"OBAMA'S FINAL YEAR COULD BE HIS MOST DANGEROUS" - Steven Bucci/ Feb.23, 2016;
http://dailysignal.com/2016/02/23/obamas-final-year-could-be-his-most-dangerous/ [AS I SEE IT: You can add to the list of things the President has tried to push forward in this, his last year in office - insisting on filling the vacant seat on the Supreme Court and on closing Guantanamo. It seems the list just gets longer with each passing week. - Stan]
The president cannot be allowed to run roughshod over the interests of the American people based on his wishes, legacy, or fears. (Photo: Aude Guerrucci/ZUMA Press/Newscom)
In the military, it is well known that the most dangerous time on any operation or deployment is not at the beginning when you are least experienced, but in the final time period, just before you complete your “tour of duty”. This seems counter intuitive, but is true nonetheless. Scarily, this is also true for President Barack Obama’s final year in office.
As a unit or an individual rolls into the last part of a time overseas, or in combat, three phenomena occur. First, you recognize that you may not be able to get everything done that you planned to accomplish. This causes you to push harder to stuff them in, perhaps with negative results. Next, everyone starts to think about home, and the things that are ahead, after the finish line is crossed, even though it is still in the future. That “daydreaming” can cause one to get sloppy, to forget to do some of the small things that have kept you alive up to that point. The results can be deadly.
At the opposite end, the third effect is when one can become so fixated on getting done and out of there, that risk aversion takes over. In an effort to protect yourself from being the “last casualty”, you actually increase your changes of being hurt by no longer doing what was “working” all along. These three effects can often have catastrophic results. In the military, it is the job of the leader to ensure this doesn’t happen. But what if the leader is the one affected?
This is the danger of Obama’s last year. He has already shown a propensity to force actions that he wants done as part of his “legacy”, at times using dubious Constitutional actions to accomplish them. Opening Cuba, the nuclear deal with Iran, and threat over immigration and gun rights are all examples of Obama’s over reach.
In his desire to bask in the glow he expects to feel as the “former president” Obama has grown even more sanctimonious and preachy, ridiculing anyone who opposes his ideas, or questions his motives. His most recent State of the Union Address was replete with sarcasm and dismissiveness toward any and all who took any view but complete acceptance of his point of view.
Lastly, his already weak foreign policy initiatives have grown ever more impotent. He has left it to Secretary of State John Kerry, whose lack of anything approaching negotiating skills has allowed Iran, Russia, and China to run rings around America at every turn.
Obama has shown all the dangerous tendencies of a man in his last stretch of a difficult deployment.
Unfortunately for the United States, he is the leader who should be keeping everyone else from falling into these traps. When it is a president who is succumbing to these failings who can protect America from the stumbles that are likely to occur? Particularly since Obama has little capacity to accurately gauge his own weakness, and never wants to hear criticism from anyone of his sycophant subordinates.
Congress must step up. As the other operational branch of the government given us by the Constitution, they must play a bigger role. The president cannot be allowed to run roughshod over the interests of the American people based on his wishes, legacy, or fears. As the peoples’ representatives, Congress must act to reign in the dangerous propensities of Obama’s last year.
[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]
Steven P. Bucci, who served America for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official, is a visiting research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Read his research.
http://dailysignal.com/2016/02/23/obamas-final-year-could-be-his-most-dangerous/ [AS I SEE IT: You can add to the list of things the President has tried to push forward in this, his last year in office - insisting on filling the vacant seat on the Supreme Court and on closing Guantanamo. It seems the list just gets longer with each passing week. - Stan]
The president cannot be allowed to run roughshod over the interests of the American people based on his wishes, legacy, or fears. (Photo: Aude Guerrucci/ZUMA Press/Newscom)
In the military, it is well known that the most dangerous time on any operation or deployment is not at the beginning when you are least experienced, but in the final time period, just before you complete your “tour of duty”. This seems counter intuitive, but is true nonetheless. Scarily, this is also true for President Barack Obama’s final year in office.
As a unit or an individual rolls into the last part of a time overseas, or in combat, three phenomena occur. First, you recognize that you may not be able to get everything done that you planned to accomplish. This causes you to push harder to stuff them in, perhaps with negative results. Next, everyone starts to think about home, and the things that are ahead, after the finish line is crossed, even though it is still in the future. That “daydreaming” can cause one to get sloppy, to forget to do some of the small things that have kept you alive up to that point. The results can be deadly.
At the opposite end, the third effect is when one can become so fixated on getting done and out of there, that risk aversion takes over. In an effort to protect yourself from being the “last casualty”, you actually increase your changes of being hurt by no longer doing what was “working” all along. These three effects can often have catastrophic results. In the military, it is the job of the leader to ensure this doesn’t happen. But what if the leader is the one affected?
This is the danger of Obama’s last year. He has already shown a propensity to force actions that he wants done as part of his “legacy”, at times using dubious Constitutional actions to accomplish them. Opening Cuba, the nuclear deal with Iran, and threat over immigration and gun rights are all examples of Obama’s over reach.
In his desire to bask in the glow he expects to feel as the “former president” Obama has grown even more sanctimonious and preachy, ridiculing anyone who opposes his ideas, or questions his motives. His most recent State of the Union Address was replete with sarcasm and dismissiveness toward any and all who took any view but complete acceptance of his point of view.
Lastly, his already weak foreign policy initiatives have grown ever more impotent. He has left it to Secretary of State John Kerry, whose lack of anything approaching negotiating skills has allowed Iran, Russia, and China to run rings around America at every turn.
Obama has shown all the dangerous tendencies of a man in his last stretch of a difficult deployment.
Unfortunately for the United States, he is the leader who should be keeping everyone else from falling into these traps. When it is a president who is succumbing to these failings who can protect America from the stumbles that are likely to occur? Particularly since Obama has little capacity to accurately gauge his own weakness, and never wants to hear criticism from anyone of his sycophant subordinates.
Congress must step up. As the other operational branch of the government given us by the Constitution, they must play a bigger role. The president cannot be allowed to run roughshod over the interests of the American people based on his wishes, legacy, or fears. As the peoples’ representatives, Congress must act to reign in the dangerous propensities of Obama’s last year.
[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]
Steven P. Bucci, who served America for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official, is a visiting research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Read his research.
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