Leading like a deer in headlights
What is "The Obama Doctrine"?
What it appears to be: Whatever President Barack Obama feels like it is at any given moment -- not bound by previous statements, convictions or precedents, but only by current circumstances and how they strike his sensibilities at the time.
Is he the Scarlett O'Hara of American presidents, wandering the White House after another leadership disaster saying, "Tomorrow is another day"?
I'm sure our president would like a sympathetic think tank somewhere to come up with a fancy name for "The Obama Doctrine." Perhaps "The Enlightened Humanitarian Aggression Doctrine." Most Americans, however, should call it what it is: "The Deer In Headlights Doctrine."
At one point in Monday's address, in which the president allegedly explained his military action in Libya, I thought he might shed a tear on cue, pull out a can of Coca-Cola, sway from teleprompter to teleprompter and karaoke the song "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing."
"I'd like to build the world a home, and furnish it with love. Grow apple trees and honey bees, and snow white turtle doves."
It's almost as if Barack Obama hopes the world will see him as the David Carradine character on the television series "Kung Fu": Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine, a thoughtful warrior seeking only peace. Instead, Obama comes across more like a deer on the freeway explaining the theoretical dangers of oncoming traffic.
Bottom line: When the headlights of a crisis whiz by, Barack Obama reserves the right to dart left, right or just freeze, hoping someone else does something to avert catastrophe.
When Obama ran for president in 2007, he told voters that in times of international crisis he would dart to the left:
"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
Last week he told citizens that in times of international crisis, he would dart to the right:
"As commander in chief I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests."
The truth of the matter, however, is most of the time President Obama just stands there speechifying about the world in the abstract while the world stage moves from act to act.
When freedom-loving Iranians took to the streets against their oppressive government, the Obama administration sat on its hands, allowing the government to kill protesters.
Amid the revolt that ended the reign of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Obama lingered on the wrong side of current events. Eventually, the people of Egypt pushed Mubarak out, again leaving Obama staring into the headlights of history. He similarly dithers in Tunisia, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain.
Even in Libya, it was France -- not America -- that pushed the world to action. French leaders tried for weeks to get Team Obama off the dime to support humanitarian efforts and a no-fly zone in Libya.
Back in 2002, Illinois state Sen. Obama said this:
"Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. The world would be better off without him. But I also know Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States."
And now President Obama seriously tries to make a distinction between stopping Libya's Gadhafi and not stopping Iraq's Hussein? Make that argument to a generation of Kurds wiped off the face of the Earth, professor Obama.
Shall we celebrate a president who selectively opposes genocide depending upon the time, place and who else he can persuade to join him in doing the right thing?
Look, we live in a dark and dangerous world. And no matter how hard you wish you'd "like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony," the world suffers profound evil for which there should be absolutely no accommodation.
In that, Mr. President, tomorrow is not another day. Deal with it or move aside.
Sherman Frederick (sfrederick@reviewjournal.com), the former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and a member of the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame, writes a column for Stephens Media. Read his blog at www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm.
