The Incredible Shrinking (and Whining) Obama
While recording this coming week’s podcast for Ricochet, Rob Long, Peter Robinson, James Lileks, Jonah Goldberg and I—predominantly white males, as The New York Times would dutifully report—spent a good deal of time practicing armchair psychology on our President. (Though, since he was the only one in L.A. at the time, I’m convinced Long was in a lawn chair.) Anyway, I observed that Mr. Obama seemed to be getting smaller. I didn’t mean that metaphorically or symbolically; I meant he was actually shrinking. Unless some gag-oriented White House staffer had a larger Oval Office desk brought in for his recent address, the President seemed to me to be losing size.
There are two possible explanations for this phenomenon. One is that he actually is getting smaller under the weight of the office, and the other is that he merely appears to be getting smaller compared to those around him. Perhaps my senses are deceiving me, and he isn’t actually wasting away, and, if that’s so, there must be some explanation for the misperception. That explanation, I think, is that he has shrunk in direct proportion to those he’s made larger by whining about them.
It’s pretty pathetic when the President of the United States talks about being treated like a dog or acts as if he’s the hapless victim of enemies like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. He’s the President of the whole darned country! He can launch a nuclear attack if he feels like it! He can even preempt American Idol for a speech! If Limbaugh or Beck goes even one second over his allotted broadcast time, a computer will shut him down.
Whining is what shrunk Jimmy Carter. Even when he wasn’t having sex with that woman, Bill Clinton managed, at least, to let his wife do most of the whining about the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. George W. Bush had plenty of reasons to whine, including the fact they were making mainstream movies about assassinating him, but he managed to avoid the temptation. And, even when he was shot, Ronald Reagan didn’t whine. He didn’t have to. He was, I repeat, The President of the United States!
Near the end of the 1957 sci-fi film The Incredible Shrinking Man, Grant Williams has to fight a spider with the aid of a needle. Eventually, as he shrinks into nothingness, he attains a kind of mystical peace and becomes one with nature. Barack Obama hasn’t quite reached that point yet, but it might be time for him to keep a few needles handy.
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Re: The Incredible Shrinking (and Whining) Obama
You had a job?
Re: The Incredible Shrinking (and Whining) Obama
Pat, be fair. How many presidents have to fend off killer rabbits?
Aug '10
Re: The Incredible Shrinking (and Whining) Obama
I actually think Obama's dilemma may not be the frustration that he's governing a nation of rubes and hayseeds who won't listen to their intellectual superiors but rather that it's slowly dawning on him that all those wonderful Marxist theories he learned in academia DON'T WORK in the real world. To realize everything you've ever learned and held dear is a big fat fraud would case anyone to shrink.
At least I hope that's the cause of his shrinkage because it would mean he may be open to change. If his soul shrinking dilemma really is the former than we are all in for a bumpy ride until 2012. Even if the Republicans retake congress this fall and thwart his domestic agenda the foreign policy damage Obama can do will be very painful.
May '10
Re: The Incredible Shrinking (and Whining) Obama
It's already started. Consider that random "tweets" from a former half-term governor of Alaska have more impact on the national mind than the President's major public addresses. And that a fellow like Glen Beck can draw fervent crowds to the mall.
After the election is done and the damage assessed, there will be a stampede to fill the leadership vacuum. Everyone who can get in front of a microphone will be aiming to appear "presidential".
Jul '10
Re: The Incredible Shrinking (and Whining) Obama
I like "deflating." The first "Bubble President" Nothing but hot air that will eventually run out causing him to come crashing down.
Sep '10
Re: The Incredible Shrinking (and Whining) Obama
Kenneth:
Obama rides a girly bike in mom jeans, is repeatedly photographed licking ice-cream cones like a second-grader, strolls out of the White House in hippie sandals, bows to any foreign leader in sight and lounges in the Oval Office with his feet up on the desk.
That's a great list, Kenneth, but you forgot to mention Obama's most annoying habit (to me, at least). Whenever he goes prancing up to the podium, or exits an airplane and comes jouncing down the ladder, he holds his arms out with his hands dangling limply from the wrists. It is so unmanly. He looks like an underfed chocolate Easter rabbit, hoppin' down the bunny trail.
Edited on Sep 10, 2010 at 3:24amMay '10
Re: The Incredible Shrinking (and Whining) Obama
“How Obama Thinks” by Dinesh D’Souza, published in Forbes.com explains why Obama is shrinking before our eyes. Very concisely, Obama is only a manifestation of his father's dreams - he says so in his autobiographical "Dreams from My Father"!
D'Souza shows how Obama's policies can all be understood as the resurrection of his father's anticolonialism as a failed African economist."...the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son."
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0927/politics-socialism-capitalism-private-enterprises-obama-business-problem.html