How is it that, time and again, the most powerful man on the planet doesn’t seem to have a clue what is happening in his own government? Famed for never accepting blame for anything, the more I see President Obama these days, the more I am reminded of Sergeant Hans Schultz of the TV sitcom, “Hogan’s Heroes”, that ran from 1965 to 1971.

It is fair to say that the nation is as divided today as it was in the decades leading up to the Civil War that came about by the decision to secede and thereby destroy the Union. The seeds of that decision were planted in the Constitution because of the compromises that were needed to secure its ratification by the states.

Usually there are signs a dam is about to burst. Tiny cracks show up, the structure makes strange noises, and then, whoosh! That’s what we are witnessing as the President, the former Secretary of State, and the Attorney General struggle to keep the bulwark of lies and half-truths they have built intact. It is showing signs of collapse.

The resistance to Obamacare is writing a new chapter in U.S. history. It may well become the most unpopular law since Prohibition became an Amendment to the Constitution in 1919. By 1933, another Amendment repealed it.

On May 8th as the House committee hearing about the Benghazi attack occurred, you could have tuned through every major network with the notable exception of Fox News and (a) not found any coverage or (b) found so little coverage that you would not even have known it was occurring. Even C-SPAN dropped the ball, devoting that time period to the blathering in the Senate.

The Hollywood version of heroes is that of large, muscular men who show no fear and little emotion after a confrontation with the enemy. The images that come to mind are Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwartzenegger, and Bruce Willis who, while not a muscleman, has the swagger we associate with movie heroes.

I still recall the long months of the Watergate scandal that began with a botched break-in of the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. It was directed by a group of presidential operatives dubbed the “plumbers” inside the White House. No one died, but a number of the operatives, including the Attorney General, John Mitchell, went to jail!

In 2008, a young, first-term Senator ran for President. His mother was an American citizen and his father was from Kenya. That did not deter him as he was designated a natural-born citizen and thus eligible to hold the office. He won and we have endured four years of his first term and now are watching as his second term is demonstrating further his incompetence and loss of political power. Barack Obama, however, is proof that a Senator with a similar background can run.

Native-born and naturalized Americans who are currently seeking work are already competing with illegal immigrants—a term that the Associated Press says it will no longer use—or standing in line behind them as they sign up for all manner of welfare benefits. The official estimate of the number of illegal aliens—oops, undocumented aliens—in the nation is estimated to be eleven million, but if the “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill becomes law, it will act as a magnet to attract millions more.

Bret Stephens, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, had a commentary, “The Other Bluffer”, in which he discussed President Obama’s and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statements, respectively, on Syria and Iran; the former regarding a “red line” concerning the use of poison gas and the latter being Iran’s intention to make its own nuclear weapons.

I could barely keep myself from falling asleep during President Obama’s Tuesday press conference. Rush Limbaugh led off his program describing it as “boring” and the answers to questions as “boilerplate.” I cannot recall a press conference that yielded less “news”.

Thursday, May 2, is a day to be especially watchful. Jihadists are particularly fond of celebrating anniversaries and on that day in 2011 Seal Team Six found and killed Osama bin Laden. September 11, 2001 is now an indelible part of U.S. history and on September 11, 2012, jihadists attacked and killed an American ambassador and three others.

At an April 17 session before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the new Secretary of State, John Kerry, lightly dismissed the assassination of a U.S. ambassador and three security personnel in Benghazi, Libya, saying “I don't think anybody lied to anybody. And let's find out exactly, together, what happened, because we need -- we got a lot more important things to move on to and get done.”

A protocol to the Geneva Convention outlaws the use of gas in warfare. This did not stop Iraq’s Saddam Hussein from using it during his eight-year war with Iran. In one infamous incident Saddam ordered the use of poison gas against Kurdish guerrillas and civilians in the border town of Halabja, killing 5,000 people at the height of the Iran-Iraq war. His cousin earned the nickname “Chemical Ali” and was later hanged after Saddam was overthrown.