While Hollywood sang Obama's praises

By William Tate

With North Korea threatening imminent war, the 30,000 American troops who are little more than a Lebron James jump shot away from the DMZ can take comfort that their Commander in Chief was -- no, not in Washington supervising the State and Defense Department responses to the situation first hand -- but in Hollywood, rubbing elbows with Democrat partisans who paid $30,000 for the privilege.

After Pyongyang followed Monday's detonation of a nuclear weapon with the firing of a half dozen missiles, possible delivery devices for a new generation of smaller, more easily deliverable nukes, Barack Obama flew to Las Vegas Tuesday. There, when he could have been receiving briefings on the increasingly tense situation, he instead listened to praise, such as how "his heart is bigger than any heart in the world." With word Wednesday that the North may have restarted its nuclear plant to generate fuel for even more nukes, Obama jetted to L.A. There he was told, "If you look in the dictionary under 'grace under fire,' it will say 'Barack Obama.'"

But the troops along the DMZ need not be concerned that their new commander wasn't showing leadership as the North declared that they "no longer feel bound by the armistice" that ended the Korean War. No, Obama wasn't going to sit idly by, listening to sycophants sing his praises. In the midst of the worst foreign affairs crisis fo far during his nascent administration, Obama spoke up forcefully ... in praise of himself.

"I would put these first four months (of his administration) up against any prior administration since FDR," he modestly told his Hollywood supporters.

And, with nervous military families waiting anxiously for news about the threat to their loved ones, Obama declared that we have stepped back from the brink ... on the economy, repeating his questionable claim that he has created or saved 150,000 jobs, the night before the government announced that a record number of Americans, 6.79 million, are receiving unemployment benefits.

Should Obama have cancelled, or postponed, his partially taxpayer-financed fundraising junket, in order to monitor the Korean situation? That--as someone famously said recently--is above this journalist's pay grade. But a more relevant query may be why no one has bothered to asked the question.

Would the same be true if President Bush had been out of Washington raising millions of dollars for Republicans during such a crisis?