The Barack who cried "wolf"

One of the most important aspects of leadership is to maintain your head while all about you are losing theirs.  When chaos rules the day, people depend upon their leader to maintain his cool and lead them through troubled waters.

The steady hand calms the troubled hearts.

If everything faced by a people gets elevated to crisis level, they rally to their leader's side during the first, second, and perhaps third sudden catastrophe.  Soon, they become wearied and ache for a return to normalcy.

That's assuming a real catastrophe even existed.  In the event that the people rally only to find phantoms and cardboard cut-outs, they'll weary far sooner.  Disillusionment will set in and it won't take long until the people ignore their leader when he impassions that wolves have entered the fold.

These thoughts ran through my mind as I noted this headline in the Sunday paper (why do I keep finding such stomach turning fare in the Sunday paper of all places?):

Obama declares H1N1 crisis

We're at war with the runs?!?

President Bush started this habit of calling us to arms against windmills in the bank fiasco of a year ago.  President Obama didn't miss a beat when he started the new year bygoing to war again to save our failing auto industry.  And then he took our angst on the road in a world-apology tour.  Then came health care.  Billions and billions dying on the streets of Des Moines!  In recent days, a more demonic percolated to the surface.  The White House sought to neutralize the threat to our nation caused by Fox News.

"This is not time for talk.  We must act now."  Against what?  Most the folks on Main Street look at one another and shrug their shoulders.  Ma and Pa Kettle will take up pitchforks against the hooligans behind the razing of buildings in New York City.  They don't take kindly to being asked to fork over their hard earned cash to give to fat-cats who couldn't keep their books balanced.  Nor do they get giddy over a national battle against network they watch if they want something in the ballpark of objectivity.

And now it's body ache and fever.  Might I recommend a low-cost hand-washing and cup of chicken soup?  Perhaps a few days rest and a close-at-hand supply of toilet paper.

Armchair quarterbacking, how about we resolve Afghanistan?  All in or all out.  What about the cancer which manifested itself on 9-11?  Let's take care of those bananas.  They are nowhere near close to unleashing their anti-American, anti-Semitic malignancy.  How might we defend against that?  A constitutional perspective would lead one to believe that the chief tasking of our government  is to protect the people.  The military oath includes protecting against all enemies foreign and domestic.

At the very least, it would be refreshing to see an issue come to the fore in the next week or two that doesn't immediately go to the head of the national crisis class.  Maybe he would consider waiting until after the World Series is over.  I'm not going to bet my Cracker Jacks on that.