BHO Bummed You Didn’t Get The Janice Joplin/Starland Vocal Band References

Posted on | April 6, 2012 | 33 Comments

by Smitty

#OccupyResoluteDesk is a man of obscure references, that’s for sure. So many people, for example, have misconstrued his famous 2008 remarks:

“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said, responding to a question about his cap-and-trade plan. He later added, “Under my plan. . .electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

Nobody is telling you that you can’t build a coal-fired plant, any more than they are telling you not to hang out with Bobby McGee. Bankruptcy is synonymous with ‘nothing left to lose’, which is precisely the kind of liberty that #OccupyResoluteDesk wants you to enjoy.And ‘prices will necessarily skyrocket’? Who alive, or who’s seen Anchorman, fails to recall ‘skyrockets in flight / afternoon delight’?
It really is just a crying shame that more people are missing BHO’s classic rock references, and getting all hung up on these pesky economic/employment/foreign policy/electoral fraud/budget deficit/national debt/war on religion/critical race theory/crypto-marxist/total non-command of the Constitution/crony capitalism/2nd Amendment crushing/politicized unemployment statistics issues.
How is a poor President to help us win the hope and change the future?

via Instapundit

Category: Barack Obama

Comments

33 Responses to “BHO Bummed You Didn’t Get The Janice Joplin/Starland Vocal Band References”

richard mcenroe
April 6th, 2012 @ 8:15 pm

I’m waiting for his cool Country Joe & the Fish injokes…
Adobe_Walls
April 6th, 2012 @ 8:21 pm

Your take on a variety of topics gets more interesting every day.
smitty
April 6th, 2012 @ 8:25 pm

I admit to fetishing the most far-out possible mis-interpretations of statements.
Adobe_Walls
April 6th, 2012 @ 8:30 pm

Everyone needs a hobby.
sheryl
April 6th, 2012 @ 8:46 pm

It’s gonna really suck a year from now when he is still in office. I will have to give up politics altogether.
Commenter E
April 6th, 2012 @ 11:36 pm

A scene from PCU comes to mind…
Adobe_Walls
April 7th, 2012 @ 12:01 am

Agreed if Obamsky gets reelected the time for politics will be over.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
April 7th, 2012 @ 12:15 am

It’s gonna really suck ten years from now, when the USA has an economy like Spain.
Adjoran
April 7th, 2012 @ 2:16 am

I doubt it would take that long. Our inability to address the fiscal disaster that is the federal budget will swiftly lead to cascading credit downgrades and sharply higher interest will be demanded by the bond market. We’re stilling selling debt for next to nothing now, real interest would sink us rapidly.

Unlike the PIIGS nations, there will be no cadre of large European bankers to try to cover our follies to save their own stakes. Our problems will be in a range of numbers all the bankers in the world cannot help.
K-Bob
April 7th, 2012 @ 2:42 am

Smitty posts are hard. I don’t get the references, even with the joke explained. (And I was around when Joplin’s version of Bobby McGee hit the airwaves for the first time. I think I heard Kristofferson sing it on some TV show, which is where I found out he wrote it.)
Adjoran
April 7th, 2012 @ 7:12 am

Smitty’s references are usually rather obscure, but clever. He’s like an enigma wrapped in a mystery stuffed in a corn dog.

Kristofferson started out as a songwriter. His first big break came when Johnny Cash heard his song “Sunday Morning, Coming Down” and wanted to sing it on his TV variety show, which was highly rated at the time. The network balked at the line, “Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned,” and told Cash to sing it as “Wishing, Lord, that I was home,” to satisfy the censors.

Cash agreed, and Kristofferson was upset, but couldn’t object lest they just cut the song. The show was a live broadcast, though, and Cash sang the original lyrics on air. He told the network suits, “I forgot.”
smitty
April 7th, 2012 @ 7:16 am

You guys blow past the fact that I’m making wisecracks in lieu of screaming and running amok.
Larimerica
April 7th, 2012 @ 7:20 am

#OccupyResoluteDesk is a man of obscure references, that’s for sure.

Well, that’s an ironic way to introduce this week’s puzzler.
Larimerica
April 7th, 2012 @ 7:27 am

Communication is not message sent, but message received. If your readers tell you they have no idea what your posts mean, then all the effort you put into trying to be cute is wasted. Try being clear instead.
smitty
April 7th, 2012 @ 7:32 am

Concur.
Not to diminish your point in the slightest, there does exist an alternative school of thought that says the internet is something of a garden party.
Larimerica
April 7th, 2012 @ 7:56 am

It’s a good thing (for you) that you’re pleased with yourself, because as K-Bob indicates, I’m probably not the only one who’s learned that the best bet is to just skip posts headlined with a serving of your signature word salad. In such cases, even prolonged Googling can fail to reveal any meaning in what follows.
smitty
April 7th, 2012 @ 8:52 am

It’s a good thing (for you) that you’re pleased with yourself, because as K-Bob indicates, I’m probably not the only one who’s learned that the best bet is to just skip posts headlined with a serving of your signature word salad. In such cases, even prolonged Googling can fail to reveal any meaning in what follows.

