NQ First Responders Must Read: Obamathon

Don’t skip the last story – ed.

1) Newsweek, whose editor could find no sexism during the 2008 campaign, has decided Obama isn’t transparent enough. As opposed, I guess, to those of us who could see right through him.

As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding “secret energy meetings” with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama’s “clean coal” policies.
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The hard line appears to be no accident. After Obama’s much-publicized Jan. 21 “transparency” memo, administration lawyers crafted a key directive implementing the new policy that contained a major loophole, according to FOIA experts. The directive, signed by Attorney General Eric Holder, instructed federal agencies to adopt a “presumption” of disclosure for FOIA requests. This reversal of Bush policy was intended to restore a standard set by President Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno. But in a little-noticed passage, the Holder memo also said the new standard applies “if practicable” for cases involving “pending litigation.” Dan Metcalfe, the former longtime chief of FOIA policy at Justice, says the passage and other “lawyerly hedges” means the Holder memo is now “astonishingly weaker” than the Reno policy. (The visitor-log request falls in this category because of a pending Bush-era lawsuit for such records.)

Some would say only the naive would expect a politician to keep promises. So we’re left with what? A politician lies; we know he lies. He knows we know he lies. We pretend to believe. When he breaks his “promises,” we are shocked! Shocked! Pointless.

But even more pointless is the irony that if you pointed out the lies early enough to avert them, you were a racist.

2) John Kass, a columnist from the Chicago Tribune, has followed Obama for a while, and he’s always worth reading. He constantly reminds readers of Obama’s Chicago roots and what that means. Oh yeah, and Kass isn’t surprised by any broken promises or backtracking from Obama.

It’s amusing to watch the Washington political establishment feign shock, now that President Barack Obama’s reform administration has used a clay foot to vigorously kick one inspector general and boot another out the door.
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Just two weeks ago, inspector general Gerald Walpin, who watches over volunteer community programs, was fired. He investigated Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, an Obama pal and former NBA star. Walpin alleged Johnson misused $850,000 in federal youth grants.

The use of political muscle may be prohibited in the mythic transcendental fairyland where much of the Obama spin originates, sprouting green and lush, like the never-ending fields of primo Hopium.

But our president is from Chicago. Obama’s Media Merlin David Axelrod and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel come right from Chicago Democratic machine boss Mayor Richard Daley. They don’t believe in fairies.

Kass goes on to show how similar events are unfolding in Chicago and reminds readers they were promised “hope and change.” Now people are a bit disenchanted.

What’s the big surprise? What strange, exotic land do they think Obama comes from?

Do they think Obama learned his politics in Narnia, while cavorting with gentle forest creatures, some of which have hooves and serve tea and cakes to journalists and well-mannered English schoolgirls on snowy winter afternoons?

Did Obama learn politics in Camelot, the magical kingdom where federal czars sit at a great round table, all for the good of the simple peasants? Or did he learn politics along that famous highway, you know, the one that’s always paved with good intentions?

No. Obama learned his politics in Chicago.

And now all of Washington can learn it, too.

Kass gets to say “toldja so” as much as he likes, IMO. If you don’t believe me, just google his Obama related stuff for at least the last year.

3) Now we know what GWB meant when he said Obama “deserves my [Bush's] silence.” Realclearpolitics has a little piece talking about how it would help Obama if Bush would talk more.

In a conversation the other day with a White House official, I heard something I’d never expected from an employee of Barack Obama’s. “I wish,” he said, “George Bush would speak up a little more.”

The article goes on to say that since Bush isn’t in the news, he’s “out of sight; out of mind” for the public. Obama is the president now and stuff is starting to stick to him, however much he still tries to stick it to Shrub.

Bush’s silence has made it harder for Obama to keep the public focused on Bush as being responsible for our present difficulties — the weak economy, the unsettled wars, the scandals of Guantanamo and the detainee program.

It is not for lack of trying. Obama regularly reminds the public in his own speeches and news conferences of all the problems he inherited from his predecessor. But to reporters covering the White House, those reminders have become familiar boilerplate. And since Bush won’t fight back, they rarely get much coverage.

Five months into his tenure, Obama has become the only president the American people think about. And a series of polls last week showed that when Americans think about Obama, they are becoming increasingly critical.

