Obama in Exile

"Obama is being chased by his own incompetence, forced to face it, unable to stare it down. Privately he must admit he is over his head and no one -- not in the legislature, in the labor unions, in the deep pockets of George Soros nor the salons of liberal media apologists and sympathetic academics -- can save his doomed presidency."

March 21, 2011
Obama in Exile
By Geoffrey P. Hunt

For centuries exile has been the most popular strategy for kings and dictators to escape hanging, whether it be Charles II, his brother James II, Idi Amin, Ferdinand Marcos or the Shah of Iran. Exile also has been a preferred choice for those seeking political asylum from persecution such as Albert Einstein and Bertolt Brecht fleeing the Nazis, or Salman Rushdie finding safe haven from the Ayatollah's fatwa death sentence.

No US president has ever been exiled. For high crimes and misdemeanors impeachment is our cure. For lesser sins, a second term denied is punishment enough. Until Barack Obama came along, a president imposing one's own exile would have been unthinkable.

Self-imposed -- or voluntary -- exile is a contradiction of course, a contorted pretzel twisting our sensibilities. Exile historically is an act of banishment and shunning; punishment by forcible removal from one's beloved homeland. I suppose there can be a form of self-imposed exile under duress, the fugitive on the run, like Whitey Bulger -- South Boston's notorious mobster on the lam for some fifteen years, unlikely to return to his old neighborhood except in handcuffs or a funeral procession.  Read More