UnNews:Reality intrudes on Obama's vision

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27 November 2010

The President might have avoided mayhem on the hardwood by a more nimble "move to the right."

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Foreign challenges keep intruding on President Obama's promise to focus on jobs following his party's "shellacking" in the mid-term elections.

First, rogue political aides in the White House conspired to send the President to Asia for four days, without first making sure anyone there would agree to anything. Then, just when Mr. Obama was visiting Kokomo, Indiana, darned if those ol' North Koreans didn't start lobbing missiles at the South. "I was going to win the crowd over by talking about the famous Beach Boys song," said Mr. Obama. "Next thing I know, everyone is talking nuclear war."

Reality has intruded on grand visions throughout the President's term. Jobs was his plan for most of 2010, but that darned Congress raised the minimum wage, voted 99 weeks of pay for not working, and gave companies open-ended duties to pay for health care. In what some might call a conspiracy, no one's hiring. Before that, a giant spending package was designed to hold unemployment under 8%. But the sucker went to 10% instead.

It must be remembered that Mr. Obama inherited a mess. Ari Fleischer, who was press secretary for President Bush, said reality often interrupts the best of plans. "Dubya really wanted to finish reading that book to those schoolchildren when the September 11 attacks happened--he had almost worked out the long words." Later in his term, Donald Rumsfeld gave a token nod to reality when he said, "You don't fight with the army you want, but with the army you have," a conundrum we are still struggling to understand. And if Dick Cheney and Halliburton hadn't bombed those levees, Hurricane Katrina might have been just another storm.

To add injury to injury, mere weeks after the unexpected loss of the House of Reprehensibles on November 2, Mr. Obama faced another foreign challenge: an elbow to the lip during a basketball game, thrown by a manager at a Hispanic think tank. The move--ruled a flagrant foul, two shots plus possession--left a highly visible injury that dozens of new Republican lawmakers will try to take credit for. Mr. Obama said, "I promised no lobbyists in my administration, but I should have kept them off the hardwood too." Darrell West of the Brookings Institution said of the left-handed President, "Frankly, he is lacking a good move to the right."

Sources

• Julie Pace "World events threaten Obama's economic message" Associated Press, November 27, 2010

• Darlene Superville "Obama gets 12 stitches after errant elbow to mouth" Associated Press, November 26, 2010