By JAY FLEITMAN
You would be fully justified to say that the “optics” were just awful. Thirty-two people had just been killed and over 300 injured by ISIS suicide bombers in Belgium, one of our closest Western European allies, and the president of United States could be seen enjoying his field-level seats at a baseball game in Cuba. He didn’t appear happy at the interruption while he was trying to start a stadium wave with his two daughters.
Yes, Brussels is the headquarters of the NATO and the European Union, and the attacks were a terrible thing, but could you please pass me a hot dog.
The president caught some heat about this after he and the First Lady were whisked around the dance floor by tango instructors at a swell party in Argentina. His justification for not passing on his entertainment was that terrorists win when they see that they can impact our normal daily lives. The leader of the free world will not allow a terrorist attack on our friends to distract him from his recreation: “But we defeat them in part by saying: you are not strong, you are weak.”
The supporters of the president try to justify this behavior, countering the criticisms by asking what value would there have been by the president not enjoying an afternoon of baseball or taking to the dance floor.
Nonsense, it mattered. Our president should have had the sense to pass on the ballgame and the tango in the wake of the slaughter in Belgium. Not only did it look bad, but it was unseemly. The president demonstrated a profound lack of sensitivity to the trauma inflicted on a friend of this nation. Imagine the American response if the Prime Minister of England or president of France had expressed outrage to the attacks of 9/11 between swigs of beer or sips of wine at a soccer match on some bright sunny afternoon.
In no way was this an isolated incident during this presidency. There is a recurrent history of decisions by President Obama which betrays blindness to the impact of events that occur outside his personal interests.
The worst of these episodes was with the public release of the video of the beheading of American James Foley. President Obama decried the brutality of ISIS, only then to grab his golf clubs and hit the links. He did later admit that maybe the optics were bad. For the family of Foley and the American public, the sprint to the golf course was far more of a lapse than just an error in appearance.
A similar act of cynicism came with the political decision to assure the families of the slain Americans of the attack in Benghazi that our government would get the producer of a video, rather than the terrorists responsible for those killings. After all, those terrorists were an inconvenience to the narrative of a president running for re-election.
President Obama’s absence on the night during which the Benghazi attacks occurred was glaring as well. It appears that he was preparing for a political fundraiser in Las Vegas the next day. It would seem that the optics were not bad enough for him to pass on the donations.
The funerals of notables are important events in the lives of nations. The attendance of a president as the representative of the United States makes a statement of respect for individuals, institutions and to our friends and allies. To that end, President Obama’s decision not to attend the funerals of Margaret Thatcher and Ariel Sharon sent messages of disregard to two of our closest allies.
This president also declined to attend the funeral of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, considered a conservative giant in the history of the court, choosing instead to watch football in the White House. He also passed on the funeral of former First Lady Nancy Reagan, in order to attend a conference in Texas on the application of technology in film and music.
That’s not to say that President Obama has not attended some funerals during his presidency. He did go to those of Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye, Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, Democratic Speaker of the House Tom Foley and liberal journalist Walter Cronkite. The political selectivity of those choices is obvious.
This president has been accused of pettiness based on decisions such as these, but I think that the deficits are more fundamental. He seems to lack the appreciation of the symbolism of the office he holds as president of the entire nation, separate and above his interests as an individual.
There may be a flaw of character that disallows the president from realizing that the murder of citizens or the death of a revered leader of a friendly nation is deeply impactful to those owed our friendship and respect.
Or, what may be worse, he may just not care. He’s out on the town with friends and family.
Jay Fleitman, M.D., lives in Northampton. His column appears the first Tuesday of the month. He can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.