As some here may remember I wrote a column a while back about how the Obama administration’s solution to every problem is more Obama. From that old column:
Why the Obama administration is determined to do the time warp again is easier to decipher. Obama’s advisers think the answer to every problem is more cowbell, if by “cowbell” you mean “Obama.” It’s like Obama guru David Axelrod is the Christopher Walken character from the Saturday Night Live skit about Blue Oyster Cult (if you don’t know the reference, Google “cowbell”).
Every time someone comes up with an alternative to throwing Obama on TV, Axelrod says, “No, no, no. Guess what? I got a fever, and the only prescription . . . is more Obama!”
But is that really what the doctor ordered?
I’m proud to say that the column, and the running cowbell jokes on the Corner have spawned a small cottage industry of cowbell paraphernalia. Anyway, there are no new cowbell jokes in my column today, but the point is clearer than ever. Obama’s explanation for everything that has gone wrong over the last year is that he didn’t clang the cowbell more. From my column:
In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, the president offered his nuanced analysis of the Bay State Götterdämmerung and his first year in office.
In short: “I did nothing wrong.”
Well, with one caveat: “One thing I regret this year is that we were so busy just getting stuff done . . . that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people. . . . I think the assumption was, if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on the, you know, this provision, or that law, or are we making a good, rational decision here, that people will get it.”
Cue the record-scratch sound effect!
Look, Fidel Castro can get away with saying something like that. He’s been cloistered away on life support, unable to give his epic speeches to rent-a-crowds. But Obama? Barack Obama?
In his first year as president, Obama has broken all records for talking directly to the American people. According to CBS News, he has delivered 411 public “speeches, comments, and remarks” and 158 interviews — more than one public statement per day and roughly an interview every other day.
The supposedly aloof Obama already personalizes things more than a host on The View. Every address is so laden with “me,” “myself,” and “I,” you’d think he was trying to fix the economy with a massive stimulus of personal pronouns.
Obama is a near-permanent fixture not just of news-magazine covers but all magazine covers, including Men’s Fitness and American Dog — which, admittedly, he shared with a three-legged pooch named Baby. He’s schmoozed with Oprah and given plenty of in-depth interviews on 60 Minutes.
Next week, the president will give his first State of the Union address. If that seems strange, it’s because it will be his third nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress.
The only way the White House communications shop could cram more Obama down our throats would be if it required, as part of the health-care bill, that we have Obama-message receivers installed in our fillings.
The arrogance runs deeper . . .






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