Ron Christie and amateur hour

We have just finished eight years of amateur hours, so my brother Ron Christie knows whereof he speaks, in a sense.

For example: we should have killed bin Laden at Tora Bora, but didn't, because neocon amateurs had another, mistaken, war to fight. We had won the Afghan war, but neocon amateurs gave that away, too, for which we pay the price very dearly today. Perhaps Ron is referring to the amateurs who leaked the identity of a covert CIA officer. Or the amateurs who sent troops to war without giving them necessary body armor or Humvees because they were more interested in financing a war with tax cuts for the rich than paying for the body armor.

Then again, when Bill Clinton left office, there was a huge budget surplus, until the amateurs turned the surplus into a huge deficit, because they financed a war that should not have been fought, with tax cuts for those who did not need them, while the amateurs let corruption and war profiteering run rampant.

Bin Laden getting away? More than 4,000 killed in action in a war that should not have been fought? Covert CIA identities disclosed by ideologues and partisans who couldn't tell the truth about WMD in Iraq? Amateurs who drank the Kool-Aid of troops in Iraq being met with flowers and candy, while they took a war that was won in Afghanistan and gave it away? Budget surpluses turned into huge deficits? Troops without enough body armor and Humvees that resulted in what the Marine Corps pathologists called preventable deaths?

Oh, I forgot to mention: a near-depression.

Compared to this, Barack Obama, whatever his imperfections, is Gen. Patton, James Bond and George Washington rolled into one.