President Obama Fails the Leadership Test Provided by the Gulf Oil Spill

© 2010 Peter Free

12 June 2010

Failing the playground test

President Obama lacks the gut level, spine-based connection to American citizens that is required for successful presidential leadership in dealing with the Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

He is not a man that many of us would confidently follow into combat.

Although the media has reported that Americans want the President to exhibit more emotion, what they really want is for him to act with the action-oriented, goal-directed command that genuine leaders exhibit.

Instead, at every turn, he fails the childhood playground and adult combat sergeant/platoon leader tests.

That is why no one fears crossing him.

The President's lack of determined, public interest-oriented spine reveals why the federal government's intervention into the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill has been so ineffectual.

Indeed, the President's complete about-face, from his pre-election insistence on change to his post-election love-fest with plutocrat-loving insiders, reveals a man without the personal integrity necessary to motivate a combat squad, much less a nation.

There seems to be something about politicians, generally, that makes them unsuited to honorable and effective leadership in times of crisis.  History remembers only a handful of exceptions.  Despite his narcissistic ambitions, I doubt the President will ever be one of them.

Even in this time of extraordinarily compelling environmental crisis, the President and his administration seem determined to avoid providing the kind of leadership that would elevate the American soul.