Not that anyone could have missed it, but BHO has been in rare form over the past month or so. I titled the note as I thought it was totally reflective of the BHO presidency. “Hitting it off the practice tee” has multiple meanings. First, it obviously means hitting balls at the driving range before a round of golf, and if there is anything that symbolizes the BHO presidency, it is him on the golf course rather than hard at work (Before you try to be pedantic, and suggest that the real image of BHO’s term is of him sitting for yet another fawning interview with the “Today” show, or “60 Minutes,” or Jay Leno, I will grant you that, but the golf image works better for the purposes of this note) in the Oval Office. Second, “hitting…practice tee” represents the idea that for the BHO White House it’s all just easy, practice time, working on their swing, but no pressure packed big money shots. Finally, “hitting it off the practice tee” represents a more elegant expression for a guy spending some quality time by himself and his thoughts about Miss March, and if that doesn’t represent the BHO administration, I don’t know what does.

Let’s take a look at the last month or so. As is well known by now, the self-imollation in Tunisia sparked the “Arab Spring.” Tunisia was over and done with so quickly that the “deliberative” BHO style (he was still reading the Sports page and thinking about his Opening Day pitch when the Tunisian dictator rode out of town) proved nothing more than a footnote. The fever spread to Egypt, and a Google executive almost single handedly parted the Red Sea, and led the Egyptians back into their own country to reclaim power from the dictator Mubarek. During that whole period BHO was nowhere to be found; possibly on a long weekend at Camp David…playing golf. Then it was Bahrain…then it was Syria…then it was Saudi, then it was Yemen, and finally it was Libya. All across the region, citizens were protesting, pleading, and, literally, dying for the sake of freedom. And the U.S.A.’s response to all of this?
“Hey, kids, how about spring break in Rio?!?!?!”

Ummmm…as Joe Biden once said about the disastrous health care bill, “this is kind of a big f’ing deal”…as in, this is a once in a century type opportunity. We and the Brits, and the Ottomans, etc, all led to the current disaster that is the Middle East over the last century, but the, so called, “Arab Street” has been around for centuries. Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton wrote in his diaries about the “Arab Street” 150 year ago. The only difference is then they were rioting against British or Ottoman colonialists; now they are protesting their kleptocratic, violent and dictatorial leaders. We chose the House of Saud 80+ years ago to lead Arabia, and while they’ve been “our friends and allies,” my sense is if we could have a “do-over,” we would hit the bid. The net is, these protests are all about freedom, and are likely going to lead to a new landscape in the Middle East that could be a lot better or a lot worse than the old Middle East (see: Iran 2009. We turned our backs on freedom fighters in Tehran, and in the end Ahmadinejad brutally cracked down, and tightened his grip, contrary to all of our hopes and wishes). It would be great to know that our team was involved in the process, helping the protesters who stand for freedom like the good ol’ U.S. of A. does, rather than hitting the links, taking vacations, and watching basketball games.

Then, there was the earthquake in Japan, registering a 9 on the Richter Scale, and the 5th most powerful earthquake in history. Let’s repeat that again. The 5th largest earthquake in history, followed by a massive tsunami.

So, let’s just put this whole picture in perspective. Massive conflagration in the Middle East (with HUGE opportunities for the U.S. to redraw the map of alliances to our advantage); giant disaster in Japan with the potential for a nuclear holocaust; an economy that remains precariously teetering on the precipice, and a budget impasse that needs to be breeched so that we don’t face an economic nuclear winter, and where are BHO’s thoughts?

It’s March Madness, baby!!! Literally and figuratively. March Madness. Japan was in the midst of heading to a nuclear winter, and what was BHO preoccupied with? Greeting the Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks to the White House, where the Hawks provided him with his #44 jersey! The Middle East is literally melting down, and the world is begging for leadership, and where is BHO? He’s on ESPN giving the audience his tournament picks. It’s March Madness, baby!!! Can you imagine if you were some Libyan freedom fighter, hoping and praying for the world to help you and your fellow rebels take on the evil Ghadaffi, and you fire up the satellite TV to see how the world is responding. To your surprise, all you see is that the most powerful man in the world, the leader of the free world, is back slapping with a bunch of hockey players and filling out some stupid tournament bracket. Hmmm…my sense is you were seriously demoralized.

