The Quality of Murky

For the first time, I'm actually quite afraid at having Barack Obama occupying the office of President of the United States. I hate to say it, but McCain was right - Obama doesn't have the experience needed for the job under the present circumstances.

At some not too distant point, this man is going to have to stand alone, break away from the chains of all his controllers and sycophants, agonize as he has never done before, and make a decision which will have incalculable consequences.

It really won't matter whether the decision will be about direct intervention in Iran or calling North Korea's bluff or calling out the Army and FEMA mercenaries to squash riots in Los Angeles, Gary, Des Moines, or wherever. If he really wants his job, he'll have to make the decision himself and order that it be carried out.

Watching the President's performance so far, I have no faith that he is ready for that ...

Under Bush, and now under Obama, the presidency is really not the President. It is, in fact, a group of very powerful people, most of whom have been in and around the corridors, lobbies, and back rooms of Washington and its tentacles for a very long time. Whereas The Dubbleduh-Chainey Gang was run by operatives from the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I regimes, Obama's syndicate, of which he is only the mouthpiece, is crawling with denizens of the Carter and Clinton administrations with grand geopolitical agendas, Cold War mindsets, and incredible, conflicting egos.

It is very difficult for "progressives" to see that, in some ways, The Gang was extremely successful in accomplishing its goals. The primary reasons for that were one-mindedness and lock-step discipline. If you didn't walk like the other ducks, you ditched the pond or were driven out. There was no discussion. The goals were clear. You were with 'em or agin 'em, no matter who you were. And essentially, there was one guy in charge (although it obviously wasn't George).

Obama has a distinct disadvantage here. He has gathered into the Executive branch a motley crew of old hands who have enormous experience, but who are certainly not of one mind. And Obama is not in the center, he's on the periphery.

Such a group would work fantastically well if it had a strong, well-seasoned, very knowledgeable leader; one who could say, "OK, guys, thanks for the input. Now get the hell out of my office. I'll let you know in two hours what we're going to do." Barack Obama is not that man.

President Obama is not in control. He's being told what to do,then being trotted out before the cameras nearly every day to read from the prepared script and follow Rahm's direction. This became crystal clear these past two weeks, monitoring the burgeoning social media report both on Iran's post-election firestorm and on Washington's, Langley's, and Foggy Bottom's vertiginous antics in response. What. A. Mess. If Barack ain't careful, he'll be run the hell over by a loose cannon.

Witness:

1. The CIA is not really one organization acting with clear agendas and goals. It is several, There are factions tied to diverse ideologies, sometimes working at dangerously crossed purposes. I'd imagine Panetta has a constant migraine. To think that such a man, reporting to a weak president, will get the intelligence community on the same page is a fantasy.

2. There are also factions and their political manifestations in the rest of the "intelligence community": NSA, USAID, the State Department, the military branches. There are not just "some rogues" - they are all rogues. There are obviously even parties, we know now, who consider our own citizens a threat to them. These are all powerful forces over which the President has little control, in great part due to his lack of experience. I would imagine, furthermore, that his selection as president continues to rankle and foment resentment, especially on the part of many old guards sucked into his administration. I am sorry to say it, because I loathe the Clintonites, but HillBillary might have had a better chance of controlling all these various parts, because she's familiar with them.

3. The Iranian miasma is the current showcase. Over a time, intelligence agencies and their affiliations (I hesitate to call them "think tanks" - an oxymoron if I ever heard one) have apparently funneled nearly a half billion bucks into machinations against the Iranian regime. Mousavi may have been the recipient of much largesse in the process. And just the other day, after denying and warning against US involvement in Iran's "internal matter", the administration announced it was going ahead with a Bush initiative to give USAID $20M to aid the opposition in Iran.

A couple of weeks ago, in a recorded broadcast, Henry Kissinger opined that an external try at Iranian regime change might be in order if the protests fail to produce it. This was at the same time that Zbiggy Brzezinski was warning against US interference because it would "backfire". This is the same cat who has admitted to screwing with Iran for decades. He was, of course, being disingenuous.

I'm not above thinking there is the possibility that all these forces are coordinated at some high level and that what we are seeing is a massive disinfo operation aimed at both the Iranian and American people. But I'm not betting on it. My money leans toward the Department of Chinese Fire Drills (no intended racial offense.

One salient point is that this is not really about Iraq or Pakistan or Somalia or Iran. It is about Russia, China, and the entire Muslim world. Barack Obama is in over his head, I think. He certainly isn't making policy, running the country, or commanding American forces overseas. That's being handled by The Heavy Hitters.

Our new president has set his ass down in a very murky swamp. I hope he survives it. But mostly, I hope we do.