Meanness Is Not A Leadership Quality

President Obama is a mean man.  One can almost understand giddy election-elation arrogence and so forgive his infamous and snarky, “I won” comment.  But now it’s been reported that, in the infamous style of his Chicago mentors, he warned Representative Peter DeFazio, “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.”  Why?  Because DeFazio voted against the administration’s stimulus bill.  And during a recent meeting about compensation he warned bankers, “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”  (An interesting perspective on the roots of this mean example can be, should be, read here.)

How’s that for working without a teleprompter?  It’s obvious he thinks he holds all the aces and so, as was demonstrated by his chiding Congress to not listen to Rush Limbaugh, he becomes a churlish little schoolyard bully when faced with something that doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear.  It’s like some bad, late-night B version of “The Godfather” with German subtitles.

But the problem here is that President Obama is as much to blame for what happened to our economy as Wall Street and Congress.  Perhaps if he’d been doing his job serving as Senator of Illinois and not spent his electorate’s time and the taxpayers’ money on the campaign trail he would know this.  Instead he continues down some “Do as I say, not as I do” yellow-brick road towards total American economic devastation, then puts on his community organizer hat and goes pandering for European applause by apologizing to them for America’s refusal to play along in their socialistic sandbox. 

I’ll tell you what – the American people are keeping score, too, and the American people are, indeed, sitting on a pile of figurative pitchforks but they have the names of Senators and Representatives and members of the administration engraved on them.  Not willing to use them unless absolutely necessary, and hoping things never reach that point.

Don’t tread on me.