Interestingly, Kelly O’Donnell of NBC News (owner of MSNBC, so no one on earth could ever call NBC of having an anti-BHO bias) summed it up the other day on “Morning Joe” when, in a discussion of a variety of these hot button issues, she said, “he just never thought he was going to have to deal with all these kinds of issues.” Exactly. She smote that nail mightily upon the head. And it would be hysterical if it weren’t so sad. The easiest way to describe it is that BHO, for all of his Harvard and U of C bona fides, at his essence (pun intended) simply a Chicago political hack. In Chicago power equals perks. BHO didn’t run for POTUS to actually solve or accomplish anything; he did it for all the goodies. He wanted all the bling…the big house, the sweet limo, the helicopter, and the list goes on. He thought to himself, “On day 1, I will shut down Guantanamo, and I will never hear about it again. I will make nice with the Iranians, and they will love us, and the rest of the time I can play golf, watch basketball, and live large in my mansion with my limo. This is, of course, an absolutely insane way to run our country.
It has to get better in 2013, right?
Finally, and, again I think this is incredibly instructive regarding the BHO presidency and the way he thinks. I don’t know how you could have missed it, but did you catch his NCAA picks? If you missed them because you were paying attention to things that matter in the world, his Final Four were the four #1 seeds. The fact is, that has only happened once in the last 33 years, so if you really are trying to have the right picks, so that is a really stupid way to choose. More to the point, all four #1s were still in the weekend after the first weekend, so all of the media made breathless comments about how sagacious his picks were. Then, he has not a single team left after the second weekend, but by then no one in the entire universe gives a sh1t about his picks, so no one is paying attention to how dumb he really is. So, it’s go for the easy, obvious decision that looks good to the masses at first blush, and then make sure it’s off the front pages when you are proven so completely wrong you would have to try to screw it up that badly…

It is also worth noting how this whole imbroglio played out in the press and in the halls of congress. The typical left wing assessment of the WSJ has been that it is full of stooges for the GOP, it is in bed with Fox News, only cares about lower taxes, it’s editorial page is a one trick pony as it is all anti-BHO all the time, etc. Similarly, you will never hear in the mainstream media suggest that the WSJ was a place to get tomorrow’s news today. Well, see below. When BHO, LaHood, Ralph Nader, the trial lawyers, and the rest of the left were lining up to take a pound of flesh out of Toyota (including claiming that Toyota knew about the gas pedal flaw for nearly a decade and buried it), it was only the WSJ who had the temerity to suggest that it was all bunk, and that driver error was actually all the cause of the problem. Keep in mind that this was written almost exactly one year ago, and the government report came out yesterday. This is instructive, and I can only hope against hope that the left uses this, as our fearless leader likes to say, as a “teachable moment.” Just remember that the next time you are watching “60 Minutes,” and they are pillorying yet another evil business man, “60 Minutes” and the rest of the liberal elite may have the story ENTIRELY wrong. There is a reason that one of the worst movies ever made, “The Constant Gardener,” won the Oscar; it plays exactly into that whole narrative of the odious and rapacious big company and the innocents they slaughter. Substitute a multinational pharma company for a multinational auto company, and there you have it. It may win the Oscar because it’s exactly what Olbermann, Mad-cow, et al want to believe, but that doesn’t mean that there is even a shred of evidence to back it up. My guess is that Hollywood is not going make a movie about how the liberal media slandered an honest company with quality products, only to have the final report come out months/years later that exonerates them just as their management team is walking into bankruptcy court…

BUSINESS WORLD
FEBRUARY 25, 2010, 8:01 P.M. ET
Trial Lawyers vs. Toyota
Job One: Never mention driver error.

By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

Article

Forty billion dollars. That’s roughly how much cash Toyota has on its balance sheet, a fat bogey for trial lawyers. Think this was not the animating purpose of the congressional hearings held this week?
Talk about an absence of peer review. The witness list bespoke a pure, unadulterated motive to flog the trial lawyer theory that Toyota is concealing a mysterious, unreplicable electronic flaw that causes its cars to accelerate uncontrollably. Aside from Toyota executives and the ineffable Ray LaHood, the hearing panels consisted of self-appointed Washington safety lobbyists with a long history of serving trial lawyer interests, plus an Illinois professor who, in the great tradition of “60 Minutes” and “Dateline NBC,” found a way to sabotage a Toyota by disabling an electronic cross-check that’s supposed to stop it from accelerating out of control (which is still not the same as causing it to accelerate out of control).
Even grosser was the inclusion of Rhonda and Eddie Smith, who told a tall tale about their runaway Lexus that must have had the staffers who arranged their appearance laughing up their sleeves.
Ms. Smith described a car that kept accelerating to over 100 mph as she stood on the brake, shifted into neutral, even shifted into reverse. Her detailed narrative became absent of detail only on one crucial point: How her harrowing ride came to an end. “After six miles, God intervened. As the car came very slowly to a stop, I pulled it to the left median.”
Perhaps the Almighty gently lifted Ms. Smith’s foot off the gas (or disentangled it from an improperly fitted floor mat) and dispelled from her head the illusion that she had ever shifted the car out of drive.
Henry Waxman set the stage for the narrative, designed to benefit those suing Toyota, by insisting that his selected panel of witnesses would deliver compelling evidence that “Toyota vehicles have a serious flaw in their electronic control systems that leaves them vulnerable to sudden unintended acceleration.”
If any were in doubt, Rep. Paul Kanjorski used his questions to launch a diatribe against tort reform, whose purpose he suggested was to “just forgive these companies and let them kill our people.”

