We had a great weekend; we went to Dallas to visit my daughter and to take The Teenager to a Mavs/Suns game. It was his first NBA game and he's a huge Steve Nash fan. The weather was great and we went out to eat and a couple of wonderful restaurants. My daughter and her husband were lovely and gracious hosts and had we really didn't want to leave. And the good news is that I will be back in June to GO SEE ERIC CLAPTON! (I'm sorry, I'll quit screaming about it sometime soon.)
At any rate, I fell out of the news loop for 36 hours or so and in today's world, well, almost anything can happen. In the car on the way over (I wasn't driving) I read the Gail Collins Op-Ed in the NYTimes entitled "Barack's Continental Coolness" and rather wish I hadn't. It is certainly another contender for Malkin's Drool Bucket Award, getting close to, but not quite achieving the level of last month's Jack Cafferty Drool Bucket Award.
Collins actually lost me in her second sentence when she said, "...let's agree that the Obamas wowed them in Europe." Let's not. I'm not convinced that they were all "wowed" and Collins offers no evidence of this, so let's agree to disagree on that one, Ms. Collins, and move on.
She then continues with the Bush-Bashing -- will it EVER stop? -- when she says "...the previous administration set the bar so low that Barack was able to get hysterical applause just by telling a crowd of students that American's don't believe in torturing people." She is referring to the town-hall style meeting Friday in Strasbourg which was packed with a favorable, hand-picked audience by the Atlantic Youth Council.
And of course, our European friends who are so anxious for us to close Gitmo have volunteered to take how many of those enemy combatants? I lost count at two.
Collins wrote, "Back home, we're just grateful that we don't have to sit on the edge of our collective seats wondering how the president wil embarrass us next." This was only the fourth sentence of the article and Collins managed to Bash-Bush twice so far. But seriously, was Collins not embarrased at all by Obama's deep bow to the Saudi king? Or his tepid response to the North Korean missile launch? She wasn't embarassed by him giving Queen Elizabeth an iPod loaded with his own speeches and a mix of show tunes? She wasn't embarrased when he got off track on the Telepromter and was literally speechless? I was.
No, Collins was impressed by his "cool." And by the fact that "Obama was the most popular guy in the gang." She points out that he knows the difference between Australia and Austria -- the only problem with that is that he didn't know Austrian isn't a language.
Collins then continues to gush over Michelle and Carla going "outfit-to-outfit" and how they both had bows on their coats. To her credit, Collins admits the fashion fuss is a bit much, but notes that it did take our minds off losing our jobs and our terrible economic situation for a little while. Thank goodness for that.
After all the Bush-Bashing and Obamagasms, Collins finally gets around to bashing Republicans in general by taking note of Friday night's congressional action on the budget resolution. She disparages the estate tax agreement as a move that would "increase the deficit while stimulating the economy approximately as much as eliminating a sales tax on square potato chips."
Note to Ms. Collins: Did you read the Porkulus bill? Or the Omnibus bill? No? I didn't think so. Neither did Congress, but neither of those do much economic stimulating either.
So if this is the kind of news I missed by being out of the loop for 36 hours, I might plan another road trip sooner than I thought. My next "road trip" is to the garbage can where I will put Ms. Collins latest column.
2 comments:
The NYT has long ago degenerated into shills and cheerleaders for the Democrats. Thanks for pointing out Collins' many "overlooked" Obama embarassments.
I remember that several years ago a journalism professor said that he felt the US's papers and media were going the way of Europe, that we would have the left-wing papers and the right-wing papers and drop the pretext of objectivity. I bristled at the idea at the time, but he seems to be proved right. The problem is I don't see too many right-wing papers, only NYT at its ilk drooling over Obama.
Yukio, I disagree with your assessment of calling Obama's acts embarassing. They were down right shameful.
All right, we all had a giggle or two over Obama giving the Queen an Ipod (with his speeches loaded on it). From what I've seen of the lady, she is very graceful and has on numerous occasion overlooked American gaffes in the protocol in addressing royalty.
But we are Americans and we don't bow to royalty of countries that are our closest allies (Great Britan) and we sure as hell don't bow down to thuggish royalty like King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. What the hell was Obama thinking. I have an idea, but I won't go there.
And liberals sure as hell can't tell me it was a mistake. BULLSHIT!. When I was in the Army I remember there were people who worked on general staffs in a section called Protocol. One of the jobs in Protocol is to inform the commander what he or she needs to do that is proper when dealing with dignitaries. If some general in a backwood military installation in the U.S. has a protocol section, you know damned good and well there's one in the White House.
The list of mistakes, or maybe not mistakes, goes on and on, and the same people who are having big "O" over this guy are the ones who thought Bush was a baffoon?
You can tell when Teleprompter was with Obama and when Teleprompter wasn't. This man doesn't even have a clue as to what he's saying with Teleprompter, and listening to him is down right painful.
And as far as trying to over look Obama embarassments, they really can't be hidden. Just watch what little they show. Even when they think he's saying or doing something brilliant, there's still a smattering of stupidity.
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