Paper Tyrant
Can we lay to rest once and for all the absurd fiction that Barack Obama is a fierce tyrant who at any moment will seize all our guns, march us off to re-education camps, and otherwise crush us under his jackboot?
You know, the picture of him as the despot who’ll change this holy land forever as promulgated by Me Party-ists, Right Wing talk radio hosts, Fox and Friends personalities, and other reality-challenged stutterers and judderers?
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Because, after all, the first Kenyan-born, communist, socialist, abortionist, coke-snorting, gay-sex-loving Commander in Chief wasn’t even able to convey to his staff and the heads of all appropriate federal departments that his signature health care reform had damned well better roll out smoothly or somebody’s ass would be on fire.
BHO’s background, as the sane among us realized from the get-go, was not that of even a sergeant-at-arms but more as a maître d’. He was a community organizer, for pity’s sake, something that squawking heads like Sarah Palin made hay out of back when she had pretenses to relevance. That means he was schooled and expert at gathering everybody ’round and hearing their opinions and suggestions, no matter how fercockter they may be. Community organizers are loath to tell anyone to shut up, to get with the program, to refrain — please! — from insisting for the twenty-three-thousandth time that such and such an alderman or mayor be forthwith brought up on charges of crimes against humanity.
Community organizers are conciliators. They’re listeners. They’re includers. Even if those who are to be included bring as much to the party as your wacky pack-rat uncle who refuses to go online because…, well, because.
They are not martinets. Nor are they mighty brigadier generals who’ll mold a disparate bunch of farm boys and street corner toughs into a single-minded fighting machine.
They persuade people to press doorbells.
They do not say things like, Goddamn it. This project better come out right. If not, I’m gonna eat you for breakfast!
And this is the guy who hundreds of thousands of loons fear will put the nation in shackles?
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“Serenity” at 30,000 feet
I know you’re dying for news like this: JFK who was whacked 50 years ago this week, apparently died happy. At least that’s what the ever-reliable New York Post has to say.
The Prez and Jackie, according to a piece in yesterday’s tabloid, “joined the mile high club” during a flight from San Antonio to Houston the afternoon before his fateful drive toward the triple overpass. According to writer Philip Nobile, historian William Manchester wrote that as Air Force One flew over Texas, the Kennedys “enjoyed their last hour of serenity” in their private cabin.
The Serene Couple
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Gird yourself for tons more dispatches along these lines as the half-century celebration continues this week.
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