Obama passes judgment

Yesterday, Barack Obama pronounced Donald Trump “woefully unprepared” and “unfit to be president.” He added, graciously, that the two previous nominees — John McCain and Mitt Romney — were fit for the office.

Obama may be right about Trump. He certainly is right about McCain and Romney. But no intelligent American will take Obama’s word when it comes to assessing the fitness of his potential successor.

Obama’s overriding objective is to have a liberal Democrat succeed him. That way, his scandalous scheme to enrich Iran and leave it free to develop nuclear weapons at the time of its choosing will remain in place. That way, his other legacy item — Obamacare — will survive. That way, under the radar leftist agenda items like “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” can come to fruition.

Does anyone doubt that if the Republicans had nominated Trump’s most serious challengers, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, Obama would be proclaiming them unprepared and unfit for the presidency? I don’t. Obama’s statement isn’t about Trump; it’s about Obama — like everything else that comes out of his mouth.

Then, there is the obvious irony of a man who himself was unprepared and who remains unfit for the presidency passing judgment on Republican contenders past and present. It’s true that Trump isn’t well prepared to be president. But his business success and decades of intense involvement in deal making in the real world make him better prepared than Obama, who lived a charmed and insulated life before becoming president.

Being a “community organizer,” serving a few years in legislatures (voting present when faced with tough questions), and giving pompous speeches had never been considered sufficient preparation to lead the United States. Obama’s presidency has demonstrated that it isn’t.

Trump’s temperament does, I think, raise serious questions about his fitness for the presidency. But Obama has already shown that his temperament should have been disqualifying.

His unbridled arrogance not only precluded cooperation with Republicans, it soured relations with members of Congress from his own party. His sophomoric infatuation with left-wing dogma, including the conviction that America has been the source of much evil in the world, prevented him from perceiving real evil and taking it seriously. Hence the Russia reset, ISIS as the “jayvee,” and the disastrous romancing of the Iranian regime.

The same infatuation has caused him to become race-monger-in-chief, taking sides, based on knee-jerk reactions, in racially charged situations throughout the land. Thanks in part to Obama, race relations have been set back decades.

Obama’s lust for power and contempt for the Constitution have led to rule by unlawful administrative fiat. One day he admits that he can’t rewrite America’s immigration law because he’s not a dictator. The next day he rewrites American immigration law.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said that Franklin Roosevelt had a second-class intellect but a first-class temperament. In Obama, we see a second-class intellect and third-class temperament. I doubt that, as president, Trump would grade out lower.

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