July 1, 2013: President Barack Obama gestures white speaking during a news conference with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete at the State House in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. (AP)
The brilliant author and journalist Midge Decter coined a line to live by. “You’ve got to join the side you’re on,” she has said. On the anniversary of American independence, all of us, especially our president, would do well to follow her advice.
Decter’s observation, which grew out of her disillusionment with modern liberalism, is relevant in our era of spreading global disorder. History is unfolding in rapid fashion in the volatile Mideast, yet the only consistency in American policy is hesitation, followed by vacillation.
From Afghanistan to Iran to Egypt to Libya to Syria and now back to Egypt again, President Obama has resembled a weather vane. Over and over again, he waits to see which way the wind is blowing, then races to get ahead of the storm.
When it changes direction, he does, too. If he had been top dog in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776, American independence would have died waiting.
To continue reading Michael Goodwin's column in the New York Post.com, click here.
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