Obama Runs From His On-Air Statements

So much for the courage of his convictions. Obama is in full retreat from some of his recent on-air comments.

The other morning, he was interviewed on CNBC. In the space of just a few minutes, he managed to backtrack on lauding Reagan as a transformational President.

Originally, he hailed Reagan as a "transformational President." Now, he says he really meant it derogatorily, observing that Reagan

'got blue collar voters to vote against their own interests,'

or something close to that terminology.

Then he was asked about his accusation of Bill Clinton being a liar. Again, originally, Obama was quite forceful claiming that Slick Willie is not telling the truth in statements he's made about Obama.

Under close examination, however, the novice Illinois Senator backpedaled at lightspeed, giving Bill a plea bargain down to something like 'getting his facts wrong,' and giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Then he recently backed away from his generic, demonizing statements about corporations when being questioned by Jack Welch on CNBC. Obama is all fire and brimstone about how bad big corporations and their workers are.

When Welch challenged him to offer something to employed workers with benefits, Obama declined. But claimed he knew the value of having functioning, profitable companies. Once again, he backed away quickly from his campaign rhetoric.

Peggy Noonan, in this weekend's Wall Street Journal, calls Obama "accomplished," with which statement I vociferously disagree.

However, I am in agreement when she observes that he never really goes for the jugular. He faints at striking back, then stops. It seems he's the same way when fighting back against accusations.

Perhaps this trait will either ultimately sink Obama in his bid for his party's nomination, or cause him to lose the general election.

It very much reminds me of a 1964 Henry Fonda movie concerning a race for the White House. Entitled "The Best Man," with a Gore Vidal screenplay, it revolves around Fonda's inability to use every means at his disposal to win his party's nomination. Being by Gore Vidal, it turns on homosexuality. Cliff Robertson's character, a rival for the nomination, is learned to be homosexual, and Fonda must use it to crush Robertson. If memory serves, he doesn't.

It seems that Obama is similar to Fonda's character. He just can't pull the trigger and be honest about his criticisms of his opponents. When confronted by the media, he inevitably pulls back and goes into denial mode.

Who wants, or needs a President with this characteristic. We need someone who will be truthful and willing to stand behind what s/he says.

Evidently, that's not Obama. Or Hillary, either, for that matter.