by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n Former president Bill Clinton just appeared in a reelection television commercial for President Barack Obama. At one point, Clinton weighs in on the potential consequences of Obama\u2019s decision to go ahead with the planned assassination of Osama bin Laden. He smiles and then pontificates, \u201cSuppose the Navy SEALs had gone in there . . . suppose they had been captured or killed. The downside would have been horrible for him [Obama].\u201d<\/p>\n There is a lot that is disturbing about Clinton\u2019s commentary \u2014 and about the fact that such an embarrassment was not deleted by the Obama campaign. Clinton offers unintended self-incrimination as to why in the 1990s he did not order the capture of bin Laden when it might well have been in his power to do so \u2014 was it fear of something \u201chorrible\u201d that might have happened to his fortunes rather than to our troops? And, of course, such crass politicization of national security and the war on terror is exactly what Barack Obama accused the two Clintons of in the 2008 Democratic primaries. We also remember that Obama on several occasions chastised George W. Bush for supposedly making reference to the war on terror for political advantage, though he never did so in as creepy a fashion as Clinton. And aside from the fact that Barack Obama promised never to \u201cspike the football\u201d by using the SEAL mission to score campaign points, only a narcissistic Bill Clinton could have envisioned the death or capture of Navy SEALs not in terms of those men\u2019s own horrible fates, but only as political \u201cdownside\u201d for an equally narcissistic Barack Obama.<\/p>\n In Clinton\u2019s defense, he spoke not just from his own selfish instinct to see presidential survival as more important than the fates of those who actually took the physical risk. Rather, a year ago Obama himself had already hijacked the mission with a flurry of self-referential pronouns: \u201cTonight,\u00a0I<\/strong>\u00a0can report . . . And so, shortly after taking office,\u00a0I<\/strong>\u00a0directed Leon Panetta . . .\u00a0I<\/strong>\u00a0was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden . . .\u00a0I<\/strong>\u00a0met repeatedly with\u00a0my<\/strong>\u00a0national security team . . .\u00a0I<\/strong>\u00a0determined that we had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at\u00a0my<\/strong>\u00a0direction . . .\u00a0I\u2019ve<\/strong>\u00a0made clear . . . Over the years,\u00a0I\u2019ve<\/strong>\u00a0repeatedly made clear . . . Tonight,\u00a0I<\/strong>\u00a0called President Zardari . . . and\u00a0my<\/strong>\u00a0team has also spoken . . .These efforts weigh on\u00a0me<\/strong>\u00a0every time\u00a0I<\/strong>, as commander-in-chief . . . Finally, let\u00a0me<\/strong>\u00a0say to the families . . .\u00a0I<\/strong>\u00a0know that it has, at times, frayed . . .\u201d<\/p>\n As for the civilian responsibility for approving such hazardous missions for our intelligence and military communities, Obama has never confessed, then or now, that most of the anti-terrorism protocols that led to critical intelligence about the probable whereabouts of bin Laden had been strongly opposed by Obama himself. Indeed, almost every Bush-Cheney policy that President Obama eventually embraced \u2014 renditions, tribunals, Guantanamo, the Patriot Act \u2014 was opposed by Obama as a state legislator, a U.S. senator, and a presidential candidate. Apparently, there is no loudly announced \u201creset\u201d when it comes to the war on terror.<\/p>\n The logic of the narcissistic mind in matters of the war on terror works out something like this:<\/p>\n The president will take credit for all the successes on his watch, without ever acknowledging reliance on the policies put in place during the eight years before he took office, much less admitting that he once did his best to undermine all of those inheritances that he eventually found so useful. And in matters concerning his predecessor, Obama will damn Bush for the bad economy that he left to his successor and yet ignore Bush for the successful anti-terrorism protocols that he passed on.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the latest triumphalism is a continuance of a long line of self-adulation that we have grown accustomed to in Barack Obama since he came to the public\u2019s attention \u2014 the professor\u2019s two memoirs without a single commensurate scholarly publication; the Latinate motto; the faux-Greek columns; the biblical quelling of the rising seas and cooling of the planet; the fallback retreat to the Victory Column when questions were raised about the appropriateness of the Brandenburg Gate as a venue for his speech; and so on. The common characteristics in Obama\u2019s I\/me\/my career have been such rhetorical, visual, and symbolic efforts to mask an absence of accomplishment (e.g., why not even one\u00a0Harvard Law Review<\/em>\u00a0article, or perhaps a single publication as a University of Chicago lecturer, or a successful program as a Chicago community organizer, or a signature piece of legislation as an Illinois legislator, or an acknowledged legislative record as a U.S. senator?).<\/p>\n In the world of a narcissistic Barack Obama, rhetoric need not translate into reality. The more emphatic and emotive the pledges to shut down Guantanamo, the more readily all such serial assurances could be ignored. The more idealistic support is expressed for public campaign financing and scorn for bundling, fundraisers, super PACs, Wall Street mega-donors, the revolving door, and lobbyists, all the easier it is to shun the former and embrace the latter.<\/p>\n The Obama way is to offer the boilerplate \u201cI\/me\/mine\/my team\u201d speech, and then simply let events follow their own course \u2014 as if the fact that Obama weighed in rhetorically on a topic was\u00a0ipso facto<\/em>\u00a0enough. \u201cMake no mistake about it,\u201d \u201cI\u201d have dealt with the jobs, deficit, debt, and sluggish-growth problems. Ergo, they no longer exist.<\/p>\n So \u201creset\u201d is grandly proclaimed for Russia \u2014 with no acknowledgment that relations have so soured with Putin\u2019s thugocracy that Moscow now threatens to take out proposed anti-missile sites in Eastern Europe. Libya is such a strong blueprint of Obama\u2019s competent and moral \u201clead from behind\u201d strategy in the Middle East that who cares that such a model will never be applied to an equally disintegrating Syria? That Obama gave the Iranians five deadlines to desist from nuclear acquisition should have been enough for them to desist: So it\u2019s their problem, not ours. North Korea has been addressed, as if the rhetorical and the concrete definitions of that word were synonymous.