Sean Kane, the doyen of trial lawyer-friendly Safety Research & Strategies Inc., was the sole participant who went out of his way to mention driver error—but only to dismiss the possibility, along with a 1989 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study that named “pedal misapplication” as a leading cause of unintended acceleration accidents.
His argument: Because vehicle technology has changed so much due to electronics, the study is no longer valid. Huh? The one thing that hasn’t changed is that the system, however it works, still is designed to interpret a foot on the gas as instruction to “Go.”
This kabuki was obviously designed to exploit what Congress knew would be Toyota’s reluctance to blame its customers, though Toyota USA President Jim Lentz did inject the term “pedal misapplication,” quickly adding, “We are not here blaming customers, but it does take place.”

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One witness was present who had an unambiguous professional and institutional duty to speak candidly about the role of driver error. But Mr. LaHood, the nation’s transportation secretary, was clearly more concerned with displaying his person to political advantage than advancing a search for truth.
Nobody can or would rule out the possibility of an electronic bug or electronic interference, but Toyota cannot say it has found a defect when it hasn’t. And funny how a media that never shrinks from assigning “pilot error” as the cause of deadly plane crashes resists acknowledging that amateurs behind the wheel might be a cause of runaway car crashes.
Auto companies don’t implement technology for the fun of it. Electronics have taken over at the behest of emissions regulators, not customers. Even so, the obsession with Toyota’s drive-by-wire gas pedal is misplaced, since the driver’s foot in every car nowadays is connected to a computer. And drive-by-wire will soon become standard because an analog component merely complicates the job of adding refinement to traction control, stability control and gear-shifting.
Unintended acceleration crashes are rare, but they’re not freaky. Most kinds of accidents are caused by driver error rather than equipment failure or defect. And even with the industry’s forced diversion of investment dollars to fuel economy, car makers are steadily bringing forth technology to save drivers from themselves.
Devices are now available to warn motorists when they’re drifting out of lane, taking their eyes off the road, or when another vehicle is in their blind spot. Some cars will even cut engine power, apply the brakes and prime the airbags when a collision is imminent because, say, a driver has mistakenly stomped the gas instead of the brake.

I almost spit my lunch out, and I double checked the site to make sure I was still on Bloomberg and not on “The Onion.”

I wondered to myself if the White House had mistaken January 10 with April 1, but, alas, they were serious. Nonetheless, here is the “Joe Biden on Iraq” time line that might make your head spin:

In ’02 Sen. Biden votes with 76 other Senators, including Hillary, to authorize GWB’s use of force request, saying, “I do think he (GWB) is right on this point, and I support him.”
In ’05 Sen. Biden said “We can call it quits, and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out. – equally a mistake.” Sounds reasonable; sounds adult-like..almost GWB-like.
Then in ’07 Sen. Biden and future POTUS candidate Biden said about the situation in Iraq, said “If we don’t change course in Iraq soon, you’re going to see, two years from now, helicopters hovering over our embassy in the Green Zone in Baghdad with people hanging onto ladders, just like in Vietnam. Mark my words.” Hmmm… this sounds a bit more hyperbolic, maybe like he’s thinking about running for office. Doesn’t sound like a realistic outlook of the situation, though.
Then, later in ’07, when being interviewed by Tim Russert, Biden opined on comments from Gen. David Petraeus, “And I think he’s dead flat wrong. The fact of the matter is there is – this idea of these security gains we’ve made have no impact on the underlying sectarian dynamic. None. None whatsoever.” The best part of this is that he then told Russert that his thinking had “in his mind not changed in any fundamental way” since his comments in ’05. This is great. Vintage Biden; only he could make this comment with a straight face, and actually believe it.
Not to outdo himself, in the same interview he added “The Surge has failed…There has been some limited tactical success, but quite frankly, it’s irrelevant to the central problem.” Uh-oh; looks like the boat is starting to take on water.
’08 – Now, he’s a POTUS and then VP candidate, and shouted from the hilltops to anyone who would listen that “The Surge” under GWB was a colossal failure, the New Coke of military strategies, doubling down on failure. He said this when he was interviewed; he said it during debates, and he said it on the campaign trail. He probably even said it in his sleep. He probably said it one million times, and he continued to repeat it like it was a religious mantra, right up until…

Stay with me here, right up until…noon on January 20, 2009. Because then in February of 2010 VP Biden told Larry King, “I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.” Wow!!! It’s not even happy hour, and my head is spinning. I’m not sure I can follow Joe’s train of thought; my best guess is that it’s like a high speed bullet train to nowhere (something that he and BHO would salivate over to get the stimulus funding to build). How else to explain the twisting and circuitous logic over the past 8 years. Maybe when they gave him the hair plugs they drove nails into his skull, which is affecting his thinking. The Surge that he decried turned out to be such a whopping success that BHO decided to replicate it in Afghanistan, and not only are there no helicoptors over the embassy in Baghdad, Iraq has turned out to be one of the gold medal moments of the BHO administration.

