Different Tragedies, Different Presidents

By Dave Scharoun
Images of our commander-in-chief taking in a baseball game with a despot and tango dancing the night away as American families waited on bated breath to hear if their loved ones in Brussels escaped Tuesday’s attacks with their lives may seem to hearken back to Nero fiddling as Rome burnt. But if you ask me, that just isn’t fair. It simply wouldn’t be giving Barack Obama his due.
After all, Brussels is hardly the first act of senseless violence to occur during this president’s nearly eight years in office and, frankly, I think his quick and decisive responses to past tragedies have earned him a mulligan this time around.

How quickly we forget after Sandy Hook, when on the very same day of the massacre, our shaken leader fought back tears to declare that we must “come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this.” How fickle we must be to not recall the aftermath of the shootings at Umpqua Community College in Oregon this past October, when this man fearlessly took to the podium that very evening to lecture us common folk on how the United States was the “only advanced country in the world” where these shootings occur. And certainly you haven’t already forgotten San Bernardino, when our faithful commander boldly declared that he would no longer let those bullies in Congress and their pesky “checks and balances” get in the way of his plans for “common sense gun control” at the same time that local police were still risking their lives pursuing the assailants. So shame on you for being upset, this guy has earned a couple hiccups.

Now I can concede that the man is imperfect. He can certainly get it wrong every now and then. Like during Benghazi, when the president was nowhere to be found as four Americans were burned alive an ocean away. Or that time when ISIS operatives beheaded American journalist James Foley while the president enjoyed a relaxing day at the golf course. Or that other time this past December when six American servicemen were killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan as their commander-in-chief took in yet another leisurely round of 18 in Hawaii.
Say, is anyone else picking up on a trend here?

This White House has made it abundantly clear that a tragedy is only as good as the agenda that can be shamelessly wrapped around it. The chance to admonish and to lecture the unwashed masses has been repeatedly jumped at by this administration with what can only be described as an outright eagerness. But when the time comes for quick responses and tough talk on events that poke holes in the narrative that Barack Obama has crafted as it pertains to Islamic terrorism and the escalating threat that this barbarism presents to the American public, where is our president to be found?
I would start by looking on the first green and follow the cart path.