I'm not sure though, given the regard he claims to have for the Constitution, how he can so blatantly disregard the limits placed on him and the rest of the federal government by that document when it comes to domestic policy. Will someone please click the link above read the Constitution. It will do you good. They don't really teach this well in schools anymore. Hell, I don't remember ever reading it in school. Does it mention providing health care to everyone living within our borders? No. Does it give the authority to take over multiple private companies and industries? No. Does it give the President or Congress the right to attempt the stifling of free political speech? No, the exact opposite. Does it give the feds authority to dictate what local schools are required to teach? No. Read the whole Constitution (it's pretty short) and then read the Bill of Rights, specifically the 10th Amendment. Does it give the federal government the power to do half the crap it does today? NO!

I ask again, given Obama's allegiance to the Constitution, how does he reconcile what he and the Congress are attempting to currently do within our own borders?

The second issue I wanted to address about the speech was concerning Obama's leadership. As I was watching, I attempted to keep track of the number of times he blamed Bush but I honestly lost count. Obama reminds me of a cheap sleight-of-hand magician, drawing your attention with a flourish of his left hand while making the real moves with his right. Also reminds me of Richard Gere's character in Chicago. Giving the old razzle dazzle. On one hand, he says that we can't be focusing on the past but must be moving forward. On the other, he spent most of the speech throwing the Bush administration under the bus, even at one point saying that Bush left him to clean up "something that is - quite simply - a mess; a misguided experiment..."

United States Presidents don't do this. They don't publicly bash other US Presidents. This seems to fall along party lines. In my lifetime, I've seen Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton, and Obama. Given that Carter is still alive, I'm pretty familiar with him as well. I've seen Carter and Clinton attack their successors, and now have seen Obama attack his predecessor. Reagan and the Bushes? I don't recall ever hearing a peep of negative language about their select group of colleagues. This would be the difference between statesmen and politicians.

Constantly laying blame for the situations you find yourself in at other's feet is something kids and adolescents do. You're the President! Whatever happened to "The Buck Stops Here"? The fact that Obama is breaking with tradition and publicly calling out another president for the problems he is facing (sometimes legitimately although many times not) tells me that he is lacking two things: leadership and class. I feel you need both of these to be an effective President and with Obama it's just not there.

What say you?