First up, Barry in the Bubble, courtesy of his favorite television network. “Obama Goes on Meet the Press, Reality Fails to Intrude,” John Hinderaker writes at Power Line, quoting Obama’s Kinsleyesque gaffe this morning that “part of this job is also the theater of it. A part of it is, you know, how are you, how, how are you, well, it’s not something that– that always comes naturally to me. But it matters. And I’m mindful of that.”
Obama went on to say what a great job he is doing on policy, even though “theater” doesn’t “come naturally to [him].” What a crock! Obama has always been about theater, and little else. What were the Greek columns if not theater? How about the silly Latin motto, “vero possumus,” on his fake presidential seal? How about healing the earth and making the oceans recede, or the election night extravaganza in Grant Park? Obama’s problem isn’t that he is no good at theater. His problem is that the time eventually comes when a president has to stop pretending and make decisions.
But this was all just spin. The air of unreality was just as dense when it counted the most, when Obama tried to explain his security policies. His plan for dealing with terrorism from the Middle East involves–no surprise here–”working smarter.” Smarter than whom? He doesn’t say. But this is what Obama calls “smart”:
We’re going to have to work smarter.
We’re going to have to train the military there more capably. We’ve got to do more effective diplomatic work to eliminate the schism between Sunni and Shia that has been fueling so much of the violence in Syria, in Iraq. And so we put together a plan that is compatible with the kind of work that we’re doing now.
Whoa! We are going to “eliminate the schism between Sunni and Shia”? The schism that goes back to the 7th Century? And we are going to “eliminate the schism” through diplomacy? Don’t hold your breath waiting for that critical part of Obama’s “plan” to bear fruit.
Isn’t eliminating the schism between Sunni and Shia covered by Mr. Obama’s 2008 pledge to heal the world (and/or lower the oceans)?
What happens to the recently retired president when he dares to leave the Democrat media-political bubble and attempts to explain his security policies to an audience that cares rather more about the topic than the gang at NBC? Reality intrudes rather dramatically, as the American Legion slowclaps the former president as he phones in his recent speech at their convention:
[jwplayer player=”1″ mediaid=”75562″]
As should quickly become apparent based on the feedback loop generated by the American Legion’s lack of response and Mr. Obama’s increasingly monotone teleprompter readings, never has a performer and his audience so palpably begged for the curtain to drop.
It wasn’t always like this for the former president, however. Before reality intruded, the World’s Biggest Celebrity used to know how really rev a crowd into a frenzy, as Ed Henry of Fox News notes, via an excellent rejoinder to the former president:
Didn’t “theater of politics” — and then-Sen. Obama being “good at it” — initially propel him at 2004 Dem National Convention?
— Ed Henry (@edhenryTV) September 7, 2014
Join the conversation as a VIP Member