good man gone wrong

I've been wrong about Obama. His intentions were always good, and his heart's in the right place. The problem is he has no spine.

Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's War" explains a lot about why this good man has gone wrong. Yesterday Michael Moore quoted the book in the process of proving the U.S. is now a military dictatorship:

Everything you need to know can be found in just two paragraphs from Obama's War. Here's the scene: Obama is meeting with his National Security Council staff on the Saturday after Thanksgiving last year. He's getting ready to give a big speech announcing his new strategy for Afghanistan. Except...the strategy isn't set yet. The military has presented him with just one option: escalation. But at the last minute, Obama tells everyone, hold up -- the door to a plan for withdrawal isn't closed.

The brass isn't having it:

" 'Mr. President,' [Army Col. John Tien] said, 'I don't see how you can defy your military chain here. We kind of are where we are. Because if you tell General McChrystal, "I got your assessment, got your resource constructs, but I've chosen to do something else," you're going to probably have to replace him. You can't tell him, "Just do it my way, thanks for your hard work." And then where does that stop?'

"The colonel did not have to elaborate. His implication was that not only McChrystal but the entire military high command might go in an unprecedented toppling -- Gates; Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Gen. David H. Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command. Perhaps no president could weather that, especially a 48-year-old with four years in the U.S. Senate and 10 months as commander in chief."

And, well, the rest is history. Three days later Obama announced the escalation at West Point. And he became our newest war president.

They didn't even send a one-star general to inform the president that his office no longer has authority over the military, as the Constitution specifies. Instead, he was punked by a bird colonel!

In 1951 President Truman fired his insubordinate commanding general in Korea, Douglas MacArthur. They met in Hawaii so Truman could sack the narcissistic general while looking him in eye. That was Truman.

Without having access to what was actually said at that private meeting, I'm sure MacArthur told Truman, "If you do this, I'll ruin you." And he did. He retired and mounted a tireless campaign against Truman for the next few months. It worked, and Truman was so unpopular by the next year that there was no way he could run for the White House again, even though he was eligible.

I'm equally positive as well that Truman responded to the general's threat with "Do your worst, you son of a bitch." But Barack Obama is no Harry Truman, and a timid head of state is nothing more than a quick meal and a satisfying belch to a clique of audacious usurpers.

This country is headed for either a period of radical reform or, failing that, a full-out revolution. Either way, the first order of business afterward will be the dismantling of the illegal military dictatorship, and disestablishment of the coven of usurpers with stars on their shoulders who have done the crime.