Posted by
Dan Abbett on Sunday, September 13, 2009 7:31:33 PM
As it is with some who excel in academics, they learn well how to take a test but they never learn the lesson. They are first to quote statistics and principals and last to be able to implement them. So it would seem to be with Barack Obama.
We were tested by our enemy on 9/11 and we answered what we believed to be the question of their test by a righteous display of anger. We failed the lesson however, as it was a test of our resolve, not our ability to strike back.
Now, we find ourselves taking a test we failed once before, the test of the futility of fighting an enemy we declare we must defeat shackled by the constraints of politics. We should have learned our lesson from the disaster that was Vietnam and the consequences of losing a war for the sake of political expediency. We are similarly being tested now in Afghanistan. It appears that we are about to answer the question with the same answer we gave to the Vietnamese in 1972.
Should we give that answer to the question of resolve and commitment, we will fail the lesson and receive our grade in the form of the disastrous consequences that will result. It is Barack Obama who is now being tested. How will he answer the question? Will he draw on the lessons of history or simply decide that it is all academic?