As IF Times

link RealClearPolitics – Video – Obama Ditches Tax Cut Presser, Bill Clinton Takes Control.

Ok hands up anyone who can imagine George W Bush being brought back to the Presidential podium to address the media and offer advice.  Anyone?  What a shock, no hands.

With each passing day and dramatic event, it appears as if the present administration has less and less control and grasp of what’s going on.  This should alarm everybody.  Without regard to any partisan bias, if one considers the big picture, it’s all unravelled astonishingly quickly.

It was only 2 years ago when this administration was swept into office on a wave of popular support on the theme of ” change”  wherein the Democrats wound up controlling both the House and the Senate in addition to the White House.  It was a complete three-fer.  The Republicans retreated to the status of backbenchers on the backlash of the unpopular George Bush.   The fawning liberal media were like 12 year old girls at a Justin Bieber concert and were breathlessly reporting every move and gesture of the new hero.  So big was the political victory that many were predicting the end of conservatives in America. 

In an almost unprecedented circumstance, the Dems had the opportunity to introduce and pass whatever legislation suited them since there was no legislative manoeuvre that the Republicans could use to stop them and most of the supposedly watchdog  media was on side.  And that’s just what happened,  the new universal health care plan was introduced and passed.  The plan to buy up GM and Chrysler, passed.  The plan to shovel money to overstretched banks , admittedly a Bush proposal  called TARP, passed.

But a funny thing happened on the way to one party government.  The public took notice.  It wasn’t the Republicans.  They were in ICU trying to rebuild a devastated party.  It wasn’t the skeptical media; for the most part, they were cheer-leading every move.  It soon became obvious that the new health program, dubbed Obamacare was not well thought out.  They couldn’t even explain it to people.  It was expensive.  Most damningly, some of the President’s own constituency, ie: unions,  who supported and fought to have it implemented were themselves excused from having to participate in it.

Suddenly, the roster of ideological issues that the Dems ran on all collapsed during implementation.  Gitmo didn’t close.  War in Afghanistan didn’t stop.  Terrorists were to be tried as civilians in NY despite widespread skepticism from regular people.  Global warming was exposed as fraudulent, so cap and trade died.  Nations such as Iran, N. Korea, Venezuela and China essentially thumbed their noses at U.S. foreign policy overtures.   Now, Wikileaks is outing dirty laundry and nobody seems to be able to stop them.  Most poignantly, unemployment remains high.    The dissatisfaction was most clearly manifested during the mid-term elections when the Democrats lost an historic number of House seats as well as being wounded in the Senate.  All of a sudden, the majority was gone.  So, apparently was the magic.  Even some notables within the party dared to voice critical complaints, something that would not have happened only a year ago.  Even the fawning press began offering some skeptical views. 

In this most comical political tactic anyone’s ever seen, they have now resuscitated Bill Clinton to sell the present tax deal…to Democrats!  Enough grumbling has swelled up among the ranks of the faithful, that they had to draw upon the “charisma” and wisdom of the old master to calm the waters.  The idea was to use the supposed capital Clinton had to sway the jittery faithful  What they fail to understand though, is that Bill had the support of a Republican congress when he was taking credit for all the good results.   They made him look good.  If the present administration weren’t so inept, they would have figured out that if the Dems had wanted Bill redux, they would have anointed Hilary as leader in the first place, not Barack.   There is no more clearer admission of ” I have no idea what to do”,  than to hand the microphone to Bill Clinton in order to run off to have dinner with the wife.  It was so painful, even Obama had to excuse himself.   It’s vaguely reminiscent of the time during Ronald Reagan’s tenure when he was shot and Alexander Haig stepped up and announced that he was now in charge.  

This event has to rate high on the list of incompetent things done by this President.  To leave Clinton unsupervised at a microphone in front of a helpless crowd is like telling Roman Polanski to watch your daughter while you go out.  It’s going to be pretty difficult to re-assert your authority once you’ve given it away to the experienced guy.   We will see incidents like the famous one when  Hilary was asked if her husband agreed with her on a policy issue.  To which she icily responded, “he is not the secretary of state, I am”.

link  Chris Matthews says Barbour, Christie too fat to be president | Washington Examiner.

People who read what I write may not be that familiar with Chris Matthews.  Matthews is the MSNBC correspondent immortalized for his famous quote of  ” I get a tingle up my leg when I hear him (Obama) speak”.  MSNBC is also home to other commentators wandering back and forth across the line of sanity; Keith Olbermann for example.  This cable station has long been the home of left leaning views on social and political issues.  When I say left, I mean laughably partisan.  Now that Comcast has taken over the station, it’ll be interesting to see what becomes of the format.  At the moment, it may as well be the Comedy Channel.

But the real point of amusement are the techniques common to all left wing commentators in criticizing conservative personalities.  Unable to attack specific platforms, the predictable default tactic consists of ad hominem attacks on the individual.  The popular approach is to label them stupid.   Dan Quayle, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush and recently of course, Sarah Palin have been tagged with this characterization.  It’s most humorous when Joy Behar and Cher describe conservatives as dumb, you  can’t make that up.  Sometimes, it’s more subtle, as in Barbara Walters asking in sneering, condescending  tones during her interviews with both Obama and Oprah on whether Palin was qualified to be President.  Recently the D list comic Kathy “Gutter Mouth” Griffin, called Bristol Palin, fat.  Well, sticks, stones and all that stuff, but it gets old.  These are the persuasive arguments from….12 year olds?  So now, the articulate Matthews thinks that Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey is too fat  to be president.  He’s obviously never heard of William Howard Taft, the 340 pound 27th president of the U.S.  In his time, he too was derided for his weight.  According to lore, William G. Harding famously commented,

“…He’s not fit to be in that office… No Really, he can’t even fit in the damn office!…”

In fact he actually did get stuck in the White House bathtub and had to be pried out.  Subsequently a wider tub was installed.   Like Christie of New Jersey, Taft was able to poke fun at his own weight and it certainly did not prevent him from being an effective president. It’s particularly pathetic that lefty commentators have so little material that they regress to the juvenile schoolyard taunts of their youth.  Labelling people fat and stupid; this from the side who has Michael Moore as a hero.  It is this same side of the political spectrum that bemoans the lack of decorum and civility in political discourse.  For fine examples of articulate statesmanship, check out the Dem clowns, er congressmen Alan Grayson or Anthony Wiener on Google, I won’t bore people with their shtick here. 

Christie may be fat, but Matthews is a jerk.  At least Christie can always lose weight.  We’re better off having a principled fat guy than a skinny… well you know.