Notice that the title of this article is not “Who” do they
think their president is? Rather, it is “What” do they think their president
is? And the reason why I ask the question in this manner is that most media types
in America think – or if not yet thinking – are beginning to think of their
president not as a mere mortal like the rest of us but a supernatural being
endowed with powers to change the world with a wave of the hand or with the
index finger. And when he fails to do so, they accuse him of all sorts of
strange things.
It wasn't always like that for the simple reason that the
chattering classes used to be made of adults who knew that their president was
a leader and not an all powerful daddy who was second only to God, if not equal
to Him. And they knew that everyone around the president, especially the
congress, was populated by adults who considered the president to be a leader
that showed them the way, not a babysitter that was here to cuddle them. More important,
the members of the congress in both houses knew who they were, and did not
expect the president to babysit them – which is what is happening today.
And there were think tanks populated with people that could
think and form their own opinion, not populated with hacks that acted like the
drones of a group think collective, all waiting to be told what to say on an
hourly basis so that they may echo the same notes, but echo them with a
variation that suited the temperament of each drone – which is what is
happening today.
And when you had an America that was populated by a
chattering class of elites, and by leaders at the helm of the ship of state who
were of such high caliber, you had a view of the world that was different from
what the low caliber drones of today are offering. They had a view of a world
that was made of jurisdictions, each headed by a group of leaders who were full
of ambitions for their countries, and the will to realize those ambitions come
hell or high water.
In fact, unlike the drones of today's collective, the
chattering classes of America
at that time did not think that their president could move those foreign
leaders as if they were toy soldiers animated by a remote control in the palm
of his hand with an index finger on the joystick. No, they knew very well that
those leaders were tough minded individuals who could not be fooled but were
ready and able to fool anyone who would make the mistake of taking them for
granted.
The trouble for America
is that while the world has not changed in substance, America 's
collective view of it has. And in the same way that you have the mindless
think-tankers, the media types and the useless legislators, running around
asking the president to babysit them, you have them ask him to also babysit a
world that is growing and maturing at a rate that is above their ability to
understand what is happening, let alone understand the ramifications of all
that.
And so, it should come as no surprise to see shutterbugs of
every political stripe voice their dismay at the president for failing to
intervene in the places where it is clear that there is nothing which the
American president can do to affect the situation except make it worse. This
would be North Africa, for example, where America must now stay out lest it
repeat the tragedy it has created with the Libyan ill-advised adventure.
And there is more because the worst part is that those same
shutterbugs are the ones who also urge the president to ignore the situations
where America
is currently embroiled or has been embroiled, and has created a mess that is
not yet cleaned up.
One such place would be Palestine where America is advised
to stay out when, in fact, it must go in and fix a few things not only because
it can, but because it has the obligation to do so, having created that mess in
the first place and having nurtured it for more than half a century.