‘Puter’s been sparse in his posting of late, with good reason. You see, it’s tradition in ‘Puter’s office that when he goes on vacation each and every miserable slob of an employee uses ‘Puter’s absence as an opportunity to dump his work on ‘Puter’s desk and to blame ‘Puter when asked why the assigned task is not complete.

It takes the better part of two weeks to dig through the heap of accumulated crap on his desk, determine what of the pile is actually ‘Puter’s job and return the remainder its rightful owner along with a big steaming cup of go f*ck yourself for trying to screw ‘Puter.

Good times.  Good times.

Anyway, enough about ‘Puter’s travails.  There’s serious doings afoot!

Congress is back in session, meaning no sovereign nation is safe, nor are taxpayers’ wallets. 

The Supreme Court is back in session the first Monday in October, ready to rewrite the Constitution to fit liberal world views if the liberal justices can only catch Justice Kennedy when he’s off his meds.

Best of all, President Barack H. Obama is doing his best impression of a milquetoast, Hamlet-like “leader,” banging the war drums then slinking away when challenged.

Good times.  Good times.

Obama’s embarked on a course of slo-mo suicide in Syria, completely bollixing the foreign policy crisis from start to finish. That much is clear, and that’s bad enough.

Worse, Obama’s fecklessness and waffling have squandered America’s second most precious resource*: its credibility.

When an American president speaks, the rest of the world listens.

When a president’s words are thoughtful clear and direct, the world listens.  When those same words are backed by immediate action as appropriate, the world learns. Swift and certain consequences for acts taken in opposition to stated American policy teach world leaders America means what it says, and that America is prepared to back our words with force, if necessary. 

When a president’s words are poorly thought through, rash and/or just plain laughable, the world begins to doubt America’s resolve, wondering whether America is going soft or simply is no longer serious about its role as the free world’s leader. When a president’s words are not followed with swift, certain consequences but rather by hemming and hawing, the world knows America is a paper tiger and may be freely defied.

American credibility buys peace on the cheap.  That is, when world leaders know America will blow the snot out of their countries if they cross one of its “red lines,” America usually won’t have to back up its words with actions.

Conversely, if America abandons its stated positions (and its allies like Israel, Czech Republic and Poland), peace is increasingly expensive to purchase, and in this case the price is in American lives and treasure.

Credibility is like a lady’s virtue: if you have to tell people you have it, you don’t. Obama’s running around like a three-legged cat trying to bury a turd on a frozen pond to convince people he’s serious, dammit, and he means what he says.

But the world’s been watching, and Obama’s (in)actions speak louder than his words. Obama’s not serious and the world knows it.

Look, ‘Puter knows Obama’s administration has been a train wreck from beginning to end for reasons far too numerous to list here. But nothing Obama has done to date harmed America more than squandering its creditability.

As with any reputation, credibility is difficult to earn and easy to squander.  America will regain its credibility, but the price of doing so, paid in our citizens’ blood and taxpayers’ treasure will be staggering.

*American lives are America’s most precious resource, but preservation of individual lives is not always the greatest good. American will spend American lives when necessary to achieve a greater good.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.