The Amateur President

Americans, being Americans, tend to have Not One Clue about the significance of events in what The African Queen‘s Charlie Allnut called “all them little countries”. So when the nation of Poland experienced perhaps its greatest trauma since World War II in the decapitation of it government by a plane crash (a tragedy made twice as bitter by the fact that the reason for the flight was to attend a memorial service for the victims of the Katyn Massacre, which likewise decapitated Poland in 1940), we got a couple of headlines and then returned to the burning issues that obsess American journalists of Generation Narcissus: namely, our money and our sex lives.

To get some perspective, we need to imagine, say, how we’d feel if the President and the Senate were all killed by some crashing airplane as they stood on the site of Ground Zero on September 11, 2011. That’s the emotional impact this has had on the Poles.

So, while I can certainly understand that Obama couldn’t fly to Poland for the services due to the Iceland volcano, I just have to cringe when I read that he chose to occupy his time that day with a trip to the golf course. It’s a classic example of why this guy is *still* not ready for prime time and how he is rapidly pissing away the messianic good will afforded him by Euros who bought the hype on this empty suit. It’s just a fantastically insensitive thing for the Leader of the Free World to do.