One of my favorite expressions from my years in the submarine force was "If you're not lucky, we can't use you." My first Commanding Officer was Dick Raaz, who was, according to legend, the inspiration Gene Hackman used for his Crimson Tide character Capt Ramsey. Raaz explained that the perils of our profession required more than a bit of luck for success, so he was looking for lucky officers. (You can see Raaz on YouTube, skip to 3:45.) Although the subject expression may sound cruel, it underpins a certain truth which isn't about luck, per se. We know in our hearts that luck is often the result of courage, tenacity, daring, boldness or some combination that works in ways we can't see but sense, so we call it luck. There is even a Latin phrase for it "audentes fortuna juvat," or "fortune favors the bold."
This was especially important to the submarine force of World War II, where the expression originated, as 375 officers and 3,131 enlisted men were lost along with 52 submarines. Since most submarines were lost with all hands on board, having a lucky shipmate would be fortunate indeed. From a senate resolution on the subject "the submarine force destroyed 1,314 enemy ships in World War II (weighing a cumulative 5,300,000 tons), which accounts for 55 percent of all enemy ships lost in World War II," in spite of these heavy casualties. (And I don't think they counted the train they "sank.")
Which brings us to the President, sort of. In a speech in Iowa yesterday, Obama opined and whined:
"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck." Obama listed three events overseas -- the Arab Spring uprisings, the tsunami in Japan, and the European debt crises -- which set the economy back.Without debating the truth of whether the recession was ever really reversed, one has to ask, do you really want four more years of an unlucky President? These are perilous times; having someone lucky at the helm of the ship of state sounds attractive. Peggy Noonan commented on Obama over a year ago in this vein, calling him "snakebit."
But Mr. Obama is starting to look unlucky, and–file this under Mysteries of Leadership–that is dangerous for him because Americans get nervous when they have a snakebit president. They want presidents on whom the sun shines.Her article was in response to his handling of the Gulf Oil spill, remember that? But Obama hasn't looked any luckier since, taking a shellacking in mid-term elections, a steady drip of bad reviews about Obamacare, an economy that won't mend and record deficits that have the country nervous. The only bright spot was killing bin Laden, and even that seems a bit tarnished with the death of some of the same Seals who completed that mission. By Obama's own admission, he has been unlucky. But the steady reports of misfortune cause us to wonder whether the Bard had it right when he had Cassius declaim "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
This is why I can' t help but like Rick Perry and frankly, could never bring myself to hate Bill Clinton. They both seem to be very lucky men whom fortune has favored. Its also why I don't think Obama will be re-elected.
UPDATE
I can't believe I forgot to include the other widely used submariner phrase that would apply to Obama's economic policies, "The stupid shall be punished."
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