"We’d all like to vote for the best man, but he’s never a candidate.” Kin Hubbard, American humorist
July 23, 2014
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Two kinds of people in this world: Winners. Losers.*
The winners stand out in a crowd.
Stand-up guys, steadfast, loyal and true, you can see in them the same the qualities our Founding Fathers possessed.
They’re willing to take the challenge, risk it all, protect and defend. They do their job, put themselves in the other guy’s shoes, and never make it "all about them.”
This week former U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan M. Pitts was awarded The Medal of Honor, for his extraordinary acts of heroism during one of the bloodiest battles of the war in Afghanistan’s Kunar province.
He was the last man standing.
Fighting off 200 members of the Taliban, Pitts was bleeding to death from shrapnel wounds to his arm and legs when he got the word that help couldn’t reach him.
But he kept fighting, holding off the enemy by "cooking” grenades, holding them after the pin was pulled and the safety lever released to ensure immediate detonation on the enemy.
Later, when he was interviewed, he did not hold himself out as anything special.
So, ask yourself: How is it okay for Washington officials to phone it in when people like Pitts show up every time?
The losers? They stand out, too.
They’re usually spoiled "kids” of any age who think the world owes them a living and that they know more than everyone else.
Unfortunately, when you raise a spoiled kid, it spells nothing but trouble for everyone. We’ve seen it firsthand with our president.
The "parents” who voted for him and write the news about him, act like indulgent parents handling a very naughty toddler.
They get used to taking a beating from their "baby” and accepting that they’re never going to get very much from him in return.
And they want us to accept it, too.
They look the other way, condone outrageous and illegal behavior and let him get away with things they wouldn’t dream of letting other "kids” get away with.
They defend and deflect, not realizing that there are very, very bad consequences when you do that with a toddler.
It never makes things better. It just makes things worse. And you end up creating a Frankenstein.
"No, no. You’re wrong,” they say. "He’s gifted! Why, he can even slow the rise of the oceans and heal our planet.”
"Could it be you overstated his abilities?” we say. "The stuff he does doesn’t seem that special to us, in fact, quite the opposite. He plays a lot, he talks a lot, but he never gets the ‘homework’ we want done, never ‘shows up for classes’ we’d like him to attend.
"You handed him a job on a silver platter,” we say, "a job he never should have had. You knew he never worked a day in his life when you gave him the job, and he still hasn’t!
"You knew he didn’t even like the country. It always showed, in everything he did and everything he said.
"But you gave him the job anyway. And you did it for the wrong reason: Because he was ‘special.’”
"Don’t you dare criticize him,” they sputter. "He didn’t need experience before he was handed the job, and he doesn’t need anybody’s advice now.”
"Except,” we mutter, "the other toddlers he surrounds himself with, hash-tagging their way through foreign policy, smirking at the grown-ups in the room.”
"It’s just that you don’t understand him,” they sigh. "He’s operating on a different kind of smart and that makes it hard for you ordinary people.” And they smile pityingly.
So we watch, and over time bad behavior, poor work ethic, irrational thinking becomes the norm. And over time people become fearful of saying anything at all about "the baby.”
We ask, "Did you hear him say he was the only one in Washington doing his job?
"Do you realize that when they evacuated the American Embassy in Libya this weekend, he made the decision to golf with execs from ESPN?
To fundraise the same day a passenger plane was shot down by Russians in the Ukraine with an American aboard.
To blow off a visit to the U.S. border in Texas as illegal kids toddled into our country, so he could attend three fundraisers in that state instead?
"And that’s just this month, before he heads to Martha’s Vineyard for his real vacation!”
Like him, they say nothing.
But we press on. "Did you know the governors of our states have to go on the Health and Human Services website to find out whether illegal children are being dumped in their state?” we ask. "A variation on the Pelosi philosophy "you have to pass Obamacare to find out what’s in it?”
"This week Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam discovered 760 illegal children were placed somewhere in his state, brought there without his knowledge.
He said HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell had personally assured him, to his face, that this would never happen.
"But it did,” we say. "At this point there are 30,000 of these kids, dumped in secret locations across the nation!”
Aren’t you tired of it? Washington officials not doing their jobs then leaving you to pick up their slack, usually with your pocketbook?
Aren’t you tired of them checking to see which way the wind is blowing, then coming up with a story that fits the bill?
Aren’t you tired of the lies?
Isn’t it time to impeach someone just for the heck of it?
They are shocked when they discover he’s the bully on the playground, but they won’t admit it. He’s their kid.
He bullies, he threatens, he punishes and sulks. But when it comes to world crises, he just threatens.
He plays hooky, squanders other people’s money, deliberately kills off the businesses he doesn’t like, insults and demeans people he doesn’t like and uses the tools at his disposal to implement what he wants.
In secret.
He forgets he’s only one-third of the branches of government and announces he’s "going it alone,” with the pen and the phone we gave him.
When he’s criticized for messing up, he blames some other kid. Like a toddler, his tantrums are out of control.
So, again we find ourselves reciting the list of his many failings, Benghazi, IRS, VA, Keystone Pipeline, on and on we drone, ticking the well-known facts off on our fingers until we run out of fingers.
We recite, like a well-learned catechism, a litany of unfulfilled duties, unanswered questions, and implementation of an unacceptable agenda boldly designed to change America forever.
At last we collapse, panting in frustration.
Let’s face it: He changes the rules, takes what he wants, listens in, tunes out, and the result is this greedy child has been given carte blanche to gobble up everything that is good around us.
And his creators, his parents refuse to see it.
Israel, Iran, China, Syria, Iraq and Russia see it. We see it. But they don’t.
Other countries laugh and point. "Look at the terrible baby,” they say. "That baby is our ace in the hole! With him we can take away everything those Americans have!”
Does he counter with, "Hell, no you won’t! This is my country!”
No.
"Wah!” he cries. "Bad America. Everyone’s is always picking on me because I’m special!”
And he gets away with it.
Hold the line, America.
*Song by Lindsey Buckingham, "Go Insane”