Anyway, I don’t know if I can figure out how Joe Biden’s brain works, I do know one thing, and that is this: If I were BHO, the last person on the face of the earth I would send to “assess” anything would be Joe Biden. In fact, if I were BHO, the only thing I would let him assess was whether my coffee was hot enough and if my scrambled eggs were too runny. Seriously, what kind of assessment does BHO think he is going to get? The rational kind, the hyperbolic kind, or the “he’s completely out of his mind” kind? As usual, this administration seems to be employing “Dilbert” and “The Office” as their blueprints for managerial and strategic success.

Then yesterday, after emerging from his official defrocking when he met with the leadership of the GOP, including incoming Speaker of the House elect-John Boehner, he said how encouraged he was that the GOP leadership, as well as the incoming GOP congressmen, had “gotten the message that the electorate had sent in the November election.”

The producer on the sound board then hit the button to light the flashing “APPLAUSE” sign, and cued up the laugh track.

What’s next, hosting SNL? After ‘The View,” “Leno,” and weekly appointments with boot-licking interviewers from “Today” and “60 Minutes,” who would be surprised if you heard “Live from New York…” from BHO’s mouth as he tried to test his comedy chops.

It couldn’t possibly be that BHO is still in complete denial about the results of the election; he has to be joking, right? The only message the voters sent on election day was one of extraordinary buyers’ remorse at letting what was effectively an avatar claiming to have a magic wand fleece them into voting for him, and that they now think that maybe those “degrees” from Columbia and Harvard were of the online variety will all coursework done in his pajamas. Again, the idea that BHO would feel compelled to remind the GOP that the voters had spoken is just hilarious.

Speaking of hilarious, much has been written about the big powwow yesterday, but because BHO and Team Boehner both threw their staffs out, the details of the conversation are not available. Nonetheless, I suspect it went something like this:

Camera follows BHO walking into Congressional conference room full of GOPers, and the closes in on BHO shaking hands with Boehner.

John Boehner: “Good afternoon, Mr. President, thank you for coming over to meet us. I’m sorry we couldn’t do it last week when you requested the meeting, but Mitch and I were tied up all week ordering that million cases of champagne and all the hors d’oeuvres for the big nationwide celebration on January 3 when we take over.

BHO: “That sound like fun. No need to send an invitation, though, I’ve already got plans that night.”

JB: “No problem. Speaking of which, do you have a few friends who look close enough to pass themselves off as you? The thing is, the theme of the party is the death of the BHO presidency, so we need someone who looks like you to pose in a coffin at every party venue. And check this out, I went online, and found these amazing party gifts. They are actually flasks, but they are in the shape of a coffin, and we’re going to have them all imprinted with “HOPE 2008-2010 R.I.P. Isn’t that fantastic?”

BHO: “That’s pretty funny. Will you be serving Cristal or Courvoisier at the party? If I could get one for me filled with either of those, that would be great. Anyway, again, thanks for taking the time to meet with me, and just in order to expedite things, could you just give me your blueprint for what the GOP leadership wants to accomplish the next two years? I don’t know how granular you’ve gotten on your legislative goals yet, other than cutting taxes, stopping spending, rolling back ObamaCare, and trashing cap and trade, but when you do, send it over, and I will get my pens ready for all the signing ceremonies. I only have a little while today before I have to get back to the White House to speak with the movers. My sense is that every moving company in town is going to be sold out in January ’13, so I figured I would get a jump on things by getting an estimate and a reservation today.”

JB: “Good thinking. Speaking of which, could you shoot over to my chief-of-staff a couple of dates when you and the family are going to be out at Camp David for the weekend? A couple of guys I know wanted to see if they could get into the White House when you’re away to take some measurements for drapes, carpets, etc, before the “foreclosure” proceedings start in November ’12. “Foreclosure;” get it? Just a little topical political humor. Sorry; that was just too easy. Do you need a smoke? All I’ve got are these Camel unfiltereds; I don’t have any in the green package that you like; I hope that’s ok?”

Anyway, I could go on all day, and while, admittedly, I don’t know the specifics of what was discussed yesterday, if it were meaningfully different than my script, I would be shocked and disappointed. It’s sad that it’s come to this; that our POTUS has to trudge all the way over to Capitol Hill, hat in hand, to face the music with John, Mitch, et al is just soooooo sad, but we all knew it was going to come to this anyway when we elected a back bencher and coffee retriever to be POTUS.

The only thing we know is that the comedy show will continue for at least a couple more years.

I don’t know if you saw it or not, but after the election, as the lame duck session of congress was gearing up, the Democrats were hoping to pass a $1 TRILLION budget bill, while the GOP was hoping to slash at least $100 Billion from it. I won’t even start with on the idea that even passing a $1 budget bill is still more money than we have; nonetheless, at the prospect of the impending legislative gridlock, BHO weighed in with the following thought about the GOP naysayers, “Well, campaigning is very different than governing.”

My sense is he must have delivered that punch line in a completely deadpan tone, immediately followed by his hitting the button that made his giant polka dotted bow tie start spinning like a propeller and made the fake carnation on his lapel start spraying the interviewer.

