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Obama's Slapstick Open Mic' Routine

By Dave Fryett

24 April, 2011
Countercurrents.org

Charlie Chaplin was once asked what was funny: a man walking down a street and slipping on a banana peel, or stepping into an open manhole? "Neither," replied the ingenious comedian, "a man walks down the street, spies the banana peel, strides confidently over it, stops for a moment to savor his victory, winks proudly at a pretty girl, then turns and steps into an open manhole. That's funny."

Damn the luck! No sooner had he launched his re-election campaign than did our unpopular emperor get tripped up by an open microphone. How odd it is that last time loping down the campaign trail, machinelike, he never made the slightest mistake. Yet now as incumbent he stumbles out of the gate committing a gaffe that one would not expect from a neophyte. And, astonishingly enough, he did it again, this time complaining of interruptions to his interviewer during a commercial break. How is it that a robocandidate like Obama, hitherto precise in every word, deed, and gesture, could twice come to be so maladroit?

Obama needn't despair though, as it seems these solecisms are going to work to his advantage. One of the many complaints Obama voters have is that he seems more than a little diffident in his dealings with the opposition. Despite holding all the cards, often it is the he who capitulates, and in so doing abandons his pledges to his constituency. He is, as some crestfallen supporters see it, too timid to deliver on his promised reforms.

In the interview miscue, he is seen showing some of the backbone his supporters have been pleading for. Similarly, the open mic' heard him flex those long-dormant, chief executive muscles bellowing he was not going to get nickled and dimed by Congress on healthcare. Perhaps even more beneficially for him, he makes the extraordinary claim that he had pursued that bill at no small cost to himself. He insists, however absurdly, that he lost political capital because of it, presumably referring to those cerebral colossi who now call him a socialist and debate his national origins.

In no media account which I've seen has there been the slightest murmur of skepticism. One finds nary a soul who suggests these bloopers were staged for political effect. Given that Obama's open mic' mishap was for him unprecedented and very much out of form; that he then repeated the oafish mistake; that both misfires come as they do just after his re-election effort lurched into motion; and that the nature of what was said was entirely self serving; and given that what was offered in these putatively indiscreet mumbles was utterly preposterous; one would suppose that suspicion should abound. Yet nothing.

On MSNBC's The Dylan Ratigan Show, the host interviewed two "political advisers," one a Republican, the other a Democrat. Both, Ratigan told his viewers, had been retained by candidates for public office. When the discussion turned to Obama, they and a third guest lampooned him for making the "amateurish" mic' goof-up. All agreed that "the first thing you tell a candidate is never to say anything you don't want heard around a microphone." By the end all four were mocking Obama with the advisers shaking their heads in dismay at his vaudevillian flubs. Did any believe what they were saying? Amateurish? Obama? He ran the best presidential campaign in decades. He was flawless. Do they suggest that Obama has forgotten "the first thing"? Twice? None of the four are wanting in political acumen, and Ratigan is the most perspicacious and outspoken broadcaster perhaps ever, yet the four played along like the clapping, barking seals they are. So did the rest of the media.

The worst deception was Obama's comical insistence that he put his career on the line by championing health care reform. Every decision he has made has been weighed against his re-election chances, and that calculus has been the defining characteristic of his presidency. Since Calvin Coolidge, we have not seen a chief executive more reluctant to engage in any discourse, let alone precipitant action, which might cost him a vote. He has assumed the pose of conciliator from his first day in office, and has refused to budge ever since. He has always presented himself as the reasonable one, the one willing to compromise for the public good. Obama has yet to take a firm stand on any issue, preferring to lose every battle so long as he is not seen as responsible for the defeat. Obama a risk-taker? Now that's funny.

Unfortunately, the joke is on us.

Dave is an anarchist in Seattle, and can be reached through his blog.
http://saveourcola.blogspot.com/




 


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