Quagmire Watch

“Obama Breaks Glass on Chris Matthews: The Latest in a String of Panicky Decisions,” Noah Rothman writes at otherwise left-leaning Mediaite:

For years, MSNBC host Chris Matthews has been sitting patiently behind the emergency glass waiting for President Barack Obama to come wildly swinging the ax of panic. As recently as August, Matthews cited Obama’s careful avoidance of the network, which just last month was forced to discipline two hosts for conduct so indefensible they could not continue to represent MSNBC, as an indication of his and his colleagues’ neutrality. On Tuesday, the air raid sirens blared and the president came screaming out of the fog begging for aid. Matthews’ interview with the President of the United States will air on Thursday.

This is just the latest in a recent spate of poorly conceived, ill-timed strategic decisions this White House has made since the end of the government shutdown and the cosmic implosion of the Affordable Care Act. The political identity of Democrats – both in the grassroots and in Congress – is so inexorably tied to the ACA that they cannot abide the level of negative press this law has received continually since mid-October. The party’s left-wing, besieged and disoriented, is dragging the president by the nose into one bad move after the next.

Shades of the opening titles in David Mamet’s 1997 film Wag the Dog:*

FADE IN:

A CARD, WHITE ON THE BLACK SCREEN, READS:

Why does a dog wag its tail?

BENEATH IT, THE NEXT LINE FADES IN:

Because a dog is smarter than its tail.

CROSS-FADE TO THE NEXT CARD, WHICH READS:

If the tail were smarter, the tail would wag the dog.

DISSOLVE

Fortunately, our president, who’s not at all concerned about the day-to-day news cycle, would never use a foreign policy feint to momentarily distract from his domestic woes…

And is that photo at the top of Rothman’s post a shot of the Germans on the long march to Siberian POW camps after their defeat in the quagmire of Stalingrad? I’m pretty sure it is. Of course, the Obama administration is also Godwinizing itself these days:

They didn’t seriously call it #WHYouth did they? Is this some perverted form of Godwin’s law where they do it for us?

— Ben Howe (@BenHowe) December 2, 2013

This administration really does seem to spend their nights reading Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism as a how-to guide, don’t they? After seeing the poster advertising Obama’s “Citizens of the World, Unite!” speech in Berlin in 2008 (and oh, how that boomeranged in recent months) I produced this comparison. I was worried that I was getting a bit out there — now I see I was merely being prescient.

* I almost titled this post “Wag the Dog Eater.” Our unceasing efforts towards good taste and elevating the level of political discourse prevented me. But not from writing this footnote.

Update: “Yes, now we have the White House Youth. Either these geniuses are actively inviting comparisons with the Hitler Youth, or nobody in that building knows any better. Which likelihood is more depressing?”

I know which direction I’m betting.