And yet, we engage in this thread.
Adobe_Walls
April 7th, 2012 @ 10:44 am

Pay no attention to those who can’t the appreciate the bizarre. Those who fall behind are left behind.
ThePaganTemple
April 7th, 2012 @ 11:27 am

Dude! You’re talking to a guy who thinks the GOP should campaign on a platform of eliminating Social Security. And apparently, he honestly thinks that would be a winning strategy. How easy to figure out do you think he could possibly be on anything?
richard mcenroe
April 7th, 2012 @ 12:09 pm

If there was such a thing as too many injokes, cultural references and intellectual asides, Dennis Miller would be out of a job.

Personally I have very little sympathy for people who a) don’t have the breadth of cultural or historical knowledge to appreciate an obscure reference, b) don’t have the intellectual curiosity to check out one they don’t understand and c) resent people who use one for poking them in their own insularity.

Not everything has to been written like the opening paragraph of a NY Post article (or, as Stacy would put it, The Lede (and How to Swing It).
Larimerica
April 7th, 2012 @ 1:25 pm

What can I say? Curiosity occasionally outbids experience. In this case, I read the comments to see if others were as puzzled as I, and when K-Bob appealed for a clue, I kept coming back to see if you would oblige.
Larimerica
April 7th, 2012 @ 1:38 pm

mcenroe said:

I have very little sympathy for people who a) don’t have the breadth of cultural or historical knowledge to appreciate an obscure reference

I, on the other hand, have sympathy for people who consider the plot of Anchorman and the lyrics of Afternoon Delight to be cultural and historical touchstones. It’s a bigger world than you imagine, Macky.
Bob Belvedere
April 7th, 2012 @ 3:52 pm

I would second Adobe’s motion.

I always eagerly anticipate what you’ll come up with next in your rather twisted brain.
Bob Belvedere
April 7th, 2012 @ 3:52 pm

I would second Adobe’s motion.

I always eagerly anticipate what you’ll come up with next in your rather twisted brain.
Bob Belvedere
April 7th, 2012 @ 3:54 pm

The corn dog part is what makes the Admiral unique [whereas, if you were talking about Stacy, you’d have to substitute ‘horn dog’ – at least, before he met She Who Must Be Obeyed And Is A Saint].
Bob Belvedere
April 7th, 2012 @ 3:54 pm

The corn dog part is what makes the Admiral unique [whereas, if you were talking about Stacy, you’d have to substitute ‘horn dog’ – at least, before he met She Who Must Be Obeyed And Is A Saint].
Bob Belvedere
April 7th, 2012 @ 3:55 pm

As Francis Albert famously said: ‘Whatever gets you through the night’.
Bob Belvedere
April 7th, 2012 @ 3:55 pm

As Francis Albert famously said: ‘Whatever gets you through the night’.
Bob Belvedere
April 7th, 2012 @ 3:57 pm

To supplement what Adobe wrote: And pay no attention to those who can’t the appreciate that Life is absurd.
K-Bob
April 7th, 2012 @ 6:48 pm

That’s usually how those things work out. I was reading about Annie Lennox (gifted singer, hopelessly leftist)… seems she was on SNL one time, was told not to do a particular tune (politically sensitive due to recent events–whatever they were), and she did it anyway.
K-Bob
April 7th, 2012 @ 7:08 pm

Looks like that person missed my sarcasm.

Smitty posts are hard because Smitty brings a lot to the table. I have no problem bringing a little something to the table in order to join in the fun. I was just fake-complaining, sort of how you do in a crew doing extraordinary work.

Keep up the good work, Smitty.
K-Bob
April 7th, 2012 @ 7:17 pm

This is the third Smitty post where I opened with “Smitty posts are hard.” It’s my little joke.

So he likes us to do a little homework. It’s not like we have to go to the library. I like Smitty’s posts exactly like they are. It reminds me of this one user’s manual I have for a Roland synth. It’s only about 50 or 60 pages, covering all the MIDI implementations (and I mean it’s got the full MIDI spec covered), the waveforms, the controller section and all controls, the sequencer and editor, the interfaces, the cabling, and performance setups and patch editing. It is about the best example I’ve ever seen of word economy. You look for something, and you read the explanation, and it’s like Zen koans with cross references to other Zen koans. You’d swear the manual was incomplete, but on further reflection and study, it turns out it has everything you need to know.

If I had to write the same manual, it would be 350 pages.

I miss the library.
K-Bob
April 7th, 2012 @ 11:56 pm

“He’s like an enigma wrapped in a mystery stuffed in a corn dog.”

Nice one, BTW. The closest I come to that sort of wit is when I complement people on their mastery of single entendre.