Most people who read thrillers or go to the movies have heard of Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy’s fictional hero. But could President Obama have learned anything from reading Clancy’s depiction of Ryan?
● In “The Hunt for Red October,” Ryan gets hold of a secret Soviet submarine. Obama could have learned that heavily armed totalitarian states are dangerous.
● In “Patriot Games,” Ryan fights Irish terrorists who attack his family. Obama could have learned that “Unarmed men, and unarmed nations, can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.” (I learned that from Jeff Cooper.)
● In “Clear and Present Danger,” Ryan comes to the aid of American soldiers who were abandoned overseas by politicians. Obama could have learned that loyalty is like an electric circuit. Unless it goes down from the top as well as up from the bottom, the lights go out.
● In “The Sum of All Fears,” Ryan battles nuclear-armed Arab terrorists, but politically correct Hollywood turned them into old Nazis for the film version. Obama could have learned that denying reality doesn’t make it go away.
● In “Executive Orders,” Ryan sees us through a terrorist attack using Ebola virus, then arranges the death of the Iranian ayatollah who ordered the attack. Obama could have learned that diplomacy must be backed up by a credible threat of force, or it becomes mere empty words.
● In various novels, Ryan is depicted as a former history teacher. Obama could have learned that bowing to foreign leaders reveals weakness, and history shows that the appearance of weakness evokes aggression and intransigence, not cooperation and compromise.
● In various novels, Ryan is depicted as Catholic, as are about 25% of our armed forces. Obama could have learned that it is blatant anti-Catholic bias to forbid Catholic chaplains to hold services on military bases because of the “shutdown.” Is the First Amendment also shut down? Interestingly, there are no reports of Muslim chaplains being similarly treated.
The problem is that what makes for thrilling fiction is, in reality, a series of unlikely events that taken together become virtually impossible. Politics has been described as the art of the possible. Jack Ryan made an outstanding president, but only in the fictional world of Tom Clancy. In reality, attempts to string together a series of unlikely events are doomed to failure.
Barack Obama is attempting to string together a series of unlikely events. But unlike Tom Clancy, he is doing so not in a novel, but in a nation:
● Obama ridicules Americans who “cling to guns or religion,” and then expects people to see him as a uniter rather than as a divider.
● Obama tells Americans that their nation is not exceptional, and then expects Americans to act exceptionally to overcome the recession and build a new prosperity.
● Obama believes that America has a shameful history of imperialism, and then expects Americans to risk death and disability fighting for the freedom of Afghanistan.
● Obama heaps a mass of oppressive environmental and economic regulations on the backs of business people, and then expects them to overcome the worst recession since the Great Depression.
● Obama creates an atmosphere of uncertainty over ObamaCare and other burdens to be imposed on businesses, and then expects them to hire millions of new employees as if the future looked clear and bright.
● Obama plans to increase taxes on dividends and capital gains, and then expects those who depend on pension funds or retirement accounts to sleep soundly.
● Obama expresses hostility to private enterprise, and then expects investors to risk their money as if the outlook were encouraging.
● Obama adds massively to the national debt, and then expects the financial system to move forward as if nothing were holding it back.
● Obama foists this debt on our children and grandchildren, and then expects young people to regard him as their benefactor.
● Obama nationalizes much of health care, and then expects adulation despite the fact that for many people, premiums go up while coverage goes down.
● Obama proposes to cut our defenses drastically and bows to foreign leaders, and then expects our allies to continue trusting us and our enemies to continue fearing us.
Expecting the unlikely to happen is illogical. Expecting the impossible to happen is delusional.
Constructing a series of unlikely events made Tom Clancy an outstanding author of fiction. Attempting to construct a series of unlikely events makes Barack Obama a failed leader of a formerly great nation. In order to make it great again, we must elect leaders who will undo the measures that are strangling our economy, undermining our foreign policy, and weakening our national defense.
As a proponent of “leading from behind,” Barack Obama could be described as the anti-Jack Ryan. One might object that it is wrong to compare a real person with a fictional one. But everyone knows that Jack Ryan is fictional. What part of Barack Obama is real, and what part is a fabrication of those behind the scenes who groomed him for office? What part is genuine, and what part is a Hollywood set constructed by a captive media?
We do know, however, that Obama is a colossal narcissist. When he declared, “The private sector is doing fine,” he was not describing external reality. He was expressing his personal belief that it doesn’t matter how the private sector is doing – the only thing that matters is the public sector. When he proclaimed, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” he was not describing external reality. He was expressing his personal belief that it doesn’t matter what individuals do – the only thing that matters is what the government does.
Someone who depicts his own reality for others is called an artist. Someone who lives in his own reality is called a psychotic. Someone who attempts to force others to live in his own reality is called a would-be tyrant – but a failed politician. Barack Obama is neither an artist nor a psychotic. That leaves the third possibility.
Yes, Barack Obama could have learned a lot from Tom Clancy. But Obama probably wouldn’t have considered Clancy a worthy teacher. Unlike Obama, who attended Columbia and Harvard Law, Clancy went to the less prestigious Loyola. Unlike Obama, Clancy participated in ROTC and came into contact with serving officers and NCOs.
Besides, Obama probably found Clancy’s novels to be boring because they pay tribute to our nation and our military. Instead, Obama read Alinsky and other leftist authors. Instead, Obama exercised his creative talents not to write fiction, but to create a leftist fiction that seemed pleasant – at least to him – and then tried to make all of us live in it.
But you can’t live in a fiction. You can try, but eventually reality intrudes. The Soviet Union lasted 74 years before it collapsed from the dead weight of its impractical system. But things move much faster today. The socialist systems of Europe are collapsing as we speak, and the semi-socialist system of the United States is already showing serious strains. It is anyone’s guess whether our system will survive three more years of trillion-dollar deficits and central planning run amok.
Creating an imaginary world in books can bring an author fame and his readers pleasure. Attempting to create an imaginary world in a nation will bring a politician frustration and his people misery. It has happened before, and it is happening again.
Perhaps it was only a coincidence that Mitt Romney picked a highly qualified, vigorous young man named Ryan as his running mate. But somehow I have a feeling that Tom Clancy was smiling. The result of the election was not to his liking, but Clancy had the satisfaction of knowing that he had followed Teddy Roosevelt’s advice: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Tom Clancy died Oct. 1, 2013 at age 66. He spoke up for his beliefs. Will they be able to say the same for us?
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