Dr. Manny: Obama’s defense mechanisms won’t help the border crisis

U.S. President Barack Obama makes a statement on the border crisis after his meeting with Texas Governor Rick Perry (not seen) in Dallas July 9, 2014. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

During his five years in the White House, President Obama has mastered a great talent: the art of the primitive defense mechanism.

For ages, psychologists have studied the innate ability of humans to create common defense mechanisms to avoid dealing with their problems.

And if you look at the actions taken by President Obama during his tenure in office, they all have classic aspects of someone who prefers to deal with American issues from a defensive standpoint.

Here are some examples of the president’s favorites:

Denial
Denial is the refusal to accept reality or fact, and people use it to avoid dealing with the problem at hand when they are being confronted. Crisis after crisis (and there have been some major crises over the past five years), the president never acknowledges the problem. He doesn’t accept the facts. A perfect example of this denial is the current immigration crisis we have at the border. It was a problem when he took office, but his denial of the issue has made it into a humanitarian catastrophe.

Acting out
Every solution that the president brings forward lacks one simple component: a frank discussion. It seems when he does decide to tackle a problem, no one else can have an opinion other than his own, and that he has been born with the God-given ability to always make the right choice. This is why he has acted out by threatening the American public with his “pen and his phone” – meaning he will take executive action if Congress fails to act on his legislative agenda.

Dissociation
The president seems disconnected from the very real problems that are happening in the world. He does not acknowledge that there are some valid points being made by many moderate conservatives, and he doesn’t acknowledge the failures in his foreign policies. Is the world safer today than it was five years ago? I can hardly imagine any human being on this planet who would agree with that. The Middle East is a disaster, Central American countries are in disarray, the African continent is falling into radical Islam, Russia has invaded a neighboring country – and yet, the president seems disconnected from all this chaos that is ensuing.

So, to me, this border controversy is very clear: The problem falls at the feet of the president, not Congress. He created this mess by denying it, dissociating himself from it, and now, the only thing he knows how to do is act out. And what he wants is money – but money will not yield any positive solutions to the problem. Not one.

I agree with many of his supporters that we must comfort those innocent children who have been caught in this mess created by the very people that should be caring for them. But at the same time, there are many American children who also need help, and right now, they deserve the president’s attention too.

So here’s an idea, Mr. President: If you’re looking for $3.7 billion dollars, why don’t you take some money from the more than $500 million you give to Mexico in foreign aid that comes out of my pocket. And while you’re at it, take some from the more than $500 million that goes to Colombia. Then take some from the millions upon millions in aid that we send to the Middle East, and before you know it, you might just have some real money to throw at this border crisis.