A Necessary Glimpse Of Stark Reality

We've probably all been there at one time in our lives. Staring intently at the screen, on the edge of our seats, as the Good Guy glares down the barrel of his raised gun at the Bad Guy, who repeatedly demands that the Good Guy drop his weapon. In grim futility, we yell at the screen, beseeching the Good Guy to not do it!, but he eventually lowers his gun and dejectedly tosses it aside a mere second before the Bad Guy puts a bullet through the head of the Good Guy's loved one, tosses her lifeless body to the ground and splatters the guts of the Good Guy on the pavement.

The Good Guy's motivation was clear and even understandable to a degree. After all, he did what he thought was the only thing he could do to diffuse a tense situation in which hung the balance of his love's life. We, the audience, knew all along that the situation was hopeless but were powerless to persuade the actor on screen of such. He just couldn't hear us. Sure, the hero recuperates and seeks out those responsible for his loss and necessity for healing, but he has lost any reason for living save for vengeance. So much for fantasy; let's deal with reality.

Barack Obama is much like the hero in the film in as much he can't hear our plaintive cries nor understand the gravity of the peril. But he will gladly toss our weapons aside in the hopes of assuaging our enemies. Fortunately, he has not as yet attained the role of the "hero". He is, however, trying mightily.

The danger lies in the initial days of a Presidency, and one article points out the dark possibilities eloquently; it was written by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown and it casts a glaring, bare flourescent light on an Obama win in November and what it could mean. An excerpt:

On the night of January 20, 2009, a new commander-in-chief will leave the inaugural podium, parade, and festivities for the Oval Office. A national security staff ready with the first "threat briefing" will join him there. On his desk, they will place a thick binder of reports, each focusing on real or emerging threats on our national security. In the quiet of the Oval Office -- in the presence of these stern-faced, deadly serious briefers and advisers -- Barack H. Obama, should he be the next president, will come face-to-face with reality.

To reconcile my analogy, here is another excerpt from the piece:

The USS Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier, is now under construction in Hampton Road, Va. It will be ready to join the fleet in 2015, replacing a carrier launched 47 years ago. Do we know that the USS Ford will be needed in 2015?

No, we do not. But can we afford to bet against it?

Obama thinks so. According to his own campaign literature, he is willing to let the USS Ford, and many more of tomorrow's defense technologies, rust at the pier.

For anyone who fails to see the relevance, we simply cannot afford a Commander in Chief who believes that we can toss our weapons aside and expect to reason with any given number of madmen who still hold theirs. They will surely kill everyone we ever loved if given the opportunity. And we won't even have the potence for revenge. If this is referred to as "cowboy diplomacy", I'll take it over cowardice and appeasement any day.

-Woody

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