Dear Reader (and the horse you rode in on),
Now that’s what I’m talking about. Who among us didn’t love Barack Obama’s back-to-back press conferences in which he denounced the Republicans for their bipartisan agreement and denounced rank-and-file Democrats for opposing it, all the while telling everyone he got bullied into agreeing to something he considers bad public policy?
I know, I know, Rich Lowry, with his facts and his logic and his fancypants books-without-pictures, has concocted a theory that this has all been good for Obama because he’s triangulating. And yeah, yeah, the substance of the deal is pretty popular, and ticking off the base of his party has an upside (I believe it was Socrates who said, “If Nancy Pelosi is for it, I’m against it”). But it’s at least worth keeping in mind that from the distance most of us are watching all this from, “triangulation” and “total f’ing surrender” are as hard to distinguish from one another as the red-eyed tree frog and the grey tree frog are from 100 yards away, at night, after drinking a blender full of Maker’s Mark.
Okay, that might be a slight overstatement. But the simple fact is that Obama’s “race to the center” looks an awful lot like a guy backing up from a steamroller. He may not in fact be surrendering to the GOP, but he is throwing overboard every dispensable item he can find, lest he go down on the HMS Failed Presidency. At this rate, by the end of this movie, he’s going to be standing on top of a huge steamer trunk labeled “Obamacare” as the galley fills with rushing seawater.
Mitch McConnell Look What You’ve Done to Me! I’m Melting!
It’s kind of hard to put your finger on what, exactly, was so fascinating about Obama’s performance. This is especially true because I don’t have access to your fingers, so even if I did know I couldn’t put your finger on it, but that’s not important right now. Jim Geraghty had a good instant reaction to the “incoherence” of Obama’s position:
In his opening statement, Obama talked about how much he wanted to fight on this issue, but then he says he’s going to sign it because it’s the best possible option under the circumstances. One moment he’s insisting that the country can’t afford to extend the high-end tax cuts, the next he’s dismissing continued opposition on the part of Democrats as “fighting a political fight.” He’s trying to simultaneously assure Democrats that he didn’t sell them out and opposes tax cuts for the wealthy as much as they do, while at the same time, persuade them to vote for a deal that he just said he opposes so much.
“My first job is to make sure the economy is rolling and that people are creating jobs out there,” Obama says, days after unemployment went up from 9.6 percent to 9.8 percent. Later he said that there is no danger of a double dip recession, a statement that seems less certain after the most recent jump.
Then he referred to the GOP as “hostage takers” and said, “in this case, the hostage was the American people.”
“We were not operating from a position of political weakness,” he insists. But a moment later, discussing Republicans, Obama says, “they would have a stronger position next year than they do currently.” If time is not on your side, are you really operating from a position of political strength?
Also, the fact that this was pretty much the angriest we’ve ever seen the man is part of it. When the Norks tested a missile in the face of Obama’s hopey-changiness, we got cool. After various attempted and successful terrorist attacks on American soil, we not only got cool, we got cool condescension, whereby the president immediately suggested that it was silly or rash to assume that a guy shouting “Allahu Akbar!” as he murdered American soldiers had anything to do with Islamic terrorism. When Julian Assange vomited classified information, we got a strongly worded letter from Harold Koh and some tepid verbiage from Obama.
But when the press corps suggests that the likes of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Andrew Sullivan, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Markos Moulitsas, Sleepy, Dopey, and Bashful et al. might have reason to be disappointed in him, we finally see Obama the Pissed. At one point he reminded me of a favorite scene from The Simpsons when Homer tells Bart he can’t see the Itchy and Scratchy movie:
Bart: Look, can I please go to the movie?
Homer: I know my punishment may seem a little harsh, but I can’t go back on it. You’re welcome to watch anything you want on TV.
Bart: TV sucks.
Homer [visibly shaking with anger, grabs Bart by the shoulders]: I know you’re upset right now, so I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.
But what I think was most telling about the press conference(s) is that they happened at all. I can understand the first press event, when Obama wanted to get out in front of the news. But why the second? What did he add to the conversation? And in both, he seemed bizarrely unprepared to deal with the reality of the situation. I mean, did he not think he was going to get asked questions about whether he was going wobbly?
