Falling on one’s sword

DNI Chief takes blame for wrong narrative about Benghazi
There is an ancient military tradition that loyal subordinates should be willing to fall on their own blades – thus killing themselves – rather than let their leader take the fall when the news is bad, or something disgraceful has happened.
It seems that President Barack Obama inspires such loyalty among his appointed minions. First it was Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius who was willing to be sacrificed to the alleged dictates of the Hatch Act in order to protect her president, who probably ordered his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to find somewhere far away to keep herself from this year’s Democratic National Convention so as to not overshadow him. Her husband was bad enough, but two Clintons would have been too much.
Now, it seems that James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, is willing to take the fall for the president and his coterie of advisors and associates who spent the better part of two weeks trying to explain away the death of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three others as merely an accident of fate due to a spontaneous protest to an obscure YouTube video that happened to take place outside the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
No way was it to be an act planned and executed by Islamic terrorists associated with Al Qaeda … it has been destroyed with the death of Osama bin Laden 15 months ago.
Beep, wrong answer! Bin Laden may indeed be dead, but Al Qaeda, like the mythological Greek Hydra, seems to grow new heads, arms, tails and other appendages when struck – as any good asymmetrical warfare organization is prepared to do.
Rather than do the Trumanesque thing, where the buck truly did stop in the Oval Office, it seems that our president is capable of inspiring others to deflect the slings and arrows of dismay when his policies seem to go awry. Never, it should be said, let another opportunity go by not to let his minions take the blame whenever possible.
That is not only bad management, but it also is bad leadership. It also shows a lack of character that one would hope to see in such a high office.
The importance of character
I suggest the preceding article for review, written by George Friedman at StratFor Global Intelligence – a foreign policy think tank, in which it stresses the need to look at the nation’s potential leaders in terms of what we think of their characters and less on what we may think of their articulated policies. Such policies may change, as we have seen ample demonstration with the current administration, but character rarely does.
For me, the jury is still out on the non-incumbents for the office of President of the United States, but, unfortunately, it has pretty much returned a guilty verdict on the incumbent for dereliction of duty and other actions bordering on malfeasance in office.
I hope that somehow, and I have no idea whether any of the alternatives are any better, that the American people are to pull the lever that helps lead us from this morass and we find ourselves with a leader who leads, rather than does sidesteps (oh, how Obama reminds me of the Charles Durning character in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas doing his song and dance), and is willing to stand up and say: Hey, it was my bad and be straightforward and honest with the American people.
However, I am not so sanguine  that will happen.