The author cites three recent polls: NYT-CBS poll, Pew Research Center poll, and WSJ/NBC poll, detailing findings from each that show increasing disapproval with Obama policies even while his personal polling remains high.

And maybe having no republican front-runner makes a lot of sense right now. When the opposition is in disarray, you OWN events.

Obama is fortunate that the public does not see a clear alternative coming from congressional Republicans. But he misses being compared on a daily basis with his predecessor. Thus, the irony of Obama people saying, “bring back Bush.”

I seriously hope the Republicans and Bush himself can just take it easy for a while to let Obama “do his thing.” No reason to provide him another punching bag – he needs to own his decisions and resulting fallout.

4) Lastly, if you just aren’t hearing enough about how Obama-is-better-than-you, sfgate is here to help. (BTW, the whole, so-and-so is better than you stuff is old hat to women. It’s pretty much what “women’s magazines” are made of, after all.)

WARNING: Diabetics and others sensitive to sugar and/or sugar substitutes and cloying writing should STOP NOW!!! PRESERVE YOUR HEALTH AND SANITY. AVERT YOUR EYES.

On this Father’s Day, the American public should proudly note that our president takes his personal role as father (and spouse) as seriously as he does his job as father of the country. The nation has become better acquainted with President Obama in his first five months of office, and we’ve learned that his value to our society goes far beyond his vision for ending the economic crisis, his passion for reducing our dependence on foreign oil and his efforts to woo foreign leaders. He also has spent hours wooing some key decision-makers closer to home, namely Sasha, Malia and Michelle, and invaluable lessons are to be learned from his example.

Uh, “father of the country.” What editor let this slip by? And. Ewwwww. Move over George; Barack’s our daddy now. Blech. The author offers the following insights:

1. The president has dinner with his family most nights.
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2. The president attends his daughters’ parent-teacher conferences.
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3. The president manages to exercise every day before work.
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4. The president has read all of the Harry Potter books with his daughter Malia.

(I wonder if Obama ever substitutes “Bush” for Voldemort.)
And as if this wonder of a father weren’t enough, Obama is also spouse-of-the-country. (Kind of incestuous, but I digress.)

On the spouse front, the president’s actions have not gone unnoticed, either. Here are just a few of the more notable Obama moves:

– The president has a weekly date night with Michelle. It helps to have a mother-in-law able to babysit, but kudos to the president for making sure it happens.

– The president compliments Michelle in public and does not have to be begged to hit the dance floor. The president took many opportunities during his speeches on the campaign trail to praise Michelle. And who could deny he cut a rug at all those inauguration parties?

– The president invited his mother-in-law to move in with his family. While there were ample incentives for Marian Robinson’s move into the White House for all parties involved, proffering such an invitation could be the holy grail of a husband’s commitment.

The author finishes with this. (And I am SO not kidding.)

Come next Father’s Day, our banking crisis might not be wholly resolved, the auto industry might not be on its feet again, and health care coverage might not be fully available to the uninsured. But we can only hope that fathers and spouses everywhere will be thinking “What Would Obama Do?” as they navigate through the murky waters of parenthood and family life.

There are so many objections to this bit of wasted writing I hardly know where to begin and I won’t even try to exhaust them. But a few points:

1) It’s the little things that take up so much time in life and BO has a staff to handle all that stuff. He never runs out of toilet paper, has to buy oregano at the last second or has to drive the “mommy loop” of school, after school activities, errands.

2) Working out is easy when you have a gym in the house, and no, I give no points to Obama making time for this. It’s not as if he has to drive to a gym and wait in line for the stairmaster or hope the gym has a child watch.

3) “Read all the Harry Potter books with Malia?” Are you kidding? So what? My brother-in-law has read every book assigned to his high school daughter and devised a summer reading list they both read as well. And Harry Potter, very entertaining though it is, didn’t make the list. Did Obama read anything with Sasha? Who knows? And, really, who cares??

4) And to hell with the banking, health care, and auto industry crises. I’m just happy that BO is just, like, so damn cool!!

If you use the link to read this column, don’t pass up the comments. Here’s a good one:

jddj
6/20/2009 8:59:55 PM

He is a dad who is still afraid to let his birth certificate be viewed by the public.

Gotta go. I need a tall frosty glass of milk. Or maybe black coffee. I’ve got to hope this article is satire and I somehow missed it.