Obama the weak

Regardless of party, I was really hoping that Obama would succeed as president but it is becoming increasingly obvious that he is a weak leader and not ready for the job. Forget the fact that his primary domestic goal of health care reform is DOA, the bigger problem is his terrible foreign policy. It's like Jimmy carter left him his playbook in the oval office and Obama thought hey it's 30 years later, maybe appeasement will work this time.

He has basically given Russia a green light to bully any of the former soviet states when he agreed to dismantle our weapons shield in Europe. The Russian's view this as weakness and know that they can now do whatever they want and we will back down. If I was Georgia I would be very, very worried.

Iran is brazenly moving ahead with the nuclear weapons and Obama can't even get economic sanctions against them much less a military option on the table. I heard his advisor say this weekend that they wouldn't even confirm that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. Can you say Naive?

The war in Afghanistan is headed in the wrong direction and Obama looks to be folding his cards instead moving all in. He should never have changed the focus to Afghanistan before counting the cost. Now we are left with either pulling out and giving terrorists the same home base they had before 9/11 or we have to commit a lot more soldiers to fight in a part of the world that is known for outlasting their attackers.

We now have dictators freely acting abroad and a foreign policy that is afraid to confront them. What is driving this lack of confrontation? It is rooted in Obama's lack of resolve that America is right and that our enemies are completely in the wrong. He is nuanced and likes to point out our faults while giving our enemies the benefit of the doubt.

This naivete is not what the American people voted for in 2008. Many people were tired of Bush's black and white world view but frankly our enemies laugh at shades of grey. Obama has to realize that Iran, Russia, China and North Korea don't respect him. In fact, they trust that he will not respond with force. That's a bad signal to rest of the world who look to America for leadership.

Michigan football

Well if wasn't tough enough to be Rich Rod before this week, things just got a whole lot worse for him and for Michigan fans. The Free Press ran a hit piece this weekend accusing the program of violating the number of practice hours. Frankly if this were the whole story, I think the school would be ok and that they would take whatever penalty faces them for the violations. Just for the record, the limited practice hours are a joke and every football program realizes it and probably pushes the envelope on this issue. Michigan just happens to be the one that got caught.

But worse than the allegations is that the story was based on anonymous football players either on the team last year or still on the team. This is bad news for the coach. It shows just how little control and respect he has from some of his players. My best guess is that these are disgruntled holdovers from the Lloyd Carr era and they simply don't like Rodriguez. The preferred the country club mentality instead of having to compete for their playing time. But I wish they would have handled the matter with dignity by going to the coach or the AD instead of to the newspaper.

After a terrible 3-9 season last year, I was hoping to have a redeeming season to help forget about the past and lay the groundwork for future success. I am still in Rich Rod's corner and unlike many Michigan fans, I think he was the correct choice and can restore Michigan to a football powerhouse. But unless he gets his whole team on board, I can foresee a very long season ahead. If that long season includes several losses, it is hard to imagine Rodriguez keeping his job. And unfortunately it is easy to imagine the old guard bringing in a Michigan man like Ron English to replace him.