I was asked yesterday if I am still a “fan” of Barack Obama and if I still “support” his presidency.  What a question?  Of course, I support the presidency of Barack Obama… first, because I am an American and he is America's president; second because he is intelligently managing his job as our president during this most difficult period of global confusion and danger.  I told my acquaintance that “fan” isn’t the word I would use to describe my view of President Barack Obama.  My friend has long made clear that he was unhappy with the election of Obama and that he considers the president to be weak and ineffectual.  He regrets that John McCain was not elected instead of Obama.  Woaaah!  I decided not to ask if he really wishes Sarah Palin were vice-president.  

ABOUT THE PRESIDENT’S JOB:  Obama is different in many ways from most of the people who are criticizing his responses to the Ferguson riots and to the ISIL outrages in Syria and Iraq. First, the President has actual responsibility. The problems are real… not hypothetical. My reactions, whatever they are, to media reports of the President’s response to any situation is that he has responsibility and I am an armchair observer without any job whatsoever.  I’m retired… so is the guy who reiterated again yesterday his dissatisfaction with the President’s job performance.  He and I don’t have jobs. Whatever we say or do about the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson or James Foley in Syria (or Iraq), we are not likely to make very dangerous situations worse.  What we say won’t have anything to do with investigations and world responses.  What the President says matters.  In the matter of Ferguson, no matter what the President says or does he is damned by Fox News and the majority of Republican politicians and Tea Party citizens. If he smiles while playing golf an hour after the press appearance in which he expressed anger and outrage at the monstrous Islamist terrorist beheading of an American journalist, he is portrayed as uncaring and disengaged.  In the Ferguson situation the President has said, “I’ve got to make sure that I don’t look like I’m putting my thumb on the scales one way or the other.”  With the investigation ongoing to determine what Michael Brown did and what the police officer who shot him did, the President’s response makes sense.