THE COMMANDER OF COMEDY CENTRAL

Camille Paglia asks…:

“[F]ree the president from his flacks, fixers and goons — his posse of smirky smart alecks and provincial rubes, who were shrewd enough to beat the slow, pompous Clintons in the mano-a-mano primaries but who seem like dazed lost lambs in the brave new world of federal legislation and global statesmanship. …

Case in point: The orchestrated attack on radio host Rush Limbaugh, which has made the White House look like an oafish bunch of drunken frat boys. … Has the administration gone mad? This entire fracas was set off by the president himself, who lowered his office by targeting a private citizen by name. Limbaugh had every right to counterattack, which he did with gusto. Why have so many Democrats abandoned the hallowed principle of free speech?…Every penny Rush has earned was the result of his rapport with a vast audience who felt shut out and silenced by the liberal monopoly of major media.

President Obama should yank the reins and get his staff’s noses out of slash-and-burn petty politics. His own dignity and prestige are on the line. If he wants a second term, he needs to project a calmer perspective about the eternal reality of vociferous opposition, which is built into our democratic system. Right now, the White House is starting to look like Raphael’s scathing portrait of a pampered, passive Pope Leo X and his materialistic cardinals — one of the first examples of an artist sending a secret, sardonic message to posterity. Do those shifty, beady-eyed guys needing a shave remind you of anyone? Yes, it’s bare-knuckles Chicago pugilism, transplanted to Washington.

and Rush answers:

When Barack Obama stands up there says, “The days of taking a corporate jet to Las Vegas, thoooooooose are ovah.” Where is the benefit of the doubt on this? They know exactly what they’re doing! This is class envy. This is showing the little guy — who’s going to get nothing — that the people they have been told to hate at the top of the ladder are gonna get creamed. So the little guys who are going to get nothing but 13 bucks a week are supposed to be satisfied that Joe Rich CEO can’t fly his jet to Vegas anymore. …

This is what bugs me. We’ve got so many people — big business people, supposed titans of industry — scared of people like Barney Frank! That tells me Barney Frank’s got way too much power and John Kerry’s got way too much power, that these people are wielding their power to intimidate citizens. This is not how the Constitution was set up; this is not how the Framers envisioned this country. Citizens were not supposed to write letters, sheepish letters begging — begging! — relief from the paymasters in Washington. This is not how we’re supposed to exist here.

“When’s Obama going to realize the policies are hurting the travel business? When’s Obama going to realize that he’s hurting the investor class? When’s Obama going to realize that he’s choking off an economic recovery by raising taxes? When’s Obama going to realize…?” People need to come to grips with the fact that long before Barack Obama announced his run for the presidency he had formulated plans to do exactly what the hell he is doing right now. …

I think a lot of Obama’s voters have made an emotional investment, not an intellectually based investment, and they have no clue when to dump him. You are giving whoever you are emotionally investing with part of yourself, and it’s hard to break up. Plus, the guy’s the president, it’s access to power. ‘The guy’s destroying the economy, but has a great-looking family, oh, he’s a guy who looks so good and has an occasional cigarette, but still, oh, he sounds so smart. He’s wrecking the economy, but I can’t let go because I love the guy.’ So they have to tiptoe around it, write these little pieces, “Gee, I hope the president realizes that, ahem, I hope the president can realize that we need to end this chaos. Gee, I hope some of the president’s advisors…” So whatever their charts are telling them, their personal wealth charts, their own portfolios, whatever their head’s telling them, their heart is saying, “I can’t let go of the guy. He’s the president. I supported him. I had high hopes. Gee, maybe he’ll change.”

He’s not going to change, Camille. You’re in denial. You’ve got O’Battered Voter Syndrome. It’s not his staff, either, honey–it’s him.

She’s kidding herself if she thinks the DNC’s anti-Rush billboard (heh heh) wasn’t approved by the president himself, just like he sent his little mini-me Jon Stewart out after Jim Cramer. (The Obama-supporter Cramer noticed that Barack A. Feller was destroying wealth with his policies–or lack thereof–and said so!)

This is the Comedy Central presidency. We’ve got an ad executive, not a chief executive.

The Human Teleprompter’s human teleprompter:

“The president and I talked earlier in the day yesterday about watching it. I forgot to e-mail him to remind him it was on, so I don’t know if he’s seen it. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Despite, even as Mr. Stewart said, it may have been uncomfortable to conduct and uncomfortable to watch – I thought it was, I thought somebody asked a lot of tough questions and I am not surprised that the video of Mr. Cramer’s appearance doesn’t appear on CNBC’s Web site today.”

Obama hasn’t been asked one tough question since he became president–but we’re going to grill Jim Cramer? whatever. When Stewart charged Cramer with being “disingenuous at best and criminal at worst”, Stewart was conveying Eric Holder’s personal greetings. I’m sure Cramer got the message; “Don’t ever step off the reservation again, pal.”

You only wish they gave the same level of attention to their jobs as they do attacking critics. You get the unmistakable feeling that one day there will be an international crisis, but the president will be in his bunker scrawling an angry rebuttal to a letter to the editor he saw in the Beaver Valley Gazette. Obama reminds me of a Zampolit, the Soviet officer watching over everyone to enforce political compliance. Except the Soviets were at least grown-ups. This president would rather keep campaigning to BE president rather than grow up and act like one.

Camille Paglia and many others are still in denial about what we already know. We’ve had an empty suit foisted off on us by a One-Party Media.

Barack Obama is a miserable failure. The only question is how much damage he will do before he’s fired.