My wife and I have taken our children to Disney World twice. Disney's fantastical elements take you into another world. It is a world in which the toughest decisions include: MGM Studio or Animal Kingdom? Hamburger or hot dog? Cotton candy or Popsicle? Pictures with Mickey or Goofy?
It's a fun place to go on occasion, but you can't stay there very long. Why? Because it's costly and eventually you have to reenter reality; one must engage again the "real world", where the "stuff" of life takes place. You know, stuff like making a living, paying a car note or mortgage, changing a diaper, taking out the trash, cutting the grass, helping with homework, washing supper dishes, etc.
Our weeks in Disney have provided the whole family with an appreciated escape from the "stuff". Without fail, my three kids express the desire to stay a little bit longer - "Please Dad, can we just stay one more week? Please! Please!" My answer is the same as any working parent in touch with reality - "No. We have to get home. I've got to get back to work, take care of the house, the mail, the bills, the dogs . . ."
As I look at the first few months of the Obama administration it seems he is living in his own fantasy world, and wants to stay a while. He's spending a lot of money, throwing weekly parties, hopping from country to country dreaming about a new world order. This administration is young, both in time and maturity, but it is already clear (as with most idealistic liberals) that they are not engaged with reality.
It is utter fantasy to believe Obama's spending and more spending will bring us long-term economic stability. Obama is spending like a millionaire yuppie whose parents have just died and left him the fortune. Such spending may bring some immediate satisfaction, but eventually the money dries up, and then come the consequences of prodigal governing. Parents and grandparents should be very concerned about the hordes of debt, via astronomical deficit spending, this administration is heaping on generations to follow.
But even more disconcerting is Obama's "fantasy foreign policy" as labeled recently by Newt Gingrich. On the same day Obama was dreaming about a denuclearized world the North Koreans were sending a missile over Japan. And what was Obama's response? In a speech on nuclear proliferation in the Czech Republic he said, "North Korea broke the rules once again." Broke the rules?! Not much repudiation there. Obama's verbal punches have hit his own country harder than this, on his "It's-All-America's-Fault" tour of Europe. Broke the rules?! This is not a kindergarten class. The North Koreans have played the world like a cheap violin, taking bribes all the while resolved to go nuclear.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm all for a world without nuclear arms. Accordingly, let us pause for a moment of silence and daydream about a world without nukes ... Okay, now, wake up, wake up, and snap out of it. We can fantasize, fine, but not to the dereliction of dealing with reality.
I'm not saying Obama is wrong in dreaming of such a day, or even causing more tingles to go up and down the legs of television anchors and journalists, or leaving enthralled Europeans in utter rhapsody at his mellifluous Utopian vision. But it is disturbing and even bewildering to listen to the President's age of utopia as the Japanese track a missile through their air space and the Iranians laugh at the world as they pursue nuclear weapons. Step out of Epcot Mr. President and try to figure out how to keep nukes out of the hands of rouge dictators and Islamic terrorists and then we can dream about a world without nuclear warheads.
And speaking of Islamic terrorists, I'm not sure we take the threat seriously anymore. Confidence is shaken when the director of Homeland Security dubs terrorists attacks as "man-made disasters". And, all of a sudden, there is no longer a "war on terror," the term being dropped by the Obama team. Furthermore, Obama goes to Turkey, as one AP article put it, "making amends with the Islamic world after eight years of tension" - more fantasy.
Again, I'm all for Obama's message of peace. Bush himself often differentiated between the war on terror and war on Islam. But the obstinate and intractable reality is that there are millions, yes millions, of Muslims who do not want peace with us. Islamic Fascism spreads an ideology of hate and a swath of blood and destruction. They hate our principles and way of life. This is reality.
It's okay for President Obama to step into his little fantasy world for a brief time, but he can't stay there too long. Or else we are all at risk. The real world requires grown-up attention and mature leadership.
"Please, please, can I stay just one more week? Please?" No, Mr. President, you can't. You have to get back to work. You have to make tough decisions. You have to deal with enemies who hate America and see you as a diminished, groveling leader. They are ready to seize an opportunity. I know this may be a shock Mr. President, but it's time to get real.
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