I mean seriously. This is the guy who considers getting interviewed by Joy, Whoopi, and Barbara the height of “governing.” This is the guy who in the midst of the worst financial crisis in history, when the country and the markets were pleading for leadership, could find nothing better to do than fill out his NCAA brackets on ESPN, so why should his quote surprise me?

Let’s just put this in perspective: This is a guy who wrote not one, but two autobiographies with a resume that at the time approximated that of the guy who bangs on the paint buckets outside my train station, asking for spare change. Then, he and his advisors, admittedly, ran the greatest campaign in history, proving that Lincoln smote the nail on the head about “fooling all of the people some of the time,” and we ended up with a POTUS who had less experience actually governing than the middle school student council president at my son’s school. And yet, he feels free to lecture the GOP about the differences between campaigning and governing. I mean, it’s clear that he knows the difference, but he knows the differences in the same way that Matt Millen knows the difference between talking about what makes a good NFL general manager and actually being a general manager.

Anyway, the theatre of the absurd at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave continues without an intermission…

Interestingly, Rep.-Elect Cedric Richmond of New Orleans (who is taking the place of the infamous Rep. Jefferson, he of the frozen bricks of cash) was asked by NBC’s Chuck Todd whether he would sign on to the prohibition on earmarks after he took the oath of office. Without hesitation Rep.-Elect Richmond said he would not. He added that he thought earmarks were actually a great tool for Congresspeople to help their districts. Additionally, he said, earmarks are effectively a way to even the playing field in terms of taxes paid to Washington and the resources coming back. He specifically mentioned that over the past 60-70 years the money New Orleans had sent to Washington was multiples of what had been sent back.

Huh?!?! What?!?! Unless New Orleans spent the post-WWII era effectively financing the rest of the nation with its flows to D.C., which we know is preposterous, I’m going to have to suggest that Rep.-Elect Richmond’s comments are either an example of the failings of “New Math,” or, more likely, an example of the failings of the New Orleans public school system from which he emerged, seemingly without the math skills one would hope from a high school graduate.

Regardless, the idea that the entire nation spoke at the ballot box, and spoke with a ferocity not seen in generations, and told Washington that they needed to go on an extreme diet, and stop spending so much money seems to have not even registered on the Richter scale in what appears to be the not terribly nimble brain of Ol’ Cedric. I would argue that earmarks would be Exhibit A in terms of the kinds of spending that American want to rid themselves of.

Anyway, as Napoleon said, “Never get in the way when an enemy is in the process of destroying himself,” so if Rep.-Elect Richmond and the rest of the Democrats want to lard up every bill with earmarks, I say, have at it, and we will see the red wave continue from sea to shining sea over the next several election cycles…

As a side note, Rep.-Elect Richmond was the only Democratic candidate for whom BHO made an ad during the election cycle. Think about that for a moment; there are so many things I could add (some of which might get me fired), but that is a fact that is worth contemplating in terms of how toxic BHO was for his own home team (his hit rate was 1 for 468; hardly hall of fame stats) and in terms of what kind of electoral base that ad would work with. I will stop there before I step off into the abyss.

I don’t know if you saw it or not, but the ceremonial first pitch last night was thrown out by none other than GWB. Actually, both GHWB and GWB rode their golf cart from the bullpen, the cameras panned to Barbara and Laura, and GWB threw a dead strike (there is incredible symbolism in the fact that GWB’s pitch was right down the center of the plate and BHO’s last ceremonial pitch looked like it was thrown by my mother). The most interesting thing, of course, was when GWB was introduced, the crowd roared at jet engine decibel levels. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but according to BHO’s script, this is the guy who ran the good ol’ U.S. of A. right off the road, and not just into the ravine, but into the canyon, and was the worst POTUS in the history of the republic. Where GWB will fit within the historical rankings remains open for debate, but if I were BHO, and watched that stadium literally erupt when GWB was announced, I would have been extremely sick to my stomach, and then, since I don’t think it’s sunk in yet, I would have finally had that epiphany that Tuesday is going to be a really bad day for BHO at the polls…

Also, and I hate to remind him of this, but there is a campaign going on; was he aware of this? Do you think that WJC would be have ever wasted quality campaign time chatting up Jon Stewart and his audience of true believers, rather than heading out into some swing districts to pick up some actual incremental votes. Sadly, we know that he has no interest in actually being out on the trail because he might get booed, or shunned by his candidate, or, more likely, actually have to answer hard questions about his policies from a hostile group of voters, rather than the slavish, lap dog audience on “The Daily Show.”

