Obama Racing Down the Road, Ignoring the Check Engine Light

If you can envision the president of the United States as its driver, Barack Obama is the type of driver who responds to the Check Engine light by covering it with a little piece of masking tape. This doesn’t fix the problem, of course, but at least Obama doesn’t have to keep staring at that bright, accusatory warning. Probably just a loose gas cap, anyway, right?

All the masking tape in the world, unfortunately, can’t hide those troubling sounds coming from under the hood. That rough idle. Those disturbing pops and squeals. But if you’re really determined to avoid going to a mechanic, you can tell yourself and your passengers a pretty convincing story. Ah, it’s probably nothing, you say. Oh, this car’s always been like this, you insist.

But then something happens that even a driver like Obama can’t ignore. Something so big that it can’t be covered up simply by cranking the radio. The passengers are upset. Do something, they scream. You’re gonna blow the damn thing up, you fool!

So you reluctantly pull into the nearest shop, and you get the exact news you were dreading. It’s bad. Not unsolvable, but bad nonetheless. Not something to be ignored, by any means.

Now this is where the analogy breaks down. If you had the money and means to fix the problem, you would. There probably aren’t many people who have an ideological opposition to getting their car fixed.

Obama has the money and means to fix the growing disaster brewing under the hood, which is, of course, Islamic terrorism. We can speculate on why he refuses to do so, but the fact remains the same. And since the pops and squeals have become too loud to ignore, he has to come up with ludicrous distractions. We probably just need more windshield-washer fluid. We probably just need to fill it up with high-test next time.

Eventually, the car is going to do what all cars do when their problems are ignored indefinitely. We need a driver who isn’t afraid to get the damn thing fixed.

Then we can get to the other problem, which is that we’ve been heading in the wrong direction for a very long time.