Ready! Fire! Aim!

 

 

 

"Taking back words said wrong is like trying to unring a bell..."

When our kids were very young, my wife and I would always give them the same advice we received from our parents. THINK before you speak! Roll those words over in your head before they leave your lips. Before activating your mouth, engage your brain. In other words, try not to get the order screwed up - ready, fire, aim needs to be ready, aim, fire.

I am glad our kids are now raised so I don't have to explain why our President continues to break this rule. When they were younger, it was hard enough trying to explain the unexplainable things President Clinton did in the Oval Office (if you know what I mean). My personal feeling on President Obama is this - he is so anxious to never "let a good crisis go to waste", he will "get way ahead of the story" and publicly jump to the wrong conclusion.

Shortly after the start of his first term, there was an incident which culminated in the infamous "beer summit". In July of 2009, a Professor Gates was arrested after he was mistakenly identified as someone breaking into his house. In reality, he was breaking into his own house as the front door was jammed. A caring neighbor saw the break in and the police were called. Gates was detained, words were spoken (Gates said he had "jet lag") and a charge of disorderly conduct was made against Gates. When our newly minted president heard of this incident, knowing Professor Gates was black and the cop was white, he referred to the police as "stupid". After law enforcement coalesced around the besmirched officer, the President tried to defuse the situation. He did this by inviting the arresting officer, Gates and the Vice President to the Rose Garden for a beer. Rather than apologize for "jumping the gun", the President referred to this as a "teachable moment". Too late - the damage was done.

Then we had the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. Still smarting from the criticism of getting ahead of the story on the Gates incident, he did better on this one - slightly. The facts were very murky on this case - they still are. As we can remember, Trayvon was shot by a neighborhood security guard, George Zimmerman. Trayvon's wound was back entry. Zimmerman said the shooting was justifiable under Florida's "stand your ground" law. It was a mess. This was a local matter, and was being investigated as such. The President, being pushed by the "Justice Brothers" (Sharpton and Jessie Jackson), felt compelled to say something. After all, Trayvon was black and Zimmerman was a "white Hispanic" (whatever that is). He should have said something like this was a tragedy and was being investigated. It was very unfortunate. Rather his words appeared to paint Trayvon as the victim - and he might have been. The point is nobody at that time knew the truth - we still don't. The courts will adjudicate this when Zimmerman goes to trial in June of this year.
 
However, the "Mother" of all flubs was uttered by the President after the tragedy in Benghazi. As we can remember, four brave Americans died at the hands of terrorists at a remote outpost in Libya. As we can remember, just before the incident, an anti-Islam film was made in America by someone (who was not American) and then put on You Tube. This video, which most people never saw, became the "villain". It was the reason for the attack on Benghazi as well as unrest at our embassy in Egypt. The person who made this video was "outed" and then arrested for a parole violation. He now sits in jail for a year. The President should have known this was never the reason for the attack. However, not to tarnish false gains made from the "Arab Spring", he went in front of the United Nations and basically apologized for our part in this video. It was one of the most shameful things he has done as President. The Administration finally agreed the attack was terror related, but the innocent maker of this video, protected by First Amendment rights, sits in jail. None of the people who killed our countrymen have ever been caught or punished.

 

I know. We all do it from time to time. Say things we should not of - spoken prematurely. However when you are a leader in the military, business or government, words really need to be weighed carefully. In no job is this more important than the President of the United States. Speak carefully Sir - many are listening and paying attention.