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Why is it that when a Democratic administration gains power, their first hundred lectures are built around the theme that the world is far less complicated than those bumbling Republicans made it look?
If only we had met our enemy du jour in a room outfitted with a couch, we could have taken turns probing each other’s psyches.
Probably within minutes, the threat of war would have vanished.
We could have convinced the latest gang of crazy Muslims that that we are lovers not fighters. Encouraged, they would have pulled a Custer and dropped into retreat mode.
Benign, grandfatherly George Mitchell would promise to convert from Christianity to Islam. All the kindly Islamic killers would have to do is put their mean, old weaponry into a vault and hand Grandpa Mitchell the key.
Oh, that’s how you achieve peace.
As sure as Betty Crocker is still dead, this is a cinch recipe for ending war.
Shmooze ‘em, and nobody dies.
The third most important reason that Mr. Obama handily won the White House in November was his daily promise on the campaign trail to negotiate with America’s enemies, obviating the need to go to war.
The way Mr. Obama spoke to the rubes along the trail, he convinced them this was unprecedented thinking.
Before a warring couple divorces, you know, they are advised to consult with a therapist. If it can work for “hard-working families,” as President Obama loves to call his fellow liberals, it should work for the rest of the world.
Except for the fact that a country’s negotiations with an avowed enemy has not worked since the Garden of Eden, Mr. Obama’s pledge to bring a heap of lovin’ to the Oval Office sounds mighty fine.
Except for the fact that the lunatic Muslim terrorists roaming the world are the most uncivilized beasts uncaged in centuries, there is no reason a little pill-popping Obama couch talk shouldn’t dissuade them from their misguided career path.
Who Is He? What Is He?
Five weeks into his administration, when it comes to policy, Mr. Obama has operated like a crosseyed blind man.
Without warning, he has swung from clueless to promising executive material.
We know he is a lousy personnel director. He has surrounded himself with not one or two but a roomful of petulant, tantrum-prone hotheads and tax-cheats.
The worst temper may be owned by undisciplined Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. He has behaved so childishly Las Vegas doesn’t think he will survive beyond the middle of the baseball season.
Eric Holder, the lying, race-baiting Attorney General, will have his next job-threatening meltdown before April Fool’s Day, if you get the unsubtle irony.
Lock up the good silverware if any Obama appointee wants to drop by your home or office or a visit.
Propelled by several impressive achievements, President Obama nevertheless is off to a staggeringly puzzling start. The trouble is that for every impressive decision he has rendered, he has more than offset it with two or three astoundingly ignorant, naive calls.
The most interesting President we have had in modern times vacillates between conducting himself as a Jerry Lewis act-a-like and a serious, sober administrator.
Will We Ever See His True Side?
Do not overlook his arrogance.
Which is the real Obama?
We don’t know the answer, just that he is maddeningly unpredictable.
Republicans aside, President Obama got his way with Congress, quicker than overnight, on the biggest spending bill in world history.
Just like John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald, this is the single act that he will be associated with for the rest of his life.
Hereafter, every biography of the first half-black, half-white President will mention the $787 billion stimulus package between the first and third sentences of his book.
“The most interesting President” is not to be mistaken for “the most effective President.”
But what has struck me as most telling about Mr. Obama is how frequently he is endorsing some of President Bush’s most excoriated policies — like increasing war-zone troops, backing away from quitting Iraq in an elitist huff, and backing the pro-Bush status of terrorists.
Angry liberals (that actually should be one word, it is such a common concept) have done an excellent job of swallowing their pride over the fast growing number of President Bush’s war-related policies that Mr. Obama very, very softly has endorsed.
Don’t Tell Anyone
The rookie President has been a quick study on how to sneak embarrassing announcements by the media late on Friday afternoons when journalists traditionally are looking away.
Last Friday, he dumped a doozy.
A sterile two-line blurb announced, in a whisper,
that the Holder Justice Dept. concurred with the Bush administration that alien enemy combatants detained at the Bagram base in Afghanistan do not have constitutional rights.
It was at least the President’s 50th “oops, this really is the opposite of what I said as a candidate” moment in 31 days.
What a guy.
“Change you can believe in,” he kept saying, like a windup doll, on the campaign trail.
We haven’t seen a President flailing in the wind like this since Mr. Nixon’s aborted second term.
