Neo-Neocon catches an interesting gaffe from President Obama — he may still be a “sort of God” in Evan Thomas’s mind, but history isn’t his strong suit:
There’s another mildly comic but strange bit in the middle of the piece that includes what appears to be a gaffe by President Obama, unremarked upon by either Axelrod or the article’s author, Mark Leibovich. First, here’s Axelrod, making an intentional funny:
Sitting at his desk next door to the Oval Office last week, he was tearing into a five-inch corned beef sandwich on rye with a Flintstone-size turkey drumstick waiting on deck. “I am the poster child for the president’s obesity program,” he said.
Then Obama enters and tries another witticism:
Mr. Obama surveyed the spread on Mr. Axelrod’s desk with a slight smirk.
“What is this, King Arthur’s court?” he asked, then pulled Mr. Axelrod aside to talk about a health care speech he was about to deliver.
King Arthur’s court? I believe Obama must have meant to refer to King Henry VIII, who was often pictured as a glutton holding a drumstick:
This is a small matter, but it’s another example of the peculiar lacunae in Obama’s experience. The reference—Henry VIII chomping on a drumstick—is a fairly common one, not an arcane association. King Arthur’s court (correct me if I’m wrong) doesn’t conjure up any epicurean associations of the culinary sort; it’s about idealism and chivalry and courtly love, as well as a bit of sexual fooling-around.
The fact that Obama got it wrong is more evidence of his disconnect. And speaking of disconnect, take the end of that same sentence—Obama and overeating gourmand (not that there’s anything wrong with that) Axelrod are about to consult on the president’s health care speech, in promotion of a policy that, among other things, is supposed to stress preventative medicine and good health habits.
Not to mention reducing smoking. And as with Joe Biden’s even worse recall of comparatively much more recent history, it falls on the Blogosphere to point out their error; the state-run media continues its polite obsequiousness.
And Obama prides himself on being such a life-long Anglophile…
Apologies to the late Raul Julia for paraphrasing the only line anybody remembers from the Gumball Rally, in the headline above. But hey, when your mindset is “Start From Zero,” and you’re busy trying to reshape the nation in your image, why bother with history?
Elsewhere in the world of socialized medicine, Robert Reich continues to see the business world as one giant Thomas Nast cartoon:
For the second week in a row George Will gave a much-needed education to one of the media’s most beloved liberal economists.During the Roundtable segment of Sunday’s “This Week,” Berkeley professor Robert Reich falsely claimed health insurance companies are exhibiting huge profits: “That is money directly out of the pockets of Americans.”
Will countered, “[C]onfiscate all the profits of all the health insurance companies, with those profits you could finance our healthcare for 48 hours.”
Reich arrogantly responded, “[R]ecipients of health insurance don’t know what they are buying very often. Until there are common standards, minimal standards, then people are going to be taken.”
This nicely set Will up to drive the ball out of the park, “There you have the premise of this legislation and the core of today’s liberalism: the American people are such dopes they can’t be counted upon to buy their own insurance”
But then, like Obama and Biden, this is far from the first time that Robert Reich rejects your reality and substitutes his own.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member