For dance, Obama unfairly called on the carpet

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Sunday, March 27, 2016 | 2 a.m.

What does political correctness look like?

I am struck by the crescendo of voices converging on the concept of political correctness during this presidential primary season. So much so that I am comfortably confused about what I should think, say or do about almost anything that has a political bent.

And to show my utter lack of understanding about such matters, I am going to wade into the deep end knowing full well I am in a distinct minority of people who think as I do.

I am talking about the tango. That’s right. That silky smooth, sensuous and deep-rooted storytelling dance form that grew out of the barrios of Argentina and made it into pop culture, thanks to popular television shows such as “Dancing with the Stars.”

In light of the tragedies that rock the sane world on an ongoing basis — the Belgium bombings being the latest manifestation of life-hating terrorists intent on scaring us out of our daily lives — it might seem frivolous to be writing about the tango. But that is precisely the point.

Even more to the point is the beating President Barack Obama is taking on social media and the more traditional yet still unsociable print and television media because he dared to dance the tango at a state dinner given in his honor by the new president of Argentina.

I know better than to argue with my wife, Myra, who has taken a dim view of the optics of an American president dancing while Belgium was still smoldering from the heinous suicide bomb attacks that left scores of innocents dead and wounded.

I also know better than to argue with colleagues whose expansive view of U.S. foreign policy doesn’t reconcile with the president’s need to dance. They ask how that fits with responding to terrorism, and argue that a little more considered action should be guiding us going forward.

To which I say, “You are right!”

It seems one of the issues to be resolved this election year is whether the president’s role is of single purpose or one that requires the ability to grasp and address multiple issues in our ever-more-dangerous and complicated world.

And why do candidates opt for one-liners that feign strength in 140 characters instead of investing more time to give deliberate thought to policy decisions, even if it means each of us will have to invest a few minutes more to understand and assent to a particular course of action?

Then there are those who shoot from the lips, which has got us to this dangerous place, instead of taking more considered action in guiding us forward.

Yes, executive leadership requires thoughtful and effective multitasking — and it takes a toll. Just look at our president’s gray hair.

Most of us have no concept of what it takes to do that job. Our own jobs are far less demanding and, in any event, have a start and stop time. Not like the president and commander in chief, who is on the clock 24/7. For the entire four-year term!

I am not giving the president a pass on his tango because he needed a little down time. But I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

We all know it takes two to tango and that he made an effort to demur. But he was at a state dinner with Argentina’s new president, replete with opportunity to turn an adversary into a friend in a vital part of the United States’ essential sphere of influence, so finally saying “yes” so as not to offend his host, instead of “no” so as not to offend those who abuse political correctness here at home, was a judgment call.

Many will proclaim that he used bad judgment. There must be no dancing for any purpose amid such tragedy, they say. And they will not be wrong.

And others will say he should have flown home at the first sign of trouble in Brussels — abandoning his historic trip to Cuba and his diplomatic initiative in Argentina. And they will not be right.

The rest, all the discussion in between, is a matter of optics. On that, we can all see it differently and still be right.

I choose to see a president trying to move our country forward — especially with our neighbors — at a time when tragedy has afflicted our friends.

We live in a world in which terrorists are continually doing their utmost to scare us into changing the way we conduct our lives. Because of that we must be more vigilant and, yes, if we see something, we must say something.

But, we should not give in to those who demand that we exalt the form of our optics over the substance of our need to constantly advance the interests of the United States.

Should he have said “no” one more time to that persistent tango dancer? Probably. But he made a decision, I suppose, not to embarrass his host, and that is an equally proper course of action.

If political correctness and optics are what concerns people so much these days, there was something else happening in America while all this was going on that puts us in a worse light and that must be condemned at all levels.

How about two candidates running for president who are dragging their wives through the political mud? They are running for president, for heaven’s sake! The way those two are carrying on makes a mockery of the office for which they seek election.

There is just no way to dance around that kind of behavior!

Brian Greenspun is owner, publisher and editor of the Sun.