America Is Caught in Obama's Shakespearian Tragedy, but She Will Survive

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars But in ourselves, that we are underlings." Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. ~~~~~ Barack Obama might have done better to read more Shakespeare and less law when he was young. His days as a law student seem only to have made him determined to weaken to the maximum the constitutional underpinnings of the United States, whereas reading the Bard might have given him more insight into truth, justice, and human nature's beauties and flaws - his own included - a lesson we all must learn if we are to do more good than harm as we wind our way through life. As it was, Mr. Obama came to the American presidency wirh what appears to be a belief in his own infallible perfection of judgment. That, as Shakespeare could have told him, is the stuff of tragedy. Caesar, Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, Lear. But Barack Obama has persisted, despite, or perhaps because of, the conservative American heartland telling him at every turn that he was wrong. Stimulus, Obamacare, Benghazi, NSA, IRS. His stubborn clutching to his breast of his own uniquely non-American view of America has earned him the distrust and often the outright hatred of a majority of his fellow citizens. But, as in every Shakespeare tragedy, things go along well for some time and the tragic hero becomes even more convinced of the justice of his ways. And then, the fatal flaw is exposed by events seen coming by everyone but the tragic hero. In Shakespeare, the tragic mistake in judgment is often predicted by a ghost or vision in a dream, because that was how the 16th century explained fate. Banquo's ghost haunts Macbeth, while Hamlet's dead father tries to warn him, and Otbello is driven to murderous madness by false jealous visions of the faithful Desdemona's infidelity. But, for Barack Obama, the fatal flaw was simple inattention to a computer system and its programs. And when that flaw was exposed, Obama's tragic unravelling and destruction became inevitable. And, like every one of Shakespeare's tragic heros, instead of heeding the proffered advice, Obama doubled down, becoming even more sure of his own perfection. His rashly prideful announcement in his 2014 State of the Union address that his pen and phone would trample constitutional checks and balances was the tragic flaw personified. It has left Obama alone to face his fate, abandoned by his Democrat Party and the liberal left who loved him. Lec Walesa says he is "disillusioned." US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court's black member, says American society is more "conscious" of race than it was in the segregated south and during the early period of the civil rights struggle. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal says the Obama administration is carrying on "a war against the propositions in the Declaration of Independence : It is a war against the spirit that motivated abolitionism : It is a war against the faith that motivated the Civil Rights struggle : It is a war against the soul of countless acts of charity : It is a war against the conscience that drives social change : It is a war against the heart that binds our neighborhoods together : It is a war against America's best self, at America's best moment. "It is a war - a silent war - against religious liberty." Donald Rumsfeld, who was secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush, commenting on Obama's foreign policy, said : "Iran's ayatollahs are determined to build a nuclear weapon, which will set off a dangerous Middle East arms race. You very likely are going to end up seeing other countries in the region develop nuclear weapons,...And there are other countries that are perfectly capable of it, and there are countries around the world that are willing to assist them with nuclear programs. And that is not a good thing for the world." Hollywood filmmaker Oliver Stone says President Obama is a "weak man" who has abandoned the principles he espoused on the campaign trail about civil liberties and foreign policy. "The man stunned us with a lack of spine," Stone told an audience of libertarian students at the 2014 Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, D.C. ~~~~~ Dear readers, what is remarkable about these attacks on Barack Obama, coming from all quarters of American political views, is that each remark was made after Obama's January State of the Union Address. The tragic denouement, the collapse of the tragic hero - made possible by Obamacare - was precipitated by Obama's own words : "I have a pen..." When Lear sees his beloved daughter, Cordelia, dead because of his own proud acts, his final madness and grief overcome him and he dies trying to breathe life back into her dead body. His young band of heros look with pity on him. Edgar, Lear's conscience, has the last words : "The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long." The curtain falls on the band, determined to remake the ruined nation and to prevent another tragedy. We who are watching the America we love beset by every attack may be sure that she will survive - if only we have the courage to "speak what we feel" and the patience to support the young among us who will repair the Obama damage to her soul.