Common Sense: Thirteen months

There are many in government whose policies and actions I do not support. For one reason or another, I do not believe they provide leadership and/or are moving our nation in the right direction. President Obama has clearly been an individual who I have increasingly viewed as a poor president. I doubt anyone reading my column regularly did not already know my view.

Having made my point, I usually come away disappointed with these officials but certain that we can survive their incumbency. After all, how much damage can they actually do!

What for me has changed over the last year or so is that I now consider President Obama’s policies and lack of leadership dangerous to our way of life. His foreign policy is muddled, ineffective and bogged down in such a way that it would be difficult to conclude that we have done anything other than risk lives and wasted billions of dollars in the Middle East.

Russia shows no fear of us and as we saw with the Ukraine and now more recently with Turkey, desires to test the resolve of NATO. This is a very dangerous development. An enormous number of things have been written concerning the UN nuclear agreement with Iran that the U.S. is officially supporting. Many experts and a majority of Congress believe the deal places the United States in danger a dozen or so years down the road. Obama gave us this deal.

The president, for all too long, maintained that an obvious case of terrorism in San Bernardino brought about by the radicalization of a Muslim man and woman during time spent in the Middle East should still be considered a workplace incident. Talk about putting your head in the sand! He might be the only person in the country who could not figure out that two individuals with assault weapons, thousands of rounds of ammunition, special gear, body armor, numerous bombs and a plan are not reacting to a workplace dispute.

The only saving grace is that, in a little over 13 months, he will, no matter what, be out of office. Unfortunately, that is still plenty of time for his inability to get a handle on an increasingly dangerous international and homeland security situation to worsen.

* * *

The court battle for control of the Brooklyn Republican Party continues on. Papers are to be submitted on January 26 with responses a week later and the hearing on February 5. The judge wants to make a decision before a calendar is set for nominations in a special election to be held in April for a vacancy in the 59th Assembly District. In the interim ,the Board of Election’s view that neither side is officially in control remains in force.

* * *

This week marks the 27th anniversary of this column. I am pleased to report, once again, that I have not missed a week of publication in all these years. That would be 1,404 consecutive columns!

The first one appeared on December 8, 1988, avery different time indeed. Ronald Reagan was finishing up as president. The United States was the world’s undisputed leading power using any metric you could produce. New York State was the nation’s second largest state in population as opposed to being fourth today. And a middle class family could actually afford to live in New York City.

Yes it was a different time. What has remained the same is the enjoyment I get from being allowed to express my views in this column and the pleasure of knowing at least a few people read it. Common Sense to some, Nonsense to others. Regardless, it has been an honor.