The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Pardon Me While I Run The Fisk Bus Over Loco MoDo A Time Or Twa

Posted on | September 4, 2011 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Fisking a Maureen Dowd column. It’s the blogger version of calisthenics, really.

Maureen Dowd Smitty
One day during the 2008 campaign, as Barack Obama read the foreboding news of the mounting economic and military catastrophes that W. was bequeathing his successor, he dryly remarked to aides: “Maybe I should throw the game.” Rules of Lefty Punditry:

  1. History began with George W. Bush.
  2. Pre-history was golden, but W. killed it, for spite.
  3. BHO has Olympian powers, except where the Stygian evil of W drags BHO down.

On the razor’s edge of another recession; blocked at every turn by Republicans determined to slice him up at any cost; starting an unexpectedly daunting re-election bid; and puzzling over how to make a prime-time speech about infrastructure and payroll taxes soar, maybe President Obama is wishing that he had thrown the game.
  1. Anyone who thinks the U.S. ever exited the recession is a Lefty or easily fooled, but I repeat myself.
  2. If the will of the people was expressed in ’08, and the GOP expresses that, then how is dissent not the GOP’s job?
  3. ‘Unexpectedly’. The only thing surprising is the capacity of the mendacious media to slow the rate of exposure of crap like Fast & Furious, Gibson Guitars, etc.
  4. Puzzling over a speech? The details of the game of chicke with the GOP inept are so inept and petulant as to be an embarrassment to mention.
  5. Wishing he had thrown the game? What part of the game, overall, remains unthrown? This Administration could be summarized as ‘the throwing of American Exceptionalism.’
The leader who was once a luminescent, inspirational force is now just a guy in a really bad spot. You mis-spelled ‘farce’, Maureen.
His Republican rivals for 2012 have gone to town on the Labor Day weekend news of zero job growth, using the same line of attack Hillary used in 2008: Enough with the big speeches! What about some action? In Lefty propaganda-land, from whence our good President springs, speech==action. Well-crafted words are heavy lifting to BHO. The task of lesser beings is to jump in the dear leader’s desired direction and bring the vision to pass. Try not to notice the debt abyss next to the pass into which you jump.
Polls show that most Americans still like and trust the president; but they may no longer have faith that he’s a smarty-pants who can fix the economy. What honest poll actually shows like, Maureen? The nicest thing I can say of BHO’s record is nothing whatsoever.
Just as Obama miscalculated in 2009 when Democrats had total control of Congress, holding out hope that G.O.P. lawmakers would come around on health care after all but three senators had refused to vote for the stimulus bill; just as he misread John Boehner this summer, clinging like a scorned lover to a dream that the speaker would drop his demanding new inamorata, the Tea Party, to strike a “grand” budget bargain, so the president once more set a trap for himself and gave Boehner the opportunity to dis him on the timing of his jobs speech this week. Have you noticed, Maureen, that, in addition to popular contempt for ObamaCare, even the Progressive legal establishment can’t accept the ObamaCare suppository? The legislation is at worst a diabolical, uneconomical lie, and at worst a reduction of the liberty inherent in the Constitution to an image printed on a urinal cake. There is no grand budget to strike, as though it were some sort of Ivy League patch on the emperor’s new smoking jacket. The President’s choice of speech slot was overtly, grossly, deliberately impolitic. Boehner would have had to tear a page out of BHO’s own playbook of spinelessness to acquiesce. What’s somewhat clever of you, Maureen, is to realize that you have reached maximal beclownment; you cannot look any more foolish by insisting that Boehner ‘dissed’ the President. So keep going.
Obama’s re-election chances depend on painting the Republicans as disrespectful. So why would the White House act disrespectful by scheduling a speech to a joint session of Congress at the exact time when the Republicans already had a debate planned? Obama’s re-election chances depend on painting the Republicans as disrespectful. You said that? Really? Four years on, uebermensh just drops his full diaper of a record on the opposing party, which controlled half of Congress half the time? Really? Is your, and the Left’s, contempt for the American intellect that intense? You actually think people are too stupid to see through such a non-argument?
And why is the White House so cocky about Obama as a TV draw against quick-draw Rick Perry? As James Carville acerbically noted, given a choice between watching an Obama speech and a G.O.P. debate, “I’d watch the debate, and I’m not even a Republican.” The current political crisis isn’t even a GOP/Democrat issue! It’s a “Ruling Class idiots” vs. “anyone with a shred of common sense” discussion. If the debate scheduling fracas has any value, it is seen in the exposure of the intellectual bankruptcy of the Administration. This administration sucks, as in the scum off the bottom of the barrel, and we all know it.