One final note: Interestingly, in the latest poll the residents of the Buckeye state said they would prefer GWB to BHO as POTUS. That is truly SHOCKING, and while I know you will chalk it up to the fact that the Buckeyes are a bunch of gun-toting religious wackos, number one, that would be untrue, and number two, that would be exactly the wrong conclusion you should draw. We all know how you, and, frankly, most of the country, felt about W, and we know that his poll ratings were the worst in history, and that most of the country would have been in favor of shipping him off to the ranch the day after the election in ’08. So, based on this new poll, what you should be asking yourself is this: What is about BHO’s policies that has facilitated the rehabilitation of W in such an amazingly short period of time. Truman was despised in 1953 when he left office, and it took decades for him to be realized as one of the great presidents in history; so how is it possible that Humpty Dumpty George could have been put back together and back up on the wall so quickly. I can assure you that on 20 January 2010 that poll would have been about 98% to 2% in favor of BHO, and yet now he is behind. Maybe for once it’s not that the American people are stupid, maybe it’s his policies that are…

ALL GLORY IS FLEETING  

“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”
- Gen. George C. Patton

 

  

That quote plays nicely into this post’s question, what do Leon Lett, Lindsey Jacobellis, and Newt Gingrich all have in common?  For most, this should be fairly easy quiz; most particularly because all three are firmly ensconced in the dumbsh1t hall of fame for letting their own hubris allow them to personally snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  

As you may remember, Leon Lett, a defensive lineman for the Dallas Cowboys, recovered a Buffalo Bills’ fumble, and was about to score a TD in the Super Bowl (remember, a defensive lineman scoring in any game is a big deal, but for a D-lineman to score in the Super Bowl is bigger than big), when he started celebrating early and the Bills’ receiver Don Beebe stripped Lett of the ball.  In spite of the fact that the Cowboys thrashed the Bills that day, and in fact won 3 Super Bowls in 4 years, Lett is known as the bonehead who celebrated too early. 

Similarly, Lindsey Jacobellis was nearing the end of her Snowboardcross, comfortably heading to the gold medal, when she decided to pull a hot dog move, fell, and ended up with a silver medal.  

These are real people, who were about to write their names in the history books for all time, and decided to let whatever inner demons they had get the best of them, and they ended up being sad examples of Shaksperian type tragedy.  Every GOP member of Congress and every candidate should be required to keep a picture  of these to remind themselves of how quickly things can turn.  As Patton said, all glory is fleeting. 

Admittedly, right now, things look pretty rosy for the GOP.  Consider the following: 

A charismatic Democratic won the White House amidst a real estate collapse.  He chooses to focus on things like “don’t ask, don’t tell” and health care instead of jobs in the year after his election.  Meanwhile, his health care plan turned into a complete bomb, and the country rebelled and proceeds to elect…not Scott Brown, but 73 new GOP members of Congress, and Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House.  It was 1994, not 2008. 

Newt Gingrich, of course, is the third part of the quiz.  He was the architect of the GOP’s Contract With America, and the GOP takeover of Congress.  Soon, though, he let his hubris get the best of him, leading to a standoff with Pres. Clinton and the shut down of the government, followed by his getting out foxed and outflanked by President Clinton, and his leaving Congress 3 years later.   

The point is, that the GOP needs to not celebrate too early.  Almost assuredly, the GOP will win a big chunk of seats in November as the country sends a much needed rebuke to BHO, Nancy, and Harry, but, remember just a year ago, the pundits were writing eulogies for the GOP.  Just two years after Clinton suffered a humiliating defeat in the ’94 midterms, he won re-election in ’96, and became an icon by co-opting GOP ideas.  In order to make sure the wins the GOP garners in November are more permanent, the GOP needs to have ideas.  

In 2008 the Democrats engineered a landslide on campaign themes that were simply, “If you hate Bush, vote for us!” and “The Republicans are boneheads, vote Democratic!”  While those themes can win elections, they are not exactly a blueprint for leading the country.  The country is now suffering from that hangover, realizing that the BHO nightcap on top of the 60 bottles Democratic vintage ’06 and ’08 they drank. 

The good news, and where the differences end in ’94 v. 2010, is the opponents are totally different.  While, surprise, surprise, I was no fan of Bill Clinton, he was extraordinarily smart, and he was a politician par excellence.  To put this in perspective, here is a truncated CV for Bill Clinton when he faced down Gingrinch post the ’94 landslide: 

• President of Boys’ Nation while in high school in Kennedy administration
• Summa Cum Laude graduate of Georgetown
• Rhodes Scholar (majoring in pot smoking and draft dodging from all evidence)
• Yale Law School
• ’74- Runs for Congress, and loses
• Nails every eligible Arkansan on the Astro-turfed back end of El Camino
• Marries Hillary Rodham after returning from trip to Hades where he signed all the paperwork with the Devil as they plotted his future
• ’76- Runs for Arkansas Attorney General in Arkansas, and wins
• ’78- Runs for Arkansas Governor, and wins
• ’80- Runs for re-election as Governor, loses
• ’82- Runs for Arkansas Governor, wins
• ’84- Runs for re-election as Governor, and wins
• ’86- Runs for re-election as Governor, and wins
• ’90- Runs for re-election as Governor, and wins
• Becomes the head of Demoratic Leadership Committee (the DLC was designed as a political marketing organization that intended to convince voters that if you put whipped cream and a cherry on top of a steaming pile of turds, that voters would eat it up, and Clinton certainly proved they would.)
• ’92- Runs for POTUS, and wins

