President Obama’s Casually Displayed Disregard for the Worth of His Words Makes Former President George W. Bush Look Good

© 2011 Peter Free

 

05 April 2011

 

 

As a land-rooted Westerner, a handshake is good enough for me — but lie or deliberately mislead, and you’re forever off my list of trustworthy people

 

President Obama, whom I voted for, has fallen off my list of trustworthy people.  President Bush, whom I did not, remains on it.

 

This unanticipated outcome alerts me to the fact that I would rather have a leader with whom I continually disagree, but can count on to keep his word, than one who continually throws handshakes overboard in order sail with whatever easy wind is blowing.

 

Kristin Breitweiser, 9/11 widow and lawyer, thinks somewhat the same thing:

 

I was given two hours of "advance notice" regarding DOJ's decision to not prosecute the remaining alleged 9/11 conspirators in an open court of law.

 

To me, this is a startling and dismal acknowledgment that perhaps Osama Bin Laden did, in fact, win on the morning of 9/11.

 

At least when President Bush was in office, he was candid about his feelings regarding the alleged 9/11 conspirators in our custody. . . . They were less than human to him and he certainly was never going to afford them the benefits of our U.S. Constitution or the Geneva Conventions.

 

Whether you agreed or disagreed with him, you, at least, knew where he stood. And you could . . . rely on his word.

 

Many of us were incredibly relieved to learn that as a matter of course President Obama was going to shut down Guantanamo and support the open prosecution of the alleged 9/11 conspirators.

 

He gave us -- the various widows and children at the meeting -- his golden word. He shook our hands. He smiled broadly.

 

[I]f you can't trust what a man says to a group of widows and children, then what words and promises of his can you trust?

 

© 2011  Kristen Breitweiser, The Sad Defeat of Our Constitution, Huffington Post (04 April 2011) (paragraphs split)

 

 

One cannot combine the courage necessary for effective leadership with noodle-like personal honor

 

Given the challenges the United States faces, and plutocracy’s grip round democracy’s throat, the last thing the nation needs is a smiling, disingenuous, and course-less political manipulator.

 

I recall being often pained by President Bush’s difficulty in smoothly articulating his ideas and by his egregious misunderstandings of reasonable geopolitical strategies.  But I very much appreciated his sense of purpose and his willingness to do what he had announced was necessary.

 

More than two years into his successor’s presidency, I have already grown tired of glib professorial words and rhetorical incantations that almost always prove to have no staying power.

 

 

Leadership on the handshake principle might be more effective than the waffling the President does

 

Two propositions regarding leadership seem to be valid:

 

One cannot constructively lead a nation without vision and direction.

 

And a person without a commitment to integrity and political honor cannot be trusted to sustainably pursue either goal or chartable course.

 

In fairness to the President, violating both of these tenets is the political norm.

 

But he did say he was going to be more than an ordinary politician, didn’t he?

 

Just another conveniently timed untruth.