Why President Obama Should Not Travel to Israel

Mad Dog would like to make it a matter of public record he read Exodus as an impressionable twelve year old and imagined himself as Dov Landau, and spent much of his youth looking for the real life equivalent of Karen Hansen. So Mad Dog claims his bone fides as a person conditioned from early childhood experience to sympathize with Israel and the reasons for its founding and the suffering of those who sought to build a new life after the horrors of Germany, Poland, occupied France, Denmark and the Nazi holocaust.

Having said all that, Mad Dog is currently reading about James Garfield, the second American President to have been assassinated, of four.  There have been at least 14 assassination attempts on American Presidents and several against President Obama we know about from a brief internet survey.

Of all the places on planet earth where Mad Dog would forbid President Obama from traveling here is the list:

1. The Middle East from Iran to and including Egypt.

2. Somalia

3. Venezuela 

4. Columbia

5. Mexico

6. North or South Korea

7. Texas

8. Arizona

9. South Carolina

10. Mississippi

11. Anywhere in Georgia outside of Atlanta

12. Alabama.

13. Anywhere with a higher proportion of rednecks and guns than listeners to NPR.

In the internet age, there is simply no reason for Mr. Obama to step out from behind the bullet proof glass and shake hands with citizens.

He can do that after his next 4 years in office.

We need him to complete his term. As Mad Dog has advised, Mr. Obama should spend plenty of time outside of Washington, D.C., embarrassing Congressmen where they live, but he ought to confine these visits to places where there are at least as many sane people as lunatics.

The Middle East does not need Mr. Obama to be personally present. Jimmy Carter brought the Egyptians and Israelis to Washington. If anybody in Israel or Palestine or Lebanon or Syria or Egypt really wants American advice, they can travel to America to get it. Our intervention in that part of the world should be restricted to Skype and the occasional drone strike (fully vetted.) We do not need to step into a dog fight to prove we love dogs.

Now, if I can just get Barack Obama on the phone.