Napoleon: “in politics stupidity is not a handicap.” Neither is Hubris.

Richard Fernandez on Obama's next excuse for failure, Hurricane Irene:

Nearly all the great captains of secular history have learned from their mistakes. But if the doctrine of Infallibility originated in Rome, nowhere is it more ardently practiced than in Washington D.C. As Napoleon once cynically observed, “in politics stupidity is not a handicap.” Only humility is. President Obama is too trapped in his own “arc of history” and too irretrievably hostage to his own self-proclaimed role as a transcendent political figure to pull off a Steve Jobs.

Shortly before his election Obama declared, “we are five days from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” From such heights it is hard to turn around and say, “I screwed up.” He is doomed by his own hubris to tragedy, for which he will suffer no financial or personal ill-effect. It is unfortunate the same can’t be said for those whose futures he will take down with him.

The president famously ascribed his woes to a “run of bad luck.” Someone should have reminded him that Nemesis, the bringer of tragedy, “originally meant the distributor of fortune, neither good nor bad, simply in due proportion to each according to what was deserved.” In that view, you make your own luck, and there is a large dose of irony in watching the Left, which believes in no deity but itself, eager to hang the rap on God.