Wake-up and Engage

Serious fires are burning around the world and President Obama is playing golf, fundraising and issuing unnecessary executive orders regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. At home and abroad, when it comes to the big issues, Obama is increasingly missing in action or focused on less important matters. Take the border crisis. We recently learned that Obama and company ignored multiple warning signs over the past two years that a crisis was building on the U.S. southern border. In an attempt to look like he’s doing something, Obama asked Congress for billions in “emergency” funds to address the security and humanitarian issues on the border.

And then there are national security and foreign policy matters, which apparently are tiresome for the president. From the escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas and the growth of Islamist terrorist networks throughout the Middle East and Africa, to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Perhaps that is because when you lead from behind, you lead from nowhere – you find yourself constantly reacting, and as appears to be the case with Obama, increasingly disengaging. He seems completely tangential and tentative of how to develop a strategy to contain aggression and terrorist threats in the Middle East.


Obama has shown a propensity to pick and choose what issues he wants to engage and the time and manner in which he wants to do so. Unfortunately, that is not how the world works: Ignoring the hard issues does not make them go away. It only makes them worse.