[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img]I presume that President Obama will summon a respectable amount of his vaunted but vague and so far unseen reservoir of energy to celebrate the birthday of our country tomorrow.
For normal Presidents, the Fourth of July was a hoot. For this guy, he may see it as being indistinguishable from Sept. 23 or March 8.
He is passionless — except when he is scolding us as if he were our job-threatened nanny.
He is packing around a vat of anger that frightens persons around him.
He Leaves Us No Choice
I am obliged to guess at Mr. Obama’s response to the Fourth of July because after 2 1/2 years of being in public view almost hourly, we know little of the ticking mechanism within his carefully concealed self.
In the favorite phrase of our extremely unimaginative, distressingly passive, much removed, leader, “I am deeply concerned.”
He is so obsessively secretive about his past — and present — that he makes the disgustingly secretive President Nixon look like an undisciplined gossip whose voice box will be removed before dinner.
This week for the first time, major media figures leaning left or proudly left wing finally began to protest against Mr. Obama’s pre-packaged questions and public appearances. You may have heard crusty old Helen Thomas say on Wednesday, “Even Nixon was not this secretive.”
His Robotic Poses
Lies, exaggerations and truths roll off his tongue from exactly the same posture. That is a large problem.
No overt emotion.
Not passionate about anything except — like an untamed mustang — determined to somehow contort his ethics and values to bring a Muslim-centric form of “peace” to the Middle East. He will not “meddle” in Muslim government affairs but will meddle in the business of all non-Islamic nations.
Remember, his name, properly or not, was narcissistically attached to two autobiographies before he had accomplished anything in his thin life besides fathering two children and becoming a community organizer.
Does it bother anyone else out in Newspaperland that we know more about Joe the Plumber and Mark Sanford, even Mr. Sanford’s wife, than we do about the President of the United States? We know more about casual quiz show contestants.
It may be that he has led a life that would make Mother Teresa drool. We do not know, though, because such information is stored away in a vault guarded by armed thugs who would make any Latin American security detail hiccup.
The only thing black and white about Mr. Obama is his racial composition.
In the manner of a naughty boy who knows he has done wrong, the President even blurs, and tells varying stories, about that section of his life.
Putting aside the matter of whether he has accomplished much good, little good, undetermined good or has been a negative factor the past 5 1/2 months, consider the following inerrant path.
Note a single theme, running like a suspiciously quiet river, through each example:
• His first legislative triumph was the stimulus package that carried world record fiscal numbers. Definitions were discouraged. Projected effects were delayed. But gargantuan promises of new jobs and undreamed of prosperity — vague but impressive — were made.
• His first fulfilled campaign promise was to close Guantanamo prison. It was easy enough to pledge shuttering it in exactly a year. But, as a hater of details, incredibly he had not thought out where he would place the prisoners. That was Jan. 21. Half a year later, he still has no answer. But not to worry.
• He promised a transparent version of healthcare reforms braced by exact guidelines that would give even the dumbest American clues about what lay ahead. Now he tells us it is too complicated to explain, but it is urgent to pass the reform, in any configuration, because “the people” demand it. He holds up a copy of The New York Times as evidence. .
• Last Friday, Mr. Obama scored a whopping win when the House passed an obstreperous climate change bill that the ailing co-author, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-West L.A.), says is too complex to explain or comprehend. But, said the President, the darned thing must be passed immediately. Otherwise, we undoubtedly will be routed by global warming. Said he does not have time to show us how or why.
He is disarmingly vague about specific contents and effects in all of this legislation, as he has been on his shiny but abstract job promises. He just pats us on the head and says it is urgent that we approve these radical reforms forthwith. We can review the contents later.
Color him scarily gray.
Happy Fourth, Mr. President — it has been a quaint custom in our country for 233 years. Or should this be reformed, too?
