Trollin' Trollin', Trollin'

A thought occurred to me that this might be some kind of a first in the annals of political rhetoric on insulting one's own audience.  See: On Tuesday Obama gave a weird, incoherent speech that managed to insult both the Right and the Left (according to him, apparently I care only about "military might" and not a whit for anything else).  Then the very next day on Wednesday Putin writes an op-ed that trolled the entire nation.  So, gentle readers, we've been trolled twice in two days by the heads of state of two different countries.  Gee, I can't wait to see what happens today, and it's only Thursday.  I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS WEEK TO BE OVER. 

UPDATE: Well, I had to ask, right? Right on cue ...  Troll du jour is of course Assad himself, now making conditions about "giving up" his chemical weapons.   

Photo of the Day From Egypt

Via Egyptian blogger Big Pharaoh (his latest is worth a read too)

Message to Americans from the #Egypt presidential palace demo: a tick on the US flag, a cross on Obama. Impressive. pic.twitter.com/tDT61aRhWS
— The Big Pharaoh (@TheBigPharaoh) July 7, 2013

Apparently this is a thing now.

Quote of the Day: Government PR

Here's a thought: 

It is a great irony, and history will marvel at it, that the president most committed to expanding the centrality, power, prerogatives and controls of the federal government is also the president who, through lack of care, arrogance, and an absence of any sense of prudential political boundaries, has done the most in our time to damage trust in government.

Well, it's definitely change.  

Less Than Riveting Rhetoric?

I didn't bother watching the Obama jobs speech.  Apparently I didn't miss much.  I'm tired of the endless political blather from all sides, so note the new tag to cover the topic.

Heh: Do You Have OIIS?

I hear it's a new epidemic sweeping the nation.

Epic Speech Not So Epic At Home?

Bibi wowed his American friends.  His Israeli constituents, not so much?

The Tweeting Hero of Snowpocalypse: Meet Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark

First there was the massive holiday blizzard on the East Coast, and then there was the cleanup (or lack thereof in New York City) and various accusations of wussiness in the City of Brotherly Love.  Amid all the snowy mess and loud repercussions, I gotta hand it to Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark: Kudos, sir. Kudos indeed.  If nothing else, one can't ask for better optics and public relations than that in the Internet age: a young, vigorous mayor shoveling snow like everyone else ... and helping whomever he can while using Twitter to keep in touch with his city residents. (Here's his Twitter page, by the way.)

Life Imitates Iowahawk, and the Taiwanese News Animators Are There

I just didn't know what to say about last week's tidal wave of lunacy in Washington, so I ended up not posting on any of it -- especially since it's exam time on campus.  

But now in retrospect, what a weird week it was!  From Obama's peevish lashing out at everybody at that presser (and how un-presidential is it to call the opposition party "hostage-takers"?  so much for post-partisan politics, though we've never heard anything this blatantly hostile -- hey, CHANGE!) ... to goofy, elderly Vermont socialist senator Bernie Sanders ranting for 8 hours (somebody give him some Jimmy Stewart DVDs and send him home!) ... to the total unbelievability of Obama's other presser with Bill Clinton -- if we can even call it Obama's, since he bailed not five minutes into it and left us all the spectacle of Slick Willie pontificating at the podium as in years of yore.  (See this snark.)  I practically got whiplash with deja-vu.  Well, if nothing else it was a press conference that was -- for once -- worth watching.

The whole incident looked horrible ... and isn't most of public relations about "optics"?  And, possibly worst of all, Clinton looked and acted presidential, calm, confident, warm.  Obama didn't.  Truman's adage about the heat and the kitchen proved true again in spectacularly public fashion.  Obama's turning into the Incredible Shrinking President.  In fact, he's shrunk so much he literally became the President Who Wasn't There.  He used his wife and a Christmas party as his excuse and fled the press conference.  I'd never seen anything remotely like this.  It was weird.  It was embarrassing.  

So I leave you with two thoughts:

1. The whole thing reminded me of this prescient satire by Iowahawk from way back in 2008.  Iowahawk, we are not worthy!
2. You have GOT to see this new cartoon by those brilliant Taiwanese news animators.  It just hit YouTube yesterday.  Check out the Clinton version of the Bat Signal!  The first time I saw this video, I laughed out loud.

Almost-Satire Alert: The TSA BS-to-English Translator

Here's a little MM something for you on the busiest travel day of the year in the US.  An enterprising wag has inserted subtitles into the interview between CNN's Anderson Cooper and John Pistole, head of the TSA.  Whatever else you care to say about Pistole (and his alarmingly persistent smile and bland intonation), you've got to admit that he's a master of spin, spin, spin and the fine art of language that says nothing.  (Link via Boing Boing.)  Oh, and slight language warning in the subtitles.

The HopeChange Chronicles: The Thrill Is Gone On Campus

When you've lost the pie-eyed dreamy clueless undergrads who swooned over you previously, you know you're in a spot of bother:

The Obamamania that gripped college campuses two years ago is gone. An Associated Press-mtvU poll found college students cooling in their support for President Barack Obama, a fresh sign of trouble for Democrats struggling to rekindle enthusiasm among many of these newest voters for the crucial midterm elections in three weeks.