<\/p>\n So what is the problem with a charismatic, narcissistic president? After all, most presidents by definition must be somewhat self-absorbed. Yet the rub is that the world has tuned Obama out. All his prime-time rhetoric from Afghanistan, the cool multicultural accentuation of Pak\u00eestan and the Tal\u00eeban, the photo-op reminders that it was Obama who ordered the mission that took out bin Laden \u2014 all this meant nothing to the Taliban, who will now patiently wait us out, unleash a North Vietnamese-like offensive very soon, and remind us that just because we don\u2019t believe there are still things like victory and defeat in our messy wars, that does not mean there are not.<\/p>\n In other words, I worry that Vladimir Putin, the Iranian theocrats, the North Korean apparat, the Chinese central committee, the Muslim Brotherhood, and all the others who detest the United States have sized up Barack Obama. For 40 months they have acknowledged that his postracial image and his youthful charisma, as David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs rightly insisted, threw them for a loop \u2014 for a while. And that \u201cfor a while\u201d is now ending, replaced with a new belief abroad that the more Obama talks about himself and his team, and the more emphatic he becomes with his \u201cMake no mistake about it\u201d and \u201cLet me be perfectly clear\u201d vacuities, the more he can at first safely be ignored, and then, quite soon, safely be taken advantage of.<\/p>\n The problem with a narcissistic president is not just that he sees the world as all about himself, but that the world soon sees that it is not about him at all.<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Former president Bill Clinton just appeared in a reelection television commercial for President Barack Obama. At one point, Clinton weighs in on the potential consequences of Obama\u2019s decision to go ahead with the planned assassination of Osama bin Laden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[78,59,96],"tags":[12,57,1063,345,308,1043,1071,296,238,197,1022,1016],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-cx","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1265,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/october-suprises\/","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":0},"title":"October Suprises","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The Democrats will probably suffer historic losses in both the House and Senate in less than 60 days. The 11th-hour campaigning of the now-unpopular Barack Obama on behalf of endangered congressional candidates will not change much. In fact, most embattled Democratic candidates don't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2010"","block_context":{"text":"September 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/september-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3249,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/al-qaeda-and-the-election\/","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":1},"title":"Al Qaeda and the Election","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 31, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim The American Thinker Is al Qaeda trying to influence the American presidential election? Former counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke\u00a0recently suggested\u00a0that al Qaeda may be trying to do so. After describing al Qaeda's recent attacks in the Middle East (Yemen, Pakistan), Clarke stated that these strikes may have been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7920,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/small-and-petty-from-small-and-petty\/","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":2},"title":"\u2018Small and Petty\u2019 from Small and Petty","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO- The Corner Deconstruct former Obama flack Bill Burton\u2019s hit on Leon Panetta: On Secretary Panetta, he is a guy who has had a long and storied career in Washington and has really served his country well. And it is kind of sad that in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":454,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/let-bush-be\/","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":3},"title":"Let Bush Be","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The theme of the president's 2012 re-election campaign is that George W. Bush left such a terrible mess that Barack Obama could hardly be expected to clean it up in four years. In other words, 43 months of unemployment rates above 8 percent,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3119,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-first-person-presidency\/","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":4},"title":"The First-Person Presidency","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Here are a few excerpts from President Obama\u2019s speech on Sunday night about the killing of Osama bin Laden. \u201cTonight, I can report . . . And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta . . . I was briefed on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Foreign Policy"","block_context":{"text":"Foreign Policy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/foreign-policy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5950,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-second-term-embarrassments-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":5},"title":"Obama’s Second-Term Embarrassments","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Hope and change\" is looking like the 1973 Nixon White House. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online In Barack Obama\u2019s 2008 presidential campaign, he ran to the left of Hillary Clinton as a moral reformer. Obama promised to transcend the old politics and bring a new era of hope-and-change\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mainstream Media"","block_context":{"text":"Mainstream Media","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/mainstream-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":778,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions\/778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}