Obama's Korea response: Not leadership

During the 2008 presidential primaries, a Hillary Clinton campaign ad asked, "It's 3 a.m. and your children are asleep. But there's a phone in the White House, and it's ringing. Something's happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call, whether it's someone who already knows the world's leaders, knows the military – someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world. It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?"

It may have been an ad designed to frighten people into voting for Hillary, but in November 2010, the phone call wasn't at 3 a.m., it came at 4 a.m. – and it came with the notification that a certifiable bad guy had just launched an artillery barrage on South Korea.

This wasn't a skit on "Saturday Night Live" – the question must be asked, is this the man we want in the White House during these perilous times? Look, I have made no pretense of not liking Obama. I don't like him, I don't trust him, and I have zero confidence in the socialist, anarchistic cabal called his administration. Most importantly, I view him as being incapable of making the decisions all leaders at some point during their tenure must make.

Obama's ability to juggle playing golf, basketball and surviving a fat lip, while blaming former President George W. Bush for his own failings, is not representative of the leadership America needs.

He has an amazing propensity for being wrong-minded and committed to theorized political correctness wrapped in a vestige of socialist progressivism – but at the very time when he should be taking strident steps to keep us safe, he gives all the appearance of undermining our security.

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His entrenched support of the TSA's ridiculous attempts at airport security, vis-à-vis X-rays and groping, would be laughable if not so pathetic. That single act alone shows his dogmatic blindness to what it takes to keep America safe. Evidence as well is the spiteful resolve of his Justice Department, which by trying terrorist Ahmed Ghailiani in federal court allowed him to be acquitted of more than 280 charges in connection with the 1998 U.S. embassies bombings in Kenya and Tanzania – including one murder count for each of the 224 murdered. However, to the Obama Justice Department's credit (sarcasm intended), they did find the acquitted murderer guilty of one charge – conspiring to destroy government buildings.

And now comes the 4 a.m. phone call that the Hillary campaign ad referenced. Obama has promised "unshakable " support for South Korea – he promises to discuss ways to advance peace and security on the Korean Peninsula going forward.

Lofty words – but what exactly do they mean? Are we to expect new embargoes of North Korea? Perhaps he thinks sending a floating armada will frighten Kim Jong-il into behaving.

I freely admit I don't have the answers, but I don't have to. I'm a writer of opinion – I'm not the president of the United States. I'm not the one who campaigned, saying he would "talk" with the likes of Iran's fiendish leadership.

Advanced theories of Keynesian economics, Marxism and making nice-nice with leaders of evil empires, while bashing the country to which he owes every one of his millions of dollars, may be great discourse in a Harvard classroom – but it does nothing to ensure our safety as a nation.

White House spokesman Bill Burton said, "North Korea has a habit of doing things that are provocative." But, "tensions with Kim Jong-il's regime have risen in the past year after the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in March killed 46 sailors. This week [Obama] dispatched envoy Stephen Bosworth to Asia after a U.S. scientist reported that North Korea said it had built a uranium-enriching plant." ("Obama Promises 'Unshakable' Support for Skorea," Newsmax, Nov. 23)

"The combination of the enrichment revelation and then this artillery attack really make[s] it a front-burner issue for the administration, said Victor Cha, who holds the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington."

I see it as a front-burner issue for the safety and security of the United States. The jackals of the world are watching, and his blaming Bush (as is customarily his first course of action) isn't an action plan for this situation.

As I have said, I don't care for the man or his policies, but he is the leader of my country, and as such, I want him to be successful in handling this threat, not only for the sake of South Korea, but for the sake of my country.

Obama needs to take decisive action, and he cannot find the courage to do that by throwing temper tantrums and playing basketball.