An Epitaph for Obama

When Barack Obama ran for the presidency in 2008, most thinking Americans knew that, not only was he ineligible to serve as president, he was totally unprepared and totally incompetent. And if he has any real accomplishment during his first six years in office it is that he has proven us right in our assessment.

Combing through the history books, it is difficult to find a national ruler as incompetent and inexperienced as Barack Obama.

History tells us that, in 1995, King Oyo of the Toro Kingdom of southwestern Uganda became the ruling monarch of two million people. Born on April 16, 1992, he was three years old when he ascended the throne. It is said that, on the occasion of his coronation, he slid off the throne, ran to his mother, and hid his face in her lap.

Knowing Obama as we do, it is easy to imagine the same thing happening in the White House living quarters each evening as Obama completes another frustrating day, unable to grasp the complexities of governing the greatest nation on Earth and measuring minor successes only by his ability to blame policy failures on George W. Bush, or Republicans, in general. Like King Oyo, Obama likely seeks motherly solace from his wife whenever he is stymied, called to account, or held up to ridicule.

In the world of Barack Obama, the only “known knowns” are things he knows, except that what he knows is nearly always wrong, while all “known unknowns” are seen as things that someone else attempted to fix but screwed up. In Obama’s world, there is no such thing as an “unknown unknown” because, always seeing himself as the “smartest guy in the room,” there couldn’t possibly be problems lurking in the shadows that he didn’t know about or hadn’t thought about.

John I, of France, was born on November 15, 1316 and died five days later, on November 20, 1316. Born a king and dying as a king after reigning for only five days, John I holds the unique distinction of being a king for his entire life and for having the shortest reign in recorded history,

Although we know from the calendar that Obama did not occupy the White House until he was forty-eight years old and that he has governed for only six years, his performance in office has made those six years feel like a lifetime.

Mary Queen of Scots, was born on December 8, 1542 and became Queen of Scotland just six days later. At age five, Mary was sent to France where she was bequeathed to Dauphin Francis, the three-year-old son of French king, Henry II. The two were wed when Mary was just sixteen and Francis was fourteen, but after only seventeen months on the French throne, at age eighteen, Mary returned to England to assert her claim to the thrones of England and Scotland. Finally, on February 8, 1587, after more than twenty-five years of back-stabbing and political intrigue, she was sentenced to death and beheaded. During her much-traveled lifetime, Mary lived in twenty-six different castles and palaces and two prisons.

Historians tell us that the game of golf, played over an 18-hole course, was invented in Scotland sometime around 1450, less than 100 years before Mary became Queen of Scotland. Given that Mary lived in twenty-eight different castles, palaces, and jails in her lifetime, we can safely assume that Barack Obama has played golf within a stone’s throw of many of them. Making almost daily use of Air Force One, a $180,000 per hour aircraft, it might be difficult to prove which of the two, Barack Obama or Mary, Queen of Scots, has been the most widely traveled.

King Sobhuza II became King of Swaziland in November 1899 when he was just four months old, and served his country continuously for eighty-two years. In 1968, Swaziland gained its independence from Great Britain and King Sobhuza oversaw the writing of a new Swazi constitution. However, Sobhuza discarded the constitution five years later, in 1973, and served as the absolute ruler of his country until his death in 1982.

Like King Sobhuza, Barack Obama has great disdain for constitutional principles and the rule of law. Instead, he prefers to rule by edict. If Obama has a secret role model who has served to inform his approach to governance, it is almost certainly King Sobhuza of Swaziland.

In December 1908, Manchurian Henry Pu Yi became the last emperor of China. He was two years and ten months old. At his coronation, Pu Yi had to be carried to the throne by his father while kicking, screaming, and clawing. After just three years on the throne, a revolution toppled the dynasty.

Like Emperor Pu Yi, Barack Obama was reduced to kicking and screaming when he saw the election returns in November 2014. It was then he realized that he would have to spend his last two years in office confronted by a Republican-controlled Congress.

If, in the royal dining rooms of the infantile and juvenile rulers mentioned above, the royal chef served a single pie to a group of dinner guests, it is assumed that he would divide the pie into a number of pieces equal to the number of people at the table. It is highly unlikely that they would have thought to solve the problem by simply having the palace chef bake a larger pie.

This dilemma represents Barack Obama’s view of the U.S. economy. It has apparently never occurred to him that, if he wants each American to have a larger share of the nation’s prosperity, it might be a good idea to simply grow a larger economy. Instead, even as he rants and raves about the disparity of income between the rich and the poor, his policies have served only to shrink the size of the economy. What Obama does appear to understand about economics is that, when it comes time to divide the economic pie, government must always be first in line.

Other than economic principles, Obama shares one other major characteristic with these infantile monarchs: like they, he is totally inexperienced and incompetent in office and is forced to rely on the judgment of his principal regent, Valerie Jarrett, whenever he is puzzled or is required to make a decision. What is most frightening is that, not only is Obama a complete incompetent, he sits at the helm of the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth, making him one of the most dangerous political leaders of all time. The damage he has already done, and hopes to continue, will be difficult if not impossible to repair.

In the epilogue to his epic recounting of World War II, The Guns at Last Light, author Rick Atkinson summarizes Adolph Hitler’s role in world history, saying, “Humanity would require decades, perhaps centuries, to parse the regime’s inhumanity, and to comprehend how a narcissistic beer hall demagogue had wrecked a nation, a continent, and nearly a world.”

He quotes Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw as saying, “Never in history has such ruination – physical and moral – been associated with the name of one man, the chief instigator of the most profound collapse of civilization in modern times.”

To better understand the times we live in and what lies in store for us and for our children and grandchildren, it is only necessary to reread the words of Rick Atkinson and Ian Kershaw, substituting the name Barack Obama for Adolph Hitler and substituting the words “South Chicago community organizer” for the term “narcissistic beer hall demagogue.”

In the event someone might still be in doubt about my feelings for Barack Obama, I would like to endorse the sentiments recently attributed to conservative actor Clint Eastwood, who is quoted as saying:

“There will be a clear, cold morning when there isn’t any ‘more.’ No more hugs, no more special moments to celebrate together, no more phone calls just to chat… So, just in case I’m gone tomorrow, please know this: I voted against that incompetent, lying, flip-flopping, insincere, double-talking, radical socialist, terrorist excusing, bleeding heart, narcissistic, scientific and economic moron currently in the White House! Participating in a gun buy-back program because you think that criminals have too many guns is like having yourself castrated because you think your neighbors have too many kids.”

As Obama’s helicopter departs the south lawn of the White House at noon on January 20, 2017, Ian Kershaw’s suggested epitaph for Adolph Hitler’s gravestone will be running through the minds of many Americans. Heaving a sigh of relief, they will say, “So – that’s the end of the bastard.”