I saw the movie “American Sniper” on Saturday. With that day’s news of the death of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto at the hands of ISIS in the back of my mind, I reflected on a particular scene in the film and found it to be pertinent to the recent terrorism horrors we’ve witnessed.

If you’ve seen ‘Sniper,’ you’ll recall the childhood scene of the boy Chris Kyle at home after defending his younger brother from a bully. Young Chris’s father advised him that there were three kinds of people in the world:

“There are three types of people in this world: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. Some people prefer to believe that evil doesn’t exist in the world and if it ever darkened their doorstep, they wouldn’t know how to protect themselves. Those are the sheep. Then you’ve got predators, who use violence to prey on the weak. They’re the wolves. And then there are those blessed with the gift of aggression, an overpowering need to protect the flock. These men are the rare breed who live to confront the wolf. They are the sheepdog. …You know who you are. You know your purpose.”

I began to wonder:  what kind of president do we have? Do we have one who thinks he can befriend wolves and negotiate with them? Or — a more chilling thought — do we have one who portrays himself as a sheepdog, yet allies himself with wolves?