Did The President Just Give Me The Finger??
There’s nothing I enjoy more than being lectured about how I need to change. How the country needs to change. How the Republicans need to change. How the military needs to change. How the Senate needs to change. Everybody needed to change, the President told us last night, except of course, Himself. Apparently the answer to America’s opposition to his policies, manifested by the recent election results in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, is a hale and hearty “F*** you, America!”.
I confess to throwing up a little in my mouth last night during what has to be one of the most shameless speeches in the long, and whopper-filled, history of State of the Union speeches. Pundits across the land are cataloging things they didn’t like about the speech, and there was a lot not to like. My feeling as to why the speech fell flat and will do nothing to help his standing is this: people are tired of being treated with condescension. Boil away all the debate about policy and what you get is an angry electorate fed with being taken for idiots. Americans understand their political class through and through and have made a compact with their representatives: romance us with flowers, dinners and a kiss now and again. Pretend you love us, before you screw us. The Obama Administration is giving us the Ned Beatty treatment from Deliverance and then chastising us for not calling and thanking them the morning after.
The President was indignant last night about “Washington” telling “us” to wait to solve the nation’s problems. Who is this “us”? It sure as hell isn’t you and I, Mr. President. “Us” view Washington as corrupt and tin eared…a huge, ungainly, leaky ship of state. Guess who’s the captain? If you answered “us”, Mr. President, you’d better look at the mirror behind door number two. You can point to Doc, Gopher and Issac the Bartender all you want, but for answers I’m coming first to you, Stubing.
Which brings me to the blame game. One of the most enduring images of last night’s speech was the Democratic caucus giving the President ovation after ovation, while the Great Man basically pointed his finger at them and said “You clowns are a bunch of morons for not sufficiently digging my program.” The irony here being that by applauding, they are saying to American voters “Come November, I not only dig the Presidents program…I’m wearing it around my neck!” And, what Obama speech would’ve been worth it’s salt without blame laid at the feet of his fascist, sulphurous predecessor for the mess in which we find ourselves? (At the President’s next presser, he’ll present evidence that George W. Bush was responsible for the Black Death and was the bad guy in that unfortunate business involving Regan and Father Karras in Georgetown a few years back).
In almost every job I’ve ever had, I’ve had to clean up something, usually minor, sometimes major, my predecessor had done that wasn’t quite up to code. In my experience, I’ve found that after a couple of days, I owned the problem. If I complained about the last guy and was unable to fix it, there were plenty of other people with resumes in hand ready to take a crack at it. You wanted the job, Barry O. You’ve got it. Do something with it, or you’ll be spending the spring of 2013 in Hawaii, mulling over book deals and pouring over plans for your presidential library.
The President did take the blame for one thing: not sufficiently explaining his health care reform proposals to the unwashed masses. That said, I don’t think it’s too much of a reach to think that the guy who said he was going to stop the oceans from rising (after he takes his morning jog on them) feels deep down inside that it’s not the message( or the messenger) so much as the Neanderthals (i.e. us….not the “us” of Obamaspeak) who can’t process it.
It’s bad enough when the President has broken promise after promise during his first year in office. The ultimate condescension comes when he stands up at the podium, rattling off what he’s going to do and expects us to buy it, again. How can this president, with a straight face, say that he is going to go over every spending bill line by line, veto pen at the ready, when he’s signed every pork laden bill Reid and Pelosi have sent to him. How can this president say, with a straight face, that we need to be a champion of human rights around the world and not meet with the Dalai Lama or call the Iranian government and it’s brutal suppression of protesters. How can this president, with a straight face, tell us that the U.S. has to be number one, while trotting the globe apologizing for American arrogance?
Now some will say “Bush lied”, “Clinton lied”, “Every politician lies”…and they would be correct. As I stated above, we Americans know what the deal is with our politicians. What makes this administration different is the sheer grandeur and scope of its cynicism and hypocrisy. There’s not even the pretense of propriety. The President rails constantly against special interests. During the campaign he pointed a damning finger at the 2005 Energy Bill and its twelve billion dollars in tax breaks to energy companies (which, ironically, were mostly for nuclear and renewable energy) as an example of handouts to special interests that must stop. A little more than a year later he cuts a sixty billion dollar deal with labor over the taxation of “Cadillac” health care plans.
All this has caught up with the administration in the last couple weeks or so. The President last night had a wonderful opportunity to explain that he’s recalibrating his policies to be more in line with what concerns us (and by “us” I don’t anyone on the floor of that room last night). Instead, he seemed to be telling America, “You need an attitude adjustment”.
Postscript: Democratic Party hypocrisy stood tall and proud last night. The party that held Rep. Joe Wilson in such contempt for bad taste loudly jeered members of the Supreme Court, situated front and center, egged on by the President of the United States during his State of the Union address. The only word I could think of was “bully”. Then again, such lack of decorum and respect for the forms and traditions of our democracy shouldn’t be surprising from someone who gave the prime minister of our oldest and most trusted ally a bunch of DVDs during that dignitary’s visit.
Post postscript – What the hell was up with Joe Biden last night? He alternated between twitching, grimly nodding (with the patented, earnest Biden Frown Of Empathy) and that smarmy, toothy smile which blinded anyone watching the event without sunglasses. I expected the State of the Union address and a solar eclipse broke out….I’ll have to fashion a shadow box to the next time Biden sits behind the President
Post post postscript – While we’re on the subject, the Grand Dame of the House has to work on her body language also. The blew her nose and kisses to the Democratic side of the chamber. She glared at the Republicans like a nun in a Catholic schoolroom full of nine year old boys. At times she seemed to writhe and squirm in her chair, at one point slouching and twisting something Quasimodo-like.
1Janice
wrote on 7 February 2010 at 17:49
That was exactly it…it wasn’t that he didn’t communicate his message…we got that, loud and clear. What he’s not processing correctly is that we got the message…but don’t like it and don’t agree. We’re not here to do his bidding. He’s here to do ours. When you get three shots fired across the bow (read: Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts) you’d better power down the engines and listen.
As to their treatment of the Justices…same as usual. Do as we say not as we do. It was bad form of Rep. Wilson to break decorum, but somehow acceptable for the Democrats when they do it? Just like being nasty to and about President Bush and Sarah Palin is acceptable to them, but examples of extreme hate, racism, or whatever whenever a Republican dares to criticize their Annointed One? Oh brother.