Is President Obama a Leader ?

Le­on Pan­etta ar­gued that for all of Barack Obama’s strengths, he is miss­ing an es­sen­tial in­gredi­ent of lead­er­ship. He lacks “fire,” wrote Obama’s former CIA dir­ect­or and Pentagon chief. “The pres­id­ent re­lies on the lo­gic of a law pro­fess­or rather than the pas­sion of a lead­er.”Obama has proved Pan­etta right again and again dur­ing his pres­id­ency, but nev­er more dan­ger­ously so than with his shoulder-shrug ap­proach to IS­IS. Obama called it a “J.V. team” be­fore it star­ted be­head­ing Amer­ic­ans. He said it was “con­tained” be­fore it at­tacked Par­is. Now he’s call­ing it “a bunch of killers with good so­cial me­dia.”Ron Fournier

President Obama is tired of all the critics who say his strategy to destroy Islamic State isn't working."The only thing that they're doing is talking as if they're tough," he complained last week. "If folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they think they would do, [they should] present a specific plan."What the rest of us need, Obama counseled, is more patience. "It's going to take time".Obama was right on one count: ?LATimes