Obama Going to Cuba But
Not To Scalia’s or Nancy Reagan’s Funeral
By
Leonard Zwelling
Isn’t this the perfect metaphor for the entire Obama
Presidency?
One of the most distinguished jurists of the last 50 years
and the longest serving member of the Supreme Court dies and the President does
not attend his funeral. Then, one of the truly significant First Ladies, wife
of the most successful President of the past 50 years dies and Mr. Obama is a no
show. By contrast, Mr. Obama announces that he is going to go to Cuba.
My complaint about Mr. Obama and the Affordable Care Act has
always been the President’s lack of understanding of the four Ps of Washington:
Policy, Process, Politics and Personality and the fact these are listed in
ascending order of importance. Rather than go to the Congress in 2009 and work
with both sides to develop a rational health care reform bill based on some
sort of principle of health care as a right, the President ceded control of the
bill’s construction to the highly partisan staff of the then senior Senator
from Massachusetts (I worked with these people; they were awful) who died before
the bill could be enacted. Mr. Obama appointed the wrong guy to head HHS in
Senator Daschle because he didn’t pay his taxes (which did not stop Obama’s
choice for Secretary of the Treasury). Then he was surprised that Max Baucus,
who he finally got out of the Senate by making him ambassador to China after
Baucus appeared drunk on the Senate floor (see below), had to chaperone the
bill through the Senate Committees with Chris Dodd (seeing him in action was like watching Captain Kangaroo went to the Hill) and they did such a
miserable job that only Nancy Pelosi could save the bill by blasting the Senate-passed
version through the House after the Dems lost their filibuster-proof majority
in the Senate with Scott Brown’s election to Ted Kennedy’s seat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5Y9X5ggxzA
(By the way, that may mean the taxing and spending pieces of the ACA
are unconstitutional as all money bills must originate in the House
according to Article I, Section 7.)
The President expended no personal capital on the ACA
allowing his surrogates in the Congress do it for him when his personality was
needed. Maybe, we got it and that was the problem. If the ACA was anything it
was aloof, confusing, and useless.
Then there is the President’s inexplicable foreign policy
that Hillary Clinton has chosen to wrap herself around and run on. Goodness
knows why she is doing a Hubert Humphrey imitation from 1968 and clinging to a
President whose stock is not in ascension (well, at least he hasn’t continued
the war of his predecessor like LBJ did.
Wait a minute. Yes, he did). Besides being more imperious and less of a
bully, how is President Barry any different than LBJ other than the fact Obama
did not choose not to run, even if he has chosen not to be involved in the
election to preserve his legacy. I
wonder how much longer that will last. Answer: until he is sure Bernie can’t
win. Then he will endorse Hillary.
I am no fan of the decisions of Antonin Scalia, but to argue
with his critical role in jurisprudence of the latter half of the 20th
century and the first 15 years of this one would be foolish. What could
possibly be the excuse for the President not attending the funeral?
And Nancy Reagan earned the active President at her
gravesite.
Then there’s the fact that the President is going to Cuba.
Cuba has been hostile to the US since 1959 and I am not at all certain I see
what great benefits we will derive now by opening relations with the island,
although perhaps more Americans can visit their relatives at Guantanamo now. (NOT!)
Doubtful that was the reason.
It’s fine that Cuba is now open to tourism and I am sure we
will be able to sell the islanders all kinds of stuff that China doesn’t make
at half the price and sell them already. Blue jeans and Britney Spears.
Regardless, when a Supreme Court justice or a First Lady dies,
you go to the funeral if you are the President. It’s just common respect.
Rushing off to Cuba can wait until you are out of office. Of course, I am not
sure that there are any more golf courses left on Cuba, so why not go now when
we the taxpayers can support your trip?
Mr. Obama is what my grandmother might call a “cold fish.”
He either hides his emotions or, when he shows them, makes a less than credible
case that what he is showing is real. I think he’s a phony myself and even more
than Ronald Reagan is playing a President on TV.
The anger that the Sanders and Trump candidacies represent
is a response to the Hope and Change guy who did neither. Sanders is the hope
of the liberals and Trump the hope of the American Exceptionalists. Bernie is
going to have a YUJE tax; Donald a YUJE wall. Both are reactions to Mr. Obama
simply not being up to the job. Thus neither is Mr. Rubio nor Mr. Cruz who like
Mr. Obama are first-term senators. Do we need another in the White House?
Personally I think that the American people ought to do when
voting for President what Dr. Shine should have done when he was choosing the
next President for MD Anderson in 2011.
