We needed passion, not cool from President

Guy, W. Farmer, nevadaappeal.com

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Excerpt:

To paraphrase an old song, “It ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it.” I thought of that song last Monday as I listened to President Obama’s surprisingly tepid and unemotional response to the coordinated ISIS terror attacks that killed more than 120 innocent people in Paris last weekend.

The president was calm, cool and collected when the occasion called for a minimal display of anger and outrage from the Leader of the Free World. We all know Obama is a cool dude, but his muted reaction to the barbaric terror attack by radical Islamic jihadists disappointed almost everyone including the mainstream media. ...

During my career in public diplomacy — some call it propaganda in the best sense of that word — I learned that tone is important in delivering public or foreign policy statements. In my opinion, President Obama’s tone in last Monday’s news conference in Turkey was all wrong; he was tone-deaf, which we don’t expect from our politically savvy president.

Although I don’t belong to the “bomb the hell out of ‘em and turn Syria into a parking lot” school of foreign policy, I do believe there are times to talk tough and carry a big stick. Think President Reagan at the Berlin Wall or President George W. Bush at Ground Zero in New York. Last Monday was one of those moments for President Obama, but he failed to deliver the defiant and inspiring words we needed and wanted to hear. Instead, he chose yet again to lead from behind.

And somehow, the president couldn’t bring himself to utter the words “radical Islamic terrorism,” and neither could any of the Democrats’ presidential candidates. As some of our most experienced generals have noted, It’s difficult to defeat an enemy you can’t name. Obama also claimed his anti-terror strategy, whatever it is, is succeeding. “We have the right strategy and we’re going to see it through,” he said. ...