The point of all this is that, first and foremost, WJC is way, way, way (keep going to infinity) smarter BHO ever dreamed of being (admittedly, both WJC and BHO tended to coddle dictators, but there was never an example where Clinton spent months on end contemplating something like the ”Surge” in Afghanistan, that his own hand picked General had requested, and was simply a Xerox copy of what his direct competitor had done several years before, and took months to simply agree to Plan A at the end of it all).  Secondly, Clinton was a much more skilled politician, having had to endure numerous elections, and work his way up the ladder from the ground up.  Alternatively, BHO is like the the 12 year old in the movie “Rookie of the Year,” who with his 103 mph fastball, ends up on the Chicago Cubs.  No minor leagues; no tests, just straight to the majors.  Just as a juxtaposition, here is BHO’s CV on his way to the presidency 

• Student Council member – middle school in Indonesia, or Hawaii, or somewhere.  Can’t be proven, but he says it is so.
• Middling (by his own admission) and uninterested student at Columbia (interested in pot; again, by his own admission; maybe it’s a Democratic thing?).  No transcript ever provided (nor demanded by the press) as it might blow the myth of BHO’s Intel-like cognitive powers to smithereens.
• President of “community organizing” firm (whatever that is); Employees (1), and revenues ($0 and 0 cents, other than all the money they extorted from companies willing to pay money to keep the “organizers” off the sidewalks in front of their offices.
• Miraculously gets into Harvard Law School (middling student at Columbia = entrance to Harvard Law…only in America)
• Elected to Illinois State Senate…after having all 3 of his opponents thrown off the ballot on technicalities.
• Finds time to write an autobiography (about what, who knows?  Based on the above resume, I can’t imagine how his autobiography was more that 4 paragraphs.  From all appearances, he got elected POTUS on the back of submitting a novel to his publisher, who then mistakenly checked the autobiography box when he sent it to Border’s and Barnes & Noble, and the train left the station.)
• Skates to election in the Senate after both his primary and general election opponents have their divorce records unsealed where damaging information came to light.
• Spends one year in the Senate delivering coffee to Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy.
• Launches Presidential campaign on vote in Illinois Senate opposing Iraq war (to call the Illinois state senate vote on the Iraq war “non-binding” would be being generous to a fault)
• Writes second autobiography…again, astoundingly, book is longer than 3 pages
• Continues campaign for POTUS on the back of something called “hope” and “change,” whatever that meant
• November ’08- Completes sale of 1976 Pinto with exploding gas tank dressed up as brand new Escalade to American people

  Sorry for the diversion there, but there are two basic points to the notes above.  First, the worst thing the GOP can do now is just assume they can sit back and win Congress in the fall, essentially starting to celebrate at the 10 yard line like Leon Lett.  If their experience with Bill Clinton proves anything, it is that the line between victory and defeat is so thin that any display of hubris will essentially guarantee defeat.  Again, they need to provide the country with a blueprint for why, when the citizens go into voting booths across the country, they have a reason to vote for the GOP, not simply a reason not to vote against the Dems.  To that end, if the GOP does this, they will not only win back Congress, but they will  display a level of leadership that will allow them to control the government for years to come. 

This won’t be easy to do; it will be incredibly tempting to simply lead with why BHO’s health care plan turns the U.S. government’s balance sheet into a multi-trillion dollar junk bond, and that the voters should throw the Dems out.  Instead, they need to hand out Power Point presentations, full of charts and bullet points with their own plan.  This will prove they are serious about fixing the country’s problems, and will obviate the risk that hubris will take over. 

The  second point, and one piece of good news is that the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is someone who is much easier  competitor than the last time they found themselves in this position.  Newt and Co. took advantage of a vulnerable POTUS, and partied like it was 1999…unfortunately, it was only 1994, and Clinton proved to be a wily competitor, essentially spending the next few years turning Newt into a living Wile E. Coyote, complete with every Acme Mfg. scheme, only Clinton delivered Gingrich the anvil every time, just at the moment he was walking over the cliff.  Clinton learned all those tricks as he rose from Congressional loser to AG to winning and losing gubernatorial races, and on and on.  BHO went from voting “present” 1000 times in the Illinois senate to the most powerful man in the world in the course of 4 years, where “present” is not an option.  We, the citizens, are paying the price for every one of his bad decisions, but at least this time maybe the GOP can be the ones delivering the boxes from Acme directly to the Oval Office…

First, interestingly enough, were the commercials.  NBC began hyping these Winter Olympics as soon as the last Summer Olympics ended a year and a half ago.  Not only did the ubiquity of the ads grate on you, but their frequency only exacerbated the pain.  You would have had to be living in a cave to have missed all the hype that surrounded these Olympics, as well as this particular presidency, starting with that ridiculous rally in Grant Park on election night, and ending with the sight of his mug on every magazine on the newsstand between November and inauguration day.

