PRESIDENTIAL GOLFING: “Do-Nothing” Ike vs. Community Organizer

I remember once discussing the president when I was a kid. I was talking with a buddy who was a few years older so I naturally thought he was very worldly-wise, at least compared to me. We were in the barn hayloft and waiting for Dad to send up some more hay bales on the elevator. Dad was a beast on the elevator. He could send the bales up much faster than we could spread them out in the loft. I was too small to do anything but get in the way so I just leaned out the window and watched my big, handsome Dad driving the tractor with the hay wagon into the barn yard and maneuver it tight up to the elevator so it would be close enough for him to unload it with fiendish speed. He was a surgeon with a tractor…just like his Stuart Tank. So for the two minutes it took Dad to get into position we talked presidents. I only knew a few. Lincoln, Washington and the current guy, Eisenhower. My buddy said “I think Ike plays too much golf.” I had no response.

1) I barely knew what golf was. Now I know it’s an exotic form of mental torture. But back then it just looked like a bunch of old guys walking around in a field wearing silly lookin’ knickers. You could barely make out what the old guys were doing on those old black and white televisions. 2) I had no idea how much golf was “too much.” 3) I had no concept of what Presidents were supposed to do so I didn’t know exactly what duties Ike was probably at that very moment neglecting. 4) I had the vague notion that the Presidency was sort of a simi-retirement position for some old guy who had already accomplished a lot of real important stuff. 5) My Dad liked Ike (probably because he was Dad’s former boss and a good one). 6) Eisenhower seemed a pretty competent guy with lots of past laurels to his credit.

Somehow as a nine year old farm boy I knew these things. Today at the ancient age of 63 I have ideas about Presidents which are founded on more concrete stuff than watching old guys walking around in funny knickers on a fuzzy B&W television screen. So let’s do some comparing and contrasting.

Eisenhower had engineered the rescue of Europe (and the World) from National Socialism and if he had been allowed to keep going he would have rescued many millions more from International Socialism and the Ruskies (still a problem today).  Your Prez isn’t rescuing anyone. He seems oblivious to bad guys everywhere.

Eisenhower had lots of laurels on his brow and deserved a quiet retirement kind of job. Compared to kicking Hitler out of the places he and the Wehrmacht had gobbled up, sauntering around in the White House probably seemed a cushy, if dull, job. Your Prez has to hide his lack of accomplishment by sealing his academic and medical records from public view. (Why hide medical records? Does he suffer from something deadly which could render him unfit to lead and suddenly subject us to Joe “Blunder” Biden? Does he suffer from some loathsome disease that would disgust the sensitive among us? Or is it something else? Come on…you know what kind of stuff shows up in medical records.)

As a nine year old kid I had no idea what Presidents did in their job, which puts my nine year old self on equal footing with Obama.

Eisenhower looked better in silly-lookin’ knickers than Obama does in his “mom” shorts.

Ike has been called a do-nothing President. Frankly, I don’t remember. But, sometimes when things are going well doing nothing is a good plan. Particularly if you have the Midas touch in reverse when it comes to foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy, immigration policy, anti-barbarism and beheading policy.

I remember a few decades ago the Italian government “shut down.” Everyone went nuts. Why Americans went nuts I had no idea, but some did. It only lasted a few weeks after which some astute fellow pointed out the up-side of the Italian shut down: to wit;the Italian taxpayers had saved $8,000,000 every day (or was it “hour”) of the shut down. Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something, particularly when the people yanking on the levers of power don’t know what the levers are connected to and have never even heard of the concept of “unintended consequences.”

Eisenhower was a good boss, whereas Obama has never run anything until now. But, I think he must be a great guy to work for because he never fires anyone, no matter how much they screw up, or lie, or lose, or sleep through things like Benghazi. (As pointed out by Big Dave Horowitz recently, Obama  promotes his naughty flying monkeys who “get caught.” He never fires them. If he fired them they would rat out their handlers. All of which indicates their perfidy goes all the way up to their boss.)

I had no idea how golf scores worked, but I figured Ike was a good golfer because he was good at everything else. Kids think that way. They also think a guy who was a war hero is generally honorable. It’s a safe bet. Clinton and Obama both loathed (and dodged, in Clinton’s case) the military, which proves the opposite side of my nine year old self’s argument.

And whatta’ you bet Eisenhower was much more competent as the Supreme Allied Commander than Obama was as a community organizer. To prove this point I merely need to press your memory. Have you ever heard of Obama as the greatest community organizer ever? The greatest Constitutional scholar ever? That point was easy.

I don’t know much, but I now know how much golf is “too much.”