Deeper Ever Deeper
Ultimately, I think Obama’s biggest problem and his best path to political salvation can be gleaned from this passage in Peter Baker’s profile of Obama from just before the election:
Obama is preaching patience in an impatient age. One prominent Democratic lawmaker told me Obama’s problem is that he is not insecure – he always believes he is the smartest person in any room and never feels the sense of panic that makes a good politician run scared all the time, frenetically wooing lawmakers, power brokers, adversaries and voters as if the next election were a week away.
In other words, he’s arrogant. More importantly, he’s most comfortable in rooms where he thinks nobody is smarter than him and when he thinks all his advisers are dumber than him. We saw that man this week. He was visibly pissed that his friends couldn’t see the big picture and he lashed out at them, and none of his comparatively dumb advisers could stop him.
Is It So Hard to Get Some Sharks with Frick’n Lasers and Yarmulkes on Their Heads?
So last week’s G-File had a riff on Anti-Americanism as a kind of god-hatred. I wrote, in part: “I think one of main drivers of anti-Americanism is the conviction that America is a stand-in for God. By that I mean people think we can do anything we want, so when we fail to fulfill their every wish, it must be because we choose not to (something psychologically similar seems to happen to some people who hate God or the idea of God because of their own personal problems).”
Lots of readers (but not the horses they rode in on) wanted me to expand on that. I will someday. But in the meantime, I thought we might spend a moment on a variant of a similar dynamic: Israel hatred.
If America is a capricious god to many around the world, then Israel is surely a steadfast Satan. If America fails to do what is right, Israel excels in doing everything that is wrong. Hence any tragedy, any shortcoming, any foible that is too embarrassing or too banal to accept blame for, or chalk up to chance, must of necessity be a crime committed by those hellacious Hebrews.
Case in point: An Egyptian official is not willing to rule out the possibility that the Mossad has trained sharks to attack in Egyptian waters. From theJerusalem Post:
Egyptian officials say they have not ruled out the possibility that a fatal shark attack in Sinai on Sunday could have been a plot by the Mossad.
“What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark [in the sea] to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm,” South Sinai Gov. Muhammad Abdel Fadil Shousha was quoted as saying by the Egyptian state news site egynews.net.
Note: He’s not saying for certain that the sharks are Zionist stooges, merely that we can’t confirm it – yet. No epistemic closure for this guy!
Announcements! Statements! Mild Exhortations! Weird Links!
If you have a Twitter account and aren’t following my Twitter feed (@JonahNRO) then – and this is no exaggeration – you are missing my tweets. If you can sleep through the night knowing that, then, well, good for you and your “normalcy.”
If you haven’t noticed, I’m basically in the extended rotation for the Special Report panel these days. Thanks for the kind words and, in particular, those of you who sent in e-mail to Fox in support of the idea.
Here’s my USA Today piece, reprinted at NRO, on the silliness of this No Labels stuff. I liked this reader’s point:
“Stop your bickering” is what parents say right before they dictate the family’s next immediate course of action, without resort to voting or terribly much regard for the wishes of the pre-franchised.
Here’s a quick take on what Obama wanted to talk about this week, America’s Sputnik moment. Alas, he didn’t mean that the current moment is spherical but pointy in parts.
And, last, Debby’s Odd Links. I will post them this afternoon in the Corner but you see them here first, because that’s how we roll.
The Word “Mistletoe” Literally Means “Dung Twig.”
What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?
How Ma Bell Shelved the Future for 60 Years.
From Popular Mechanics: The best way to shoot a zombie in the brain.
Dave Barry’s Holiday Gift Guide is here. And here’s an old Dave Barry column: ’Twas the night before Christmas / Or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever religious holiday your particular family unit celebrates at this time of year via mass retail purchases . . .
The historical technology involved in bra design.
Underwear with the Fourth Amendment printed in metallic ink.
1960s spacesuit designs from Wernher von Braun’s science fiction novel. Related, a gallery of spaceship art.
Wi-Fi might be frying our brains.
Is squirrel the perfect austerity dish?
And the Bad Sex in Fiction Award goes to . . . (Probably NSFW. If anyone finds all of the scenes nominated, please send!)