Next, were the incredible opening ceremonies in Vancouver, resplendent with the pageantry, the colors, the Parade of Nations, the technology in showing the young circus performer literally bounding through fields of grain.  (Personally, I think the opening night of any Olympics is a complete waste of time and a bastardization of the spirit of the Olympics , and I wouldn’t waste even one minute of my precious time on it unless a) I were in a bar, and they were on in the background, meaning I could ignore them, or b) my kids wanted to watch it.  In the case of Friday’s opening ceremonies, the latter was how I found things, so I obliged the kids.  My children are 8 and 5, and they absolutely loved what they saw of the opening ceremonies.  Now, I’m not going to draw the link to my kids’ 8 and 5-year-old intellects and the intellects of the average American, but I did hear co-workers breathlessly describing both their anticipation of the opening ceremonies on Friday, as well as their thoughts after the fact in the office this week…).  Anyway, as I watched the opening ceremonies, I couldn’t help harken back to President Obama’s acceptance speech at the convention in Denver, with the Roman columns as a backdrop, his flowery speech about “hope” which lacked any substance whatsoever, and the laser like precision to the choreography that night.  Literally, all that was missing that night was for BHO to come out on stage in a toga wearing an olive wreath on his head in anticipation of his coronation.  Nonetheless, the two events seemed to have a little bit too much in common for me.

Additionally, while watching on Friday night, I also thought back to 20 January and the inauguration of BHO.  As the Parade of Nations filed into the stadium, I could imagine any number of people at their local coffee houses laying down their “O” Magazines for a moment, thinking about how BHO offered to extend an open hand rather than a clenched fist to the butchers in Tehran in his inaugural speech, and how now we will be racing down the slopes against the Iranian skiers in friendly competition.  No doubt, many a tear was shed in many coffee houses around the country when people realized this.  Additionally, the parade of nations, in and of itself, made me think of the “American Stew” that was represented on the Washington Mall that day last January when “Hope” was born again in America.  Whether it was any number of African-Americans straining to glimpse the first Af-Am POTUS, or the gathering of Prius owners for BHO, or Folk Musicians for BHO, or the “I hate Sarah Palin” voters, or even the lobbyists who want to get the government to buy their ridiculously expensive and inefficient solar panels and windmills, the sight of over a million Americans of every different color and creed could not find a better Olympic symbol than that of the Parade of Nations.

Then the games began.  And it began to rain, and they started killing people.  And then BHO started running the country.  Talk about eerily similar. 

First, politics, back scratching, and even outright bribes are always part of the picture in deciding which nation will host the Olympics, so far be it from the committee to actually choose a place suitable for the Olympics.  I don’t know about you, but if I were a committee member, I think one of the pre-requisites to hosting the Winter Olympics would be that 1) it actually has to snow in that city, and 2) the average temperature when the games will be run needs to be below freezing.  Likewise, if I were a voter, I would think that for me to vote for someone for president, that person would have to have something, anything, on his resume that would suggest that he is ready to be POTUS.  So, the fact that each disaster is the result of stupid people voting for what they hope will be a fairy tale outcome seems aptly analogous.

Next, and while I would never want to use a tragedy for laughs, they literally started killing people at the Olympics.  Again, what looked to be the fastest and most amazing bobsled course ever actually turned out to be the ultimate slippery slope, which in turn could be described as a death trap.  All because no one bothered to do any planning ahead of time.  The point is, someone along the way should have been able to review the design of the bobsled hill, and come to the conclusion that lugers going 90 miles an hour on a sheet of ice with limited to no protection seems like a terrible idea.  Anyone could have seen that just making the run less steep would have been smarter and safer.  Similarly, had anyone in the White House even thought for one minute about how to structure a better health care system, instead of the POTUS simply saying “I want a health care bill on my desk,” we may have accomplished something.  Instead, they let every lobbyist, Congressman, and interest group get involved, and we’ve got the health care system going 90 miles/hour on a sheet of ice with no way to steer and no brakes.

Then, interestingly enough, Canadian skaters were falling all over the place, and yet still in strong medal contention.  The idea that an athletic competition would be decided by Ukrainian and East German judges is almost too preposterous to consider, but the gaming of the system happens every 4 years like clockwork.  The fact that the Canadian skaters will likely medal after those kinds of mediocre performances could only happen at the Olympics…unless they also happen in Democratic primaries.  It remains amazing to me that the fact that a national candidate actually completely gamed the system to exploit the loopholes in the Democratic parties electoral system to win, and was not only not excoriated for it, but lauded, can only have its basis in Olympic judging.  Why not just hand the Canadians the silver or bronze right now, and skip the ugly details like the actual competition.  The Democrats (followed by the nation) handed BHO the nomination and then the election this way.

Anyway, the list goes on and on, but these Olympics and this White House have too much in common for my tastes.  I will say this, though.  The fact that this White House and this POTUS see the fact that our skiers are battling on the same slopes as the Iranians in friendly competition as a complete vindication of their new world view, in spite of the fact that at the exact same moment as the racers are going down the hill, the Iranian scientists are stuffing enriched uranium into centrifuges, to attach to warheads, to blast New York city off the face of the map should disqualify BHO from even approaching the medal stand.