The White House caved, of course, and moved to Thursday, because there’s nothing the Republicans say that he won’t eagerly meet halfway. There is nothing to say, Maureen: the Charge of the Lightweight Brigade met a stiff breeze and was thrown back in confusion.
No. 2 on David Letterman’s Top Ten List of the president’s plans for Labor Day: “Pretty much whatever the Republicans tell him he can do.” The Republicans, to the extent that they can buck their Progressive programming without making their heads ‘splode, are reflecting the will of the people. They’re still way behind the power curve on What Must Be Done to curb federal overreach, but, unlike the Democrat party, they are not completely paralyzed.
On MSNBC, the anchors were wistfully listening to old F.D.R. speeches, wishing that this president had some of that fight. But Obama can’t turn into F.D.R. for the campaign because he aspires to the class that F.D.R. was a traitor to; and he can’t turn into Harry Truman because he lacks the common touch. He has an acquired elitism. I don’t understand the meaning of ‘acquired’ in your sentence, Maureen, but it’s good to see your vegetative state is less than 100% persistent.
MSNBC’s Matt Miller offered “a public service” to journalists talking about Obama — a list of synonyms for cave: “Buckle, fold, concede, bend, defer, submit, give in, knuckle under, kowtow, surrender, yield, comply, capitulate.” Are we still talking about the speech scheduling here, or BHO’s record as a (w)hole?
And it wasn’t exactly Morning in America when Obama sent out a mass e-mail to supporters Wednesday under the heading “Frustrated.” See above.
It unfortunately echoed a November 2010 parody in The Onion with the headline, “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail.” Given that BHO’s record is a parody of a President’s, the Onion is a fitting source. Again, returning to a previous point: words != action. Words are sometimes necessary, but never sufficient. And the propaganda the put BHO in office is way past its sell-by date.
“Throughout,” The Onion teased, “the president expressed his aggravation on subjects as disparate as the war in Afghanistan, the sluggish economic recovery, his live-in mother-in-law, China’s undervalued currency, Boston’s Logan Airport, and tort reform.” Indeed: everything under the sun, save BHO’s non-command of such topics as leadership, history and economics. Bravo. The Onion stands superior to Lefty propaganda.
You know you’re in trouble when Harry Reid says you should be more aggressive. Harry who? Don’t make me link Dennis Miller’s classic takedown again. The only redemptive move for Reid at this point would be to preside on impeachment proceedings.
If the languid Obama had not done his usual irritating fourth-quarter play, if he had presented a jobs plan a year ago and fought for it, he wouldn’t have needed to elevate the setting. How will he up the ante next time? A speech from the space station? Short of an impossible Road to Damascus*-level conversion into an American capitalist with liberty as his chief driver, I’d say a resignation would be BHO’s cleanest exit.
Republicans who are worried about being political props have a point. The president is using the power of the incumbency and a sacred occasion for a political speech. Are you allowed to admit that the GOP has a point, Maureen? How did your editors at the Gray, Room-temperature Lady permit this? Oh, the Feigned Moderation Rule (FMR). Got it.
Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed. Oh, so you are willing to admit that a constant stream of hooey does not a solution make. Or is this more FMR?
The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term. Edge? He broad-jumped off that edge very, very early, resulting in the ’08 election. But you apparently didn’t notice.
The White House team is flailing — reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It’s repugnant. It was never anything but repugnant to liberty-loving Americans, Maureen.
After pushing and shoving and caving to get on TV, the president’s advisers immediately began warning that the long-yearned-for jobs speech wasn’t going to be that awe-inspiring. He’s been mostly cringe-inspiring since Inauguration Day, in fact.
“The issue isn’t the size or the newness of the ideas,” one said. “It’s less the substance than how he says it, whether he seizes the moment.” What non-Keynesian, failed ideas BHO ever had, exactly? Seriously. The purpose of the Second Coming of Carter, apparently, has been to close the Progressive Era. In that, he’s been effective. So atrocious that no one can stand these wrongheaded ideas any longer.
The arc of justice is stuck at the top of a mountain. Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for. Is there hope for you, Maureen? It sounds as though you are achingly close to a breakthrough. Keep going, Lady. You’re an artful dodger, but even you cannot elude common sense forever. We’re pulling for you.

