Barack Obama: The Smartest Guy in the Room?

Dear Mr. President,
Your week’s not starting out so hot what with the online computer system snafus plaguing Obamacare. By some estimates, up to 5 million lines of code might have to be rewritten. (NYT, Oct. 21, “Specialists See Weeks of Work On Health Site” p.A1). Fifty-five different contractors worked on the system—55!. That alone guaranteed failure, but the myth of outsourcing trumps history, experience and common sense. The article goes on to say that the lead contractor, CGI Group, is a Canadian company (buy American!) and that the system went live before it was completely tested. In the computer biz, that’s called “going guts” and the saying is, “those who go guts become road kill.” What the Republican nut cases failed to do—undermine and roll, back Obamacare—is being done by incompetence and technical bungling. Among this week’s woes, your French poodle Hollande, called today to complain about the latest revelations in Le Monde of NSA spying on French citizens, businesses and government officials. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/21/us-french-surveillance-legitimate-questions/print) The usual response from The White House: “we’re reviewing… weighing the balance between security and privacy…” What we heard in June, July, August… with each new revelation. What does it take to get you to see NSA is out of control and dangerous? And then there’s Afghanistan, your Vietnam. Monsif Khan, a U.S.-trained Afghan Special Forces commander, loaded a Humvee with guns, ammo and high-tech gear and defected to the Taliban. (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/10/afghan-army-commander-defects-rival-side-20131021103222455867.html) None of the news from Afghanistan is good. Even the NYT editors call it a lost cause. Today’s editorial, “An Exit Strategy From Afghanistan,” points out that over the past 12 years, Karzai has done little to benefit anyone other than himself and his cronies, that the government is dysfunctional and corrupt, that the Taliban will likely take control of most of the country as soon as we leave and that without our $4-6 billion a year to fund the Afghan Army and police, they will cease to exist. You were supposed to be the smartest guy in the room—you said that yourself in the early days—but your brilliance escapes me. Cunning yes, slick, duplicitous, but I see only one bad decision after another, betrayal after betrayal. You have learned nothing. I could go on but as my mother used to say, there’s no sense in beating a dead horse.