Quickies: Rose Colored Glasses Everywhere

     Opinion-writer Brian Kilmeade is fairly reasonable most of the time, but he can be deluded into ignoring the realities before him:

     President Obama still hasn’t learned the key lesson that Jefferson and other presidents (most recently George W. Bush) learned about the Middle East: You can’t crush an outlaw Islamist regime from the air. The more we delay putting boots on the ground against ISIS, the more the American people will lose patience – and the more power and prestige ISIS will gain for surviving our attacks.

     In his final year in office, with his legacy on the line, Obama needs to realize that winning a war is more important than his pledge to end a war. He needs to empower our military and trust the experts at the Pentagon. He needs to end the irresponsible releases of terrorists from Gitmo, tighten restrictions on immigrants from countries that support terrorism, confront our enemies abroad, and do whatever it takes to keep us safe at home.

     What’s that you say? Obama hasn’t learned? But how could The Won – the man who openly said the following:

     Obama had always had a high estimation of his ability to cast and run his operation. When David Plouffe, his campaign manager, first interviewed for a job with him in 2006, the senator gave him a warning: "I think I could probably do every job on the campaign better than the people I'll hire to do it," he said. "It's hard to give up control when that's all I've known." Obama said nearly the same thing to Patrick Gaspard, whom he hired to be the campaign's political director. "I think I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters," Obama told him. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."

     ...be expected to learn anything from anyone, past or present? He’s The Won! He already knows it all; it’s we the unwashed who should be learning from him! Any notions on our part about his having erred are due to faults in his messaging, remember?

     It simply doesn’t matter what a humbler, more American president would admit he needs to do:

     Do not expect Obama to “learn” anything.
     Never imagine that he would admit to an error.
     And disabuse yourself of the notion that he’ll ever put American lives or interests before the preservation of his ego, his narcissism, or his “legacy” -- especially when Islam is on the other side.

     A leopard would be more likely to exchange his spots for a zebra’s stripes.