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Barack Obama is no George Washington

Posted by B. Daniel Blatt at 10:10 pm - August 10, 2011.
Filed under: American Exceptionalism,American History,Great Men,Obama Arrogance

I’ve been listening to Ron Chernow’s biography of George Washington in the car.  A number of things struck me about this great man who faced much adversity in the early days of the French & Indian War.  Chernow points out how although the young officer in the British army made some, well, bone-headed military decisions, like establishing Fort Necessity, a frontier outpost near French lines “poorly situated to withstand and incursion,” he, by and large, learned from those mistakes.

The current occupant of the office he would be the first to hold seems to lack that ability.  As the fetching Stephen Green observes:

Obama can’t recognize mistakes — even though the evidence is as plain as last month’s hideous jobs report. He will continue to demand that reality conform to his theories, no matter what damage he does to this country. He doesn’t doge, he doesn’t weave — he keeps pursuing failure in the face of failure.

(Via Instapundit.)  Even after the failure of his “stimulus”, with the depletion of our coffers and the diminution of our nation’s once good credit, the Democrat still calls out for more spending* and fails to recognize that the regulations his administration has increased have reduced those he identified as those “produce most of the new jobs in this country” to hire new employees.

The president’s policies haven’t worked.  A real leader would understand that his goal was not to demonstrate the rightness of his approach, but to shift course and find an approach that did.

George Washington did that.  And because of that capacity, he won an unwinnable war and fathered a nation that offered opportunity for tens of millions, inspired others yearning to be free in distant corners of the globe and provided a level of prosperity that few had even imagined.

Our nation achieved all this in large part because George Washington learned form his mistakes.  Would it that Barack Obama could follow his predecessor’s example.

*In his speech on Monday, he said, “We should also help companies that want to repair our roads and bridges and airports, so that thousands of construction workers who’ve been without a job for the last few years can get a paycheck again. That will also help to spur economic growth.“

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6 Comments

  1. Washington is a leader that Obama is nothing like, but if you want to find a “leader” who is most like Barack Obama, I submit Norman Dike.

    He was a real person, though if you’re more an action movie fan than history buff (Or Videodrome user who can no longer tell the difference between reality and television) you may know him as the Ivy League educated officer in Band of Brothers who is always yawning and abondoning his men. Here’s a bit from his Wikipedia entry about the real life version.

    Dike was transferred from Division HQ to Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division in the first week of November 1944 becoming commanding officer. During the assault on Foy, Dike had ordered a platoon to go on a flanking mission around the rear of the town. During their charge, he ordered them to take cover. His squad mates informed him they were going to get killed because they were sitting ducks. At the same time, Captain Richard Winters, former commander of Easy Company and the Battalion X.O., tried radioing him and tell him the same thing. Having no idea of how to control the situation, Dike froze. “He fell apart,” as Carwood Lipton, at that time the company’s first sergeant, would later put it. He was relieved during fighting at Bastogne by 1LT Ronald Speirs, then moved on to become an aide to Maxwell Taylor, 101st Airborne Division.

    Winters later spoke in unflattering detail about Dike in his autobiography, Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Richard Winters. Likewise, in Brothers in Battle—Best of Friends, William Guarnere and Edward “Babe” Heffron do not refer to him favorably. His constant unexplained disappearances, inattention to the men under his command, and his preference for remaining in a foxhole, rather than fighting, earned him the pejorative nickname of “Foxhole Norman” among the members of Easy Company.

    Anyone else see any similarities?

    Comment by Thulsa Doom — August 10, 2011 @ 11:52 pm - August 10, 2011

  2. OT: Dan, didyou read Chernow’s Hamilton yet? Longish, but a great illuminating read!

    Comment by Sonicfrog — August 11, 2011 @ 12:09 am - August 11, 2011

  3. Sonic, it’s on my list. Was thumbing through it the other day at Barnes and Noble, but have a long list and am trying to work my way through War and Peace as well as Dance for Dragons while just starting Gates of Fire as my book to read on the cardio machines.

    Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — August 11, 2011 @ 12:21 am - August 11, 2011

  4. What other president was a Barack Obama?

    Obama is a one trick pony. He babbles and postures and strikes poses and carries on, but he keeps his finger prints off of everything he touches. His one trick is to never be there when the blame is placed.

    He is a tent revival evangelist for socialism who trades in whipping up “the rapture” among the attendees while his confederates move among them and pick their pockets.

    Comment by Heliotrope — August 11, 2011 @ 7:59 am - August 11, 2011

  5. Dude, Barry O. not only isn’t a George Washington… he’s not even Boy George.

    Comment by DaveP. — August 11, 2011 @ 8:00 am - August 11, 2011

  6. Funny Dan – reading the same book right now. Halfway through and I thought man, I bet the big O thinks he’s like Washington right now but nope he truly is not. George did learn from his mistakes and listened to opposing opinions. Barry certaintly doesn’t and never will, he’s WAY to narcissistic

    Comment by Leslie — August 11, 2011 @ 8:46 am - August 11, 2011

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