BY WILLIAM F. GAVIN

“Obama sets own pace as global crises erupt,” said a front-page headline in the Washington Post on August 31. “Deliberative approach to foreign affairs fuels criticism as world’s problems multiply.”

With all due respect to the Post, it seems to me that what our country needs is more, not less, deliberation in the making of public policy, especially in foreign affairs. Deliberation is prudence in action, and prudence is one of the bedrock virtues of conservatism. 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone in politics who jumps to conclusions usually winds up with contusions. The words “don’t just do something, stand there” should be carved in the House and Senate chambers and in the Oval Office. More disasters happen by leaping in where angels fear to tread (e.g., Obamacare) than by talking and listening and thinking before acting.

No, Obama’s problems cannot be traced to deliberation, but to two factors that have plagued his presidency from the start. The first is a personality trait, and it is called solipsism.

For those who slept through Philosophy 101 (and you know who you are) solipsism is the belief that the self is the only form of reality that can be known or verified. If we know anything at all about Mr. Obama it is that politically speaking he exists, in a fortress of solitude, where he, and he alone, has reality.

His bored contempt for anyone who disagrees with him fairly radiates from his preternaturally calm and disdainful demeanor. I always half-expect he will begin a speech by saying “Who the hell are you people and why are you bothering me?” He has raised exasperation to a guiding principle of leadership. We disappoint him, and always will, because to him, we are not real.

Politicians, with rare exceptions, have and need large egos and I am not blaming the president for that aspect of his personality. His problem is not that his ego is large but that it is to him the only real ego, the Platonic Ideal, all the rest being second-rate copies of his own. Judging by the last six years, it would appear he confers only with aides who defer to his wishes, and he condescends to talk to (not with) members of Congress, not because he particularly cares what they think, but because such meetings only confirm his admiration of his own wisdom. His utter contempt for Speaker John Boehner could not be more emphatic.

In short, Mr. Obama is cut off from ideas and people because he, as a solipsist, cannot bring himself to believe they have any value except insofar as they are useful to him. Decades ago, a conservative pundit once asked the question: “How would you know you are living in a dark age?” The question answers itself: in a dark age you would have no access to information outside the time and place in which you live. So it is with Mr. Obama. His mind is unsullied by any fact, statistic or thought that he himself has not originated.

His second fault is his reliance on and obsession with rhetoric. The Obama presidency has been marked by the use of speeches not as a last resort but as a first principle. It is no surprise that a solipsist will believe that his words can change reality simply by being uttered, but by now, even he should have learned that making speeches is no substitute for making policy. He has wandered from Wall Street to Hollywood to gatherings of Democrats, over and over again, keeping his distance, bored, talking and talking and talking to audiences who adore him, raising funds, raising hopes, but no one can remember anything he’s said after it is all over. It is all very, very sad.

So don’t pin the blame for the current foreign policy mess on deliberation. The fault, dear editors of the Washington Post, lies not in his deliberations, but in himself.

Editor’s Note: William F. Gavin was a speech writer for President Richard Nixon and long-time aide to former House Republican Leader Bob Michel. Among his books is his latest, Speechwright, published by Michigan State University Press.