Not Incompetence; Planned Chaos

Over at The New Editor, Tom Elia has a a Michael Ramirez cartoon that depicts Obama dressed up in a super-hero costume, but unable to get out of the phone booth.

“Captain Incompetence.”

I dunno if he’s incompetent. He surely does do and say some very stupid things with nary a peep from the formerly gaffe-obsessed press, but then they only notice and hyperventilate over mistakes from the right. That’s old news.

But going back to the question of “competence.” I look at the headlines, and this is what I see:

Historic government spending; to the last nickel, ’til we’re broke. An administration determined not only to shut down access to our resources (and the job-creation that comes from drilling and refining) but actively depleting our reserves, leaving us vulnerable. A government flooding our farmlands in a precarious manner, (guess who may be buying up the flooded land?) and involved in smuggling arms toward a tinderbox.

Early in Obama’s presidency, in 2009, I wrote about his apparent liking for chaos:

With none of the wit or wisdom of Pride & Prejudice, Obama and Company are going to treat us to Chaos & Cajolery.

Basically, the theater production is 137 acts (presented without intermission) of Barack Obama and/or any one of his supporting players (from the veep, the speaker, the secstate, the sectreas and on down to the lowly press secretary) engaged in misdirection and keen sleights-of-hand by means of…well…chaos and cajolery.

This is more than Kabuki Theater. This is more than a burlesque three-step. This is a full-on assault on reality by the office of the Most Powerful Person in the World, fully supported by the pretend-press, and it is alternately tedious and terrifying.

The cajolery is almost over. One more election cycle is all it will take to wholly and forever “remake America” so the stage is being set for chaos. And when chaos comes (and it feels like we’re in rehearsals for it, right now) this administration will “do what it has to do” for the sake of America.

Which will probably have little-to-nothing to do with the constitution.

This imperial president has already demonstrated that he has no patience for process or for waiting for what he wants. He is quite competent at doing pretty much as he damn pleases.

But then, some of us knew from the start that Barack Obama saw himself more as a ruler than a leader. More of a prince than a president.