We seem to be missing a leader.

Well, that is what the word is lately from many of our president’s critics. What might trouble him is that several voices which were not among those critics before, have joined their chorus.

They lament that he does not seem to like to pose as a bold leader. He does not wear the crown easily. While Rome burns, or Japan, or Libya, or Egypt, he plays golf. He makes a sterile pronouncement that sounds as if it was born ten layers down in the State Department bureaucracy.  He runs down to Rio. He works on his basketball predictions.

The members of the chorus wish he would take the lead in the horrific financial woes of this country. If we spent not one dime on defense, highways, national parks, homeland security and a host of other programs … not one dime … we would run a deficit this year. The spending we are locked into by Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security and the like consumes more than Washington now takes in. This is tragedy in the making. It cries out for a leader to pull us. Push us. Drive us. Cajole us. Kick off the negotiations. Jawbone us. Muscle and lure the parties into compromise.