No one is qualified to become President of the United States. It's a job that requires a clear slate with the flexibility and cunning to read the signs in the sand and react appropriately. Only one imperative is indelible: protect the national security of the United States of America.
Recent events tend to underscore once more the critical skills of leadership. The first rule is recognizing the need to build a team with complete and complementary skill sets to supplement deficiencies in the leader. All bases must be covered. John F. Kennedy owes his entire positive reputation to his unique ability to gather highly skilled staff around him; a staff that supplemented his weaknesses; a staff that would offer sound advice. Others, like Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, weren't no lucky (or skillful?) and were lured into grievous errors by their staffs. Unfortunately, Barak Obama takes the lack of this skill to an entirely new level. An amateur himself, he has surrounded himself with amateurs who add nothing to fortify his weaknesses.
The second rule of leadership is to articulate clear definition of the mission and a firm dedication to it, no matter what. Everything a U.S. President does must be defined in terms of national security; not political survival, not party politics, not personal agenda, or not what history will write (the legacy). Again, Obama fails miserably.
Obama's campaign promise to close Guantanamo was based on emotion and lacked any consideration of national security. In fact, if Guantanomo ever does close, it could seriously endanger the entire economic structure of the U.S. Nearly all of our export wealth sails through the Gulf of Mexico, right past Cuba. In a time of conflict, skilled missileers could shut down much of our export capability. We would be seriously wounded and many of our friends wounded mortally. I submit that Guantanamo is very important, if not critical, to our national security. Its closing should not become a political trophy.
I won't expand on how the current "band of amateurs" leading our country has negatively affected our image throughout the world. We need someone like Ronald Reagan to return us to the prominence we once enjoyed. We may still be the major world hegemon, but it's in spite of the Obama administration, not because of it.
Very recently, a bungled rescue attempt caused the execution of both an American hostage and a South African hostage who was destined to be returned safe to his family. All of the critical players in this rescue attempt dropped the ball. No one even knew that successful negotiations had reportedly ensured the imminent release of the South African hostage. What's even worse is that we may have known but didn't care! Instead of going home alive and well, South African hostage Pierre Korkie was executed by his captors during the bungled attempt to free American hostage Luke Somers. Both of these men were innocent victims of a weak and amateurish American government; of fractured diplomatic and intelligence systems.
One last caveat: Barak Obama is not an African American President. He is the President of the United States of America, after stripping away all of the labels that tend to flavor how we view people and what we expect of them. He was elected to office not once, but twice, to represent the American people (all of them, also minus any defining labels) and to protect our national security. History will determine whether he lost his focus or never had it. History will decide whether he was a victim of bad advice or of world events. History will be initially cruel and unforgiving, but eventually will sort out and focus on the empirical truth. It worked for Truman and I hope it will work for Obama. He deserves his place in history, based on the merits, or lack of them, and nothing else.
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