If he had it to do all over again, he wouldn’t.
Somehow the President of the United States has been reduced to commissioning a million-dollar bus to support a three-state misery tour of his own home turf. Presumably this is to shore up sagging numbers in the wake of the Republican Iowa shenanigans sucking all the oxygen out of the midwest.
He should have stayed in Washington. Jay Leno is roasting him, the Democrats despair for leadership, and even the reprehensible Wasserman-Schultz is hard put to defend this tawdry little man from his own lies, caught on tape. And aired on, well, one major network, at least.
Fox News is gleefully showing clips of him being grilled by Tea Party people who ask him fair questions, and the President has nothing but pathetic evasions and outright lies to come back with. Frankly, he was presented with a golden opportunity to put the vice-President’s “Tea Party Terrorists” acquiescence behind him, but in typical Obama fashion, he panicked and made it worse.
[pullquote]Soon, Democrats will realize that Ron Paul’s strong showing is more an expression of displeasure with Obama than of support for Ron Paul[/pullquote]
He could have issued a grown-up and gentle reminder that the tone of our debate must be moderate, etcetera, and given Slow Joe Biden a public rebuke of the briefest sort, while digging the entire administration out of the rhetoric pit. Instead, he offered childish re-formulations, attempting to re-tell the story along lines more favorable to his team. It is what we have come to expect, and this is his problem. Soon, somebody in the Democrat organization, or what’s left of it, will realize that Ron Paul’s strong showing is more an expression of displeasure with Obama than with other Republicans or even of support for Ron Paul.
I believe that the good doctor from Texas has seen or at least is now at his own high-water mark. Newt Gingrich denounced the GOP debate as a farce composed of silly questions, akin to fiddling while Rome burns. That he did this from his post-cratering stance is impressive; that he did this from behind a podium at that very debate is a testament to his integrity.
Newt Gingrich, like Ron Paul, would be long gone if the current President were not so awful–Republicans cling to each candidate, not wanting to throw away one which just might Gollum-like prove useful in the end.
Did you miss me?
It is an army of Davids, each bearing a sling and a single stone to try to take down the oppressive Oliath. Each gets only one crack at him. So I am glad that my earlier post-mortems of Gingrich’s candidacy have proven premature (even if correct in substance). I am also glad that I called him dead like Rasputin, who after more narrow escapes than a cat in a burning doghouse, finally did slide into the river for the last time.
All of this talk of dying and stones might seem a little out of place, except that the President has backtracked on even his difficult-to-oppose stance that we should not be so violent in our political discourse. That lasted precisely long enough to paint an innocent Republican seven shades of guilty in a horrific attack which had not a single thing to do with politics. Not Republican politics, anyway. Perhaps Noam Chomsky could explain his involvement in the shootings carried out by the grammar-obsessed Loughner.
Meanwhile, the President is trying to convince us that Biden didn’t say what he said–more precisely, that he did not agree emphatically with what another democrat politician said of the Tea party, that we are terrorists. The GOP is in a parlous state, with the Tea Party mad at them and their own divisions not only on how to deal with the democrat, but how to deal with the Tea Party, and so forth, but none of this compares to the black night enveloping Mr. Obama’s million-dollar raft across the river Styx.
This three-state trip is going to be his most regretted trip yet. He’s finally going to be called hard on campaigning on the public dime, and he just whined and lied to to TP folks on camera. He intends to disappear for a ten day vacation after this, and I think he will be forced to address criticism instead of relaxing. Stand by for a press conference from Martha’s Vineyard full of excuses, accusations, and falsehoods.
[pullquote]The President is being ground down at a faster rate than he can grind down the country. It’s close, but we’re winning[/pullquote]
I do believe that the shellacking from last year and his troubles since then have in fact left him in a state of reduced capacity. He was not man enough for the job and now it has wounded him. I think that the increasing pace and duration of empty, defensive speeches, vacations, golf days, and plummeting poll numbers are tied together in a vicious cycle. The President is being ground down at a faster rate than he can grind down the country. It’s close, but we’re winning.
Even Republicans on the August break from Congress are stunned at the breaking fury across the land–Obama must be alternating between snapping and barking at his staff on the one hand, and an aloof affected detachment to isolate his failing emotional stability from the increasingly dreary reality about him and his efforts. Now with this three-state tour, the President has taken a risky trip across dangerous waters, and decided to mock and insult Charon on the way.
Good luck with that, Mr. President. Nowadays, even Bill Clinton won’t answer when it’s you on the phone. I believe that your Communist buddy Hugo Chavez can identify that smell for you–get used to it.
