Commander in chief goes AWOL

The Glorified One has disgraced himself. Not even his remarkable ability to fly away on the wings of his silky baritone is going to get him out of this one.

We are speaking, of course, of his self-revealing actions following the Fort Hood massacre.

Even his spaniels in the mainstream media can't quite stomach it. Here's a quote from NBC's Chicago bureau:

After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.

But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow -- that Congressional Medal of Honor winner." Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?

Who is advising him? Is this a live president or a computer graphic image whose comments must wait for the animators? A grown-up or a child to be instructed on how to behave in adult company? I expect that if you learned of the bloodbath at Fort Hood you would not need to be primed by advisors, your mind and heart would tell you what to say within moments. It might not be eloquent, but it would be authentic.

And when The Glorified One reached the point in his agenda where he was called on to make a few sounds about Fort Hood, he said: "We don’t know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts."

Nowhere in human life does anyone have all the facts about a situation. Even in a criminal court case, the jury is to decide on whether the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, not to demand every possible relevant fact be proven. If we waited for all the facts before making a decision or choosing an action, we would be paralyzed.

Obi could have said, "Military justice will take its course. As commander in chief of the army, I cannot comment because it might prejudice the legal case." That would have been a reasonable and dignified response from a president. His implication, though, is that no individual -- as opposed to the legal system -- should reach any conclusion based on what we already know.

Had there been a visible cartoon-like thought bubble above Obi's head, it probably would have read something like: "Hold your horses while I get my lawyers and advisors together to work out how we're going to play this."

How is he going to play it? Mark my words. He will murmur sympathies for the families of the victims of this "tragedy." He will pass the message down the line that Hasan (I have broken him from the rank of major, even without having all the facts; deal with it, Obi) is to be tried on purely criminal charges; his politico-religious system and his jihadist tendencies that already had him under FBI investigation will meticulously expunged.

I don't know if a military trial can exclude the press, but the judge can probably limit the reporters on hand to a few trusted left wingers from the likes of the New York Times and Washington Post. Or maybe an army psychiatrist, with his career on the line, will receive hints that he might do well to find Hasan mentally incompetent to be tried.

This could be a game changer for The Glorified One, however. The facts that he wants to obscure are too obvious. And even in our country's comatose tolerance of all enemies, foreign and domestic, the murder of our own soldiers who are about to risk their lives overseas is something Americans will draw the line at. At least some of our hitherto gullible citizens will find themselves forced to reconsider the man they elected as president, and what his real values are.