*This blog post regrets the overtly Christianist choice of metaphor, but BHO has referenced a Christian faith on occasion, so this seems vaguely suitable.

Category: New York Times

Comments

13 Responses to “Pardon Me While I Run The Fisk Bus Over Loco MoDo A Time Or Twa”

  1. Matt Lewis
    September 4th, 2011 @ 12:25 pm

    Smitty, I just think that you’re way too confident that the Progressive Era is over.  It’s just too seductive.  Evil will always be with us, and unfortunately, I just don’t see it going anywhere long term.  We can’t even get rid of Progressivism in the Republican party!

  2. Robert Arnold
    September 4th, 2011 @ 1:56 pm

    Even Ms. Snarky Maureen Dowd Is Speaking Some Truths

    “On MSNBC, the anchors were wistfully listening to old F.D.R. speeches, wishing that this president had some of that fight. But Obama can’t turn into F.D.R. for the campaign because he aspires to the class that F.D.R. was a traitor to; and he can’t turn into Harry Truman because he lacks the common touch. He has an acquired elitism.”

    Albeit half truths, for like Harry Truman, Obama is a property of the City of London and Wall Street (although his value is fading fast.)

  3. Anonymous
    September 4th, 2011 @ 1:57 pm

    Not for nothing is Envy one of the “Seven Deadly Sins” – and the Left is ALL about it.  “They” have too much.  “They” do things unfairly.  So give us power and we’ll get “them” for you.

    I have long argued in other venues that a Conservative walking through a rich neighborhood looks at the wealth and says “Someday I want to emulate them.”

    A Progressive, though, says “Someday I want to GET them.”

  4. Fred Beloit
    September 4th, 2011 @ 2:11 pm

    Dowd helped in his election effort. Now under her little bus he goes. How amazingly wacky these people truly are!
    Thanks, Smitty.

  5. jwallin
    September 4th, 2011 @ 2:14 pm

    I like the idea of Obama speaking from the space station.

     Maybe someone can pitch it to him and he’ll spend some of the money we don’t have to get up there and while he’s there he can keep our billion dollar investment from falling out of the sky.

    (well if HE stayed on it, I’d be willing to accept the space station’s demise. )

  6. jwallin
    September 4th, 2011 @ 2:16 pm

    OH, P.S.

    Modo has had her panties in a wad ever since Bill Cliton wouldn’t give her the time of day. (She was SOOO looking forward to a personal tour of the Oval Office pantry.)

  7. DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » ‘Pardon Me While I Run The Fisk Bus Over Loco MoDo A Time Or Twa’
    September 4th, 2011 @ 10:32 am

    […] Smitty at The Other McCain gets some PT in. Fisking a Maureen Dowd column. It’s the blogger version of calisthenics, really. […]

  8. Charlie Martin
    September 4th, 2011 @ 3:52 pm

    Is your, and the Left’s, contempt for the American intellect that intense? You actually think people are too stupid to see through such a non-argument?

    Yes.

  9. McGehee
    September 4th, 2011 @ 4:48 pm

    The class Obama aspires to join is the one that took power after FDR’s treason. Its only difference from its precursor is that the present class doesn’t fear Big Government will take away its wealth; rather, it uses Big Government to control who gets to amass and keep wealth.

  10. Charles
    September 4th, 2011 @ 5:17 pm

    “Maybe I should throw the game.” may be the Obama doctrne in a nutshell.

  11. Quartermaster
    September 4th, 2011 @ 6:06 pm

    He just throwing the game 3 years too late. 

  12. Anonymous
    September 4th, 2011 @ 8:20 pm

    It may not be over but it is ending, time plus math.

  13. Anonymous
    September 4th, 2011 @ 8:23 pm

    A bargain at twice the price.