Forty-four percent of students approve of the job Obama is doing as president, while 27 percent are unhappy with his stewardship, according to the survey conducted late last month. That's a significant drop from the 60 percent who gave the president high marks in a May 2009 poll. Only 15 percent had a negative opinion back then.

OK, arguably, college students can be a fickle lot, but here one issue is the deadly idea that Obama isn't quite as "cool" as he used to be.  And there's no more fatal idea than that on campus.  CHANGE!  Besides, the novelty is long since gone.  Add too Obama's never-ending stream of long, rambling, boring speeches that sound like lectures.  If there's anything that will turn students off fast, it's lectures!

2 Thoughts on Obama's Public Image Problems

Thought the first. Thought the second.  Anyway, this is not unrelated to my "(Political) Life Imitates T.S. Eliot" post.  The true trouble is, I think, that while more and more people have finally realized that the campaign glitter was just glitter, Obama himself still thinks the glitter is gold.  Besides, you can't run a country on glitter and pie-in-the-sky rhetoric.

(Political) Life Imitates T.S. Eliot

Here is a blurb from a recent bit of political commentary:

The most destructive gap for President Obama is not the Republican lead on the generic congressional ballot, or even a job disapproval that has surpassed approval -- it is the gap between aspiration and reality.

And here is a bit from T.S. Eliot's famous poem "The Hollow Men."

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow 

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

The innate and fatal flaw of the 2008 Obama campaign's glittering presentation of a utopian dream is the simple fact that it can't square with the reality of a dangerous and complicated world.  Anyway, you do remember, don't you, how that Eliot poem ends?  Is that how this administration will end up?  It currently looks discombobulated on all fronts and woefully lacking in real statesmanship.  (Of course, if Iran gets the bomb, we might end with a bang.  But I digress.)

A History of Stalin's and Mao's Useful Idiots

Take a listen to this 2-part documentary from the BBC World Service.  Hurry, though, as it won't be available online for too much longer.  You can download it as an mp3 and listen to it later.  But do listen.  The "useful idiots" phenomenon is not confined to those murderous monsters Stalin and Mao.  Here's the blurb from the BBC:

The phrase 'useful idiots', supposedly Lenin’s, refers to Westerners duped into saying good things about bad regimes.

In political jargon it was used to describe Soviet sympathisers in Western countries and the attitude of the Soviet government towards them.

Useful idiots, in a broader sense, refers to Western journalists, travellers and intellectuals who gave their blessing – often with evangelistic fervour – to tyrannies and tyrants, thereby convincing politicians and public that utopias rather than Belsens thrived.

In part one John Sweeney looks at Stalin's Western apologists.

In part two he explores how present day stories of human rights abuses across the world are still rewritten. [Note: Part two also mentions Mao. You know how I feel about him! -- MM.]

RELATED POSTS: 

• Intellectuals and the Really, Really Bad Ideas They Often Support.
• The Ukrainian Famine Under Stalin (and the intrepid Welsh journalist Gareth Jones)

World Cup Obsession: I Have A Question

What kind of world is it if you can't trash-talk a bit about your rivals in sport? Aren't we all big enough to give and take a few hits? I mean, REALLY.

Anyway, England has plenty of fans.

Quote of the Day: Nile Gardiner on Obama's Standing in the UK

Here it is:

It's hard to believe that any politician could become more disliked in the UK than Gordon Brown, but Barack Obama is achieving that in spades.

Ouch, baby. Very ouch. Ouchier still because it's true. Gardiner's entire rant is worth a look. You may recall how some while ago Obama achieved the apparently impossible and actually made me feel sorry for that miserable waste of space Gordon Brown.

Leadership and the Hypocrisy Trap

Absolutely true, this:

President Obama is caught in the wickedest of political binds: the hypocrisy trap.

Obama says he's sick and tired of the Washington blame game, but still can't resist doling out piles of blame himself.

His compulsive, reflexive finger-pointing at Republicans, George W. Bush and vague villains on the right is not only unbecoming, it also reinforces the gathering public verdict that Obama is a weakling.

Victims do not make good leaders.

Remember this too.

Satire Alert: The Onion Comments on BP Oil Debacle

Brilliant as always. Slight language warning. The fake headline: "Massive Flow of BS continues to Gush From BP Headquarters."

Arguably it could just as accurately substitute "BP HQ" with "the White House." But I digress.

Contempt of Court, White House Edition

Pretty much. It's unseemly and childish. KNOCK IT OFF, PEOPLE.

Nerd Analysis: A Law Professor Considers the Current Political Mess

The Insta-Prof has some piquant thoughts about the growing abyss between the insular political class and just about everybody else. (Well, the Pelosicrat Congresscritters and their buddies kind of have to be in love with themselves, because every poll indicates that the average citizen pretty much hates the lot of them. "The most ethical Congress EVAR"!)

Bonus: The Insta-Prof compares the current political situation to bad beer. Heh!

What's Melting Faster? Glaciers, the Wicked Witch of the West, or the UN's Climate Change Credibility?

Heh!

The United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny — and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report's own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.