Quotes of the Day: Feelings, Nothing More Than Feeeeeeelings

Quote the First:  The Thrill Is Gone and the Obamania Honeymoon's Over

The magic of 2008 can't be recreated, and good riddance to it. Slowly, the nation has recovered its poise. There is a widespread sense of unstated embarrassment that a political majority, if only for a moment, fell for the promise of an untested redeemer—a belief alien to the temperament of this so practical and sober a nation.

What a difference 18 months can make.  Good riddance indeed to that pernicious pseudo-religious "magic."  The ludicrous heights (or depths) of the weird "personality cult" were starting to creep me out when it wasn't making me roll my eyes.  I mean, come on, even the Onion piled on early.  

Quote the Second:  Let Me Get My Sympathy Violin, aka Quit Yer Whining

In 18 months they [Obama and his key advisers] appear to have developed deep grievances and an increasing unhappiness and frustration with the duties of governing.

Life in the White House is challenging; anyone who has worked there can testify to that. And Washington, D.C., is certainly an imperfect city, as all are. But the impression Team Obama is trying to create — that no group has ever faced more challenges, more difficulties, or more hardships — is silly and somewhat pathetic. Politics is the worthiest ambition, wrote John Buchan (the author of JFK’s favorite book, Pilgrim’s Way); it is the greatest and most honorable adventure.

If Obama and his aides don’t see that or anything like that — if they view politics and governing only through a lens tinted by bitterness, frustration, and resentment — then it is time for them to step aside. If not, then they should man up. Self-pity is a terribly unattractive quality.

You want my opinion?  OK, even if you don't, I'm gonna give it to you.  I do not EVER want to hear any POTUS whine and wail about how hard the job is.  If you didn't want that job, you wouldn't have it.  The job did not simply show up one day and force you into it.  You went out, declared your candidacy, fought through your primaries, won your party's nomination, and then went out campaigning for it all over the country.  And you won on Election Day, and that's you wanted.  You got the job you wanted.  Color me unimpressed if you can't handle it.  You should have read the job description before you went for it.  It's not all fancy dress receptions and photo-ops. 

I am, if anything, reminded of students who sign up willingly for my classes and then turn into crybabies when they realize how hard the work is and how tough my expectations are and how they don't get an automatic A just for showing up and looking pretty.  You don't get anything because you feel entitled to it.  Not in my classroom and not in life.