Bergdahl and Electoral Theater: Don’t Blame the President

Americans will get the president they elect.  This is what electoral politics is all about.  If some people think that the Bergdahl affair is a big mistake, then they have only the voters to blame, not the president.  Could Mitt Romney or Al Sharpton have done any better in the office?  Seems unlikely.

       Our president is no General Eisenhower, vetted in the crucible of wartime leadership.  He was a community organizer with no further experience.  But he gave people the style and novelty they wanted. Vox populi is still the rallying cry of democracy, isn’t it?

      Then again, some ask, didn’t the GOP start it all by choosing an actor in Ronald Reagan?  Appearance trumps reality, doesn’t it?  Just ask Plato.  Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan need only surround themselves with knowledgeable advisors to be effective (carefully avoiding those that might “upstage” the leader).  Figureheads run companies and colleges everywhere, don’t they?  Perhaps chosen as spokesmen for a power matrix that is less visible.

       A recent email forwarding asks readers to imagine how FDR would have been received had he acted then like the  government is dealing with the Bergdahl affair today:

     Imagine an Army private, in WWII, deserts his post, flees to the Germans, learns German, and volunteers for guard duty in Auschwitz.

     Then FDR exchanges 5 SS generals so he can “rescue” the Traitor and Collaborator for a PR stunt and invites his parents to the Rose Garden in celebration. The father of the Deserter, wearing a brown shirt, Hitler moustache, and speaking in German, shouts “Heil Hitler” and does a Nazi arm salute; FDR hugs him.