Politics, anger, and prayers

Orrin Judd (in an aside) and S.E. Cupp (in an essay) both assessed President Obama recently.

Unfortunately, their unflattering judgments accord with the [dithering/paralysis/ineptitude/narcisssism] that Clarice Feldman and others (including, however reluctantly, Washington Post editors) have noticed.

As long as I'm thinking uncharitably about a commander-in-chief who obviously needs both prayers and clues, let me also say to the Web elves who write rotating headlines at the Microsoft Network homepage that I really don't care whether the Fort Hood shooter was "mortified" at the prospect of impending deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, because even if other soldiers kidded him about his religious faith, he is not the victim.

Like Drew M. writes over at Ace of Spades, "he had no problem going to war. He did so [yesterday]. Just on the other side." (Hot Air has context that Chris Matthews missed)

I'll pray for the shooter because I have to. But I'll pray for the people he killed and wounded because I want to. And it's good to see that heroism hasn't left us.

UPDATE: Before posting this, I wondered about the wisdom of conflating my reaction to coverage of the shootings at Fort Hood with criticism of President Obama that had been written before those shootings. My self-consciously progressive friends are not big fans of this blog, but I imagine that they, as well as progressives whom I don't know, might object to this as an instance of lazy blogging or guilt by association. Beyond that, I'm no fan of contributing to the misguided notion that anything that happens on our president's watch is automatically All About Him. I understand that the deranged actions of an Army major had as much to do with President Obama as Hurricane Katrina had to do with President Bush. The presidency just isn't all that, no matter who occupies the Oval Office.

But I'm in no mood for lectures on fairness from Obama supporters, because although President Obama is right to say that "the entire nation is grieving right now," other things he said in the same Rose Garden statement prove that he doesn't know diddly about when to shut up, or how to empathize with grief-stricken, angry, and emotionally numbed citizens.

"I would caution against jumping to conclusions," he chided. Ye gods. Talk about tone deaf! We all know what that condescending bit of advice means (about which more from Mark Steyn here).

But who elected Obama schoolmarm-in-chief, and made the rest of us ten years old?

Americans don't need lectures from the bully pulpit right now. Our president has inserted himself into a news story that he had no business trying to appropriate for his own ends, however high-minded.

UPDATE TWO: I have a few significant disagreements with radio host Michael Savage and do not often catch his show. But he opened tonight with a poignant bagpipe tune and then a deeply felt version of "Taps." He also blasted "the money changers in the temple of democracy" (meaning Congress) for not having suspended all business today in honor of the Fort Hood dead. I think his musical choices were classy, and his righteous anger fully justified.