A Working President?

By D.L. Hammack

Yesterday, with teleprompter at the ready, our illustrious leader spoke (I should say read) a special message to the people of Iran, espousing his understanding of their culture and promising a renewed compassion by the American people. While the basis of the message was similar to the stance by the Bush administration, perhaps it was the delivery of the same that appeared to make him (not us) look so very weak.

In light of his visible participation in many leisure activities, one can only imagine how seriously Iran -- or any other foreign nation takes us. I can picture snickers from abroad as our President parades from a quick message to the Iranian people -- to the Shamrock Day party -- to the Final Four bracket picking session -- to an appearance on the Tonight Show. Perhaps tomorrow he can squeeze a moment between bowling and riding around on Air Force One-to actually attempt to fill one of the 17 vacant positions in the Treasury Department?

Nobody said it was going to be easy. Instead of coddling "man made disasters" (as so eloquently put by our new Secretary of Homeland Security), the President needs to roll up his sleeves and get this economy fixed first. If he doesn't get this one thing right, Iran will be the least of our worries.

Mr. President, America doesn't expect you to do everything. We do however, expect you to oversee the show. You've got a Secretary of State...let her play the games with Iran. Your message with Farsi subtitles seems a bit over the top. I envision US army planes dropping these DVD's and VHS tapes from the skies, taking great caution not to drop them on the heads of those to whom the message was directed (this could be construed as torture by the new AG). God help us if these folks have converted to Blu-Ray!

It is my sincerest hope that the State Department employee assigned to the task of scripting the Farsi translation was not the same one who scripted the word "reset" on Secretary of State Clinton's gift to the Russians! Ahmadinejad could, at this very moment, be reading "earwax is your friend".