When the going gets tough, Obama takes a vacation

Remember when Ronald Reagan was president? Actually, in the first year or so, I never saw such unemployment. I had quit a job and was looking for another. Employment agencies were standing room only. But then the economy went into an upswing with 4% growth or some ungodly number that we've rarely seen since.

Anyway, at the start, things were tough. The slogan became, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Meaning: Address the problem and fix it. Work harder. Stiffen your resolve.

Now, under the Comrade, the slogan has shifted somewhat. Here are some suggestions:

• When the going gets tough, find someone else to blame.
• When the going gets tough, stifle your critics... any way you can.
• When the going gets tough, pretend it isn't true.
• When the going gets tough, double down on your happy talk and buzzwords.
• When the going gets tough, recruit the NFL and NBA to sell your programs.

And the Comrade's favorite:

• When the going gets tough, take your family on an expensive African vacation.

As anyone who's not brain dead and who has even a slight exposure to the news must be aware, a number of really amazing scandals have erupted over the last couple months. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blowing off events in Benghazi, refusing to defend US interests -- and people -- she deliberately placed in harm's way. The IRS targeting conservative political groups for "special" scrutiny, delaying their ability to present another side in the last campaign -- and generally. The NSA revealed as collecting the records of just about every phone call and possibly email sent anywhere in the world, including those generated by US citizens and residents. The HHS soliciting funds and support from the corporations and organizations it regulates to try to sell socialized medicine.... And I'm sure there's more. Seems to be something vile and nasty under every rock inside the DC Beltway.

Of course, the Comrade had nothing to do with Benghazi -- he was practicing his blackjack game for his trip to Las Vegas and couldn't be bothered. Hillary apparently wasn't overly concerned, either. After all, she'd put a diplomatic outpost in an area that every other civilized nation had abandoned to jihadist terrorists. Probably didn't surprise her that those terrorists took the bait and killed the Americans. But then she fell down, she had a blood clot, she was leaving the State Dept. anyway -- wimp-ass traitor who I wouldn't vote for as dog catcher (I'm against animal cruelty). And what do you want to bet, the dems will nominate her for president in 2016, since they're blind and stupid and, hey, we haven't had a woman president yet. For liberals, political correctness trumps reason and logic every time.

Then regarding the IRS rats' nest, the NSA program, the impending disaster of Obamacare... in his own words, the Comrade has nothing to do with any of this. Hey, he was golfing. You can't expect him to keep track of all this.

Most recently, the Comrade backed himself into a corner with a poseur "red line" about taking action in Syria. After about 100,000 people have been slaughtered in a civil war in Syria, and al-Qaeda has taken up the cudgel against the current, murderously oppressive government -- and after the al-Qaeda faction has executed a Christian priest in Syria -- now the Comrade has agreed to send aid in the form of small arms. What finally pushed him over the edge? The killing of Christians? Good job!

Ed Snowden, who apparently ripped off numerous top secret intelligence stuff and is publishing it through WikiLeaks, finds himself a new and seemingly permanent resident of the Moscow international airport. After feigning attempts to hand over his info to Red China and Russia, he must be a bit disappointed that not a lot of people view him as a hero on the order of that Assange guy. I don't know, do nerdly geeks have to break into secret files to make a name for themselves anymore? Is that was makes them magnets for strippers? What I find most repugnant about Snowden is that he's apparently something of a glory hound, and that a "wolfish appetite for fame" is one of the things that drove him to do whatever's he's done.

But the Comrade isn't overly concerned about Snowden or US security either.

No, the Comrade goes to Goree Island in Senegal for a photo op of himself standing in a tiny cell, his back to the camera, wistfully pondering the unhappy history of slavery.

But the black side of the Comrade's family were never slaves. Never transported to Goree Island and points west. They might have labored under the Brits in colonial Kenya, but they were never worked to death in ore mines in South America or treated like farm animals in the USA. So... is the Comrade just displaying some sort of solidarity with other members of his race? I don't know, but it looks to me like he just wanted to have his picture taken. He just wanted to look "concerned."

Which, plainly, he isn't, given the reality of his circumstances. So much to do in the USA, and he goes to Senegal. Is Senegal a member of NATO? A trade ally? A key regional influence? None of the above. But it has Goree Island.

Then on to South Africa, where the Comrade sought an audience with Nelson Mandela. Mandela is basically a communist. I don't agree with his politics. But the man lived in solitary in a tiny prison cell for decades for standing up to apartheid. He became a focal figure in South African politics and served to drive that nation away from colonialism. He has earned my respect. And he's dying now. Leave him in peace. He doesn't need to be  hounded by a US president seeking a photo op and some sort of redemption for irresponsible half-assedness.

And while the Comrade's in Africa, perhaps he should take a run up to Egypt, where reportedly 17 million people are just now milling in the streets in front of the presidential residence there, trying to dislodge the Muslim Brotherhood's Morsi from office.

Hey, Comrade, why not help them? I mean, why not TRY to do something in the real world?

That would be a "fundamental change," wouldn't it?