JUST NOT THE LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD

DATELINE: ScaredyCatville, August 24 –  Barack Obama seems to enjoy being President of the United States as long as he can skip being the leader of the free world. There’s just no other way to explain his managing to be out of town when crises erupt on the international stage.

Take last week for example. Obama has long refused to negotiate with terrorists. True to his word, on August 20, he refused to surrender his leisure time to them even after the beheading of James Foley. His hasty retreat to the golf course after condemning the gruesome act generated criticism from all quarters in the U.S. and ridicule from abroad.

The President was on the first tee box about four minutes after concluding his denouncement of the barbarity. During his five hour round, he cavorted with his friends, fist-bumped to celebrate good shots and generally had a really great time.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron returned from his vacation simply because a British citizen might have wielded the killing blade. Cameron was hailed as a hero for that small act of personal inconvenience. By comparison with the American President, the British PM looked like a super leader.

Obama’s reaction to the criticism of his self-centered disregard for ordinary decency was, if anything, even more unseemly. The next day, he played another 18 holes, his eighth round in eleven days.

The President is manic about keeping to his anywhere but the Internationla stage schedule. On July 17, 2014, 289 people died, including one American, when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down. Undeterred, the President went to Manhattan to attend two fundraisers. His appearances were also mere hours after Israel began a ground assault into Gaza.

The week of July 7, 2014 the President attended three fundraisers in Texas but skipped viewing first hand the immigration crisis on the Texas border. The White House said he didn’t have to see the mess because he was aware of the situation.

However, nothing makes one aware like being there. After all, Obama surveyed first hand the Hurricane Sandy aftermath. But, that was in the very last days of the 2012 presidential race, a ready-made campaign appearance. A photo op with Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was too huge to forego. There was no photo op for the President on the border.

On February 28, 2014, as Russian troops moved into the Crimea, the President was at a DNC fundraiser. Thirty minutes earlier he had warned the Russians of his deep concern and that there would be a price to pay. Although he wasn’t clear, he probably didn’t mean the cost of the beers at the Democrat blowout.

On September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi massacre, Obama spoke at a presidential campaign fundraiser in Las Vegas. On his way back to Washington the next day he stopped off in Colorado for one more. The day after that, Clinton and Obama met the coffins of those killed in Libya at Andrews Air Force Base. That evening Obama was off to, yes, another campaign event.

The excuse given for sticking to his heavy absentee schedule during international crises is that Obama takes the White House with him wherever he goes. Even so, Golf Cart One is a little tough to believe.

It’s more like talk was all the President had to offer in response to the Foley beheading. Once his nice speech ended, it wasn’t just the dais he hurriedly left behind.