The Leadership Sequester of President Obama

I try to give the President a fair hearing. I hate the bitterness that has come to define so much of our national discourse. I'm repulsed when the President's wife and daughters are insulted. But... as I've argued in recent weeks, since winning re-election, the President has found comfort in unmitigated partisanship. And now, as the Sequester approaches, the President's behavior has reached unprecedented summits of absurdity. Due to the GOP refusal to submit to his theory of governance (my way or the highway) and reluctant to fulfill the sequester deal that he himself developed, the President has instead resorted to using the national security of the United States as a partisan prop. As Bob Woodward noted on MSNBC yesterday, the President's decision to cancel a carrier deployment to the Persian Gulf is nothing short of astonishing. I've always felt that the President's foreign policy is confused and contradictory, but this is simply unbelievable. Sadly, the President hasn't stopped with his Carrier games. Instead, he's also overseen the release of hundreds of detained illegal immigrants. Counter to the Administration's claims of ignorance with regards to this release, because of its major political tenor, the action must have received approval from someone in the President's inner circle.

Let's be clear, these actions are not born of a national leadership focused on the common good. Nor are these decisions derived of necessity- with a budget in the hundreds of billions, the DoD could easily allocate sufficient funds to send a second Carrier to the 5th Fleet Area of Operations. As could DHS with regards to meeting its criminal detention responsibilities. Unfortunately, these national priorities have been subjugated to the President's ego. We're witnessing a leadership that is both gleefully reckless and stunningly arrogant. An imperial White House happy to threaten journalists and make policy in the style of North Korea.

Why is the President behaving this way? Why won't he accept the Sequester? 

Because he refuses to accept a major debt deal (which would necessarily involve major entitlement reform). And because he wants an American welfare state. A welfare state doomed to fail.

I'm not feeling so hot about the next four years...