Saturday, December 11, 2010
When I first started in the family business, whenever there was trouble, a problem with a customer or supplier, a screw-up, an argument, the solution was simple...call dad. Dad, can you handle this? Dad, there's an angry customer on the phone....etc. Finally came the day when dad, both of us a little older and me more confident and he less so, would say to me, "Could you handle this one for me?"
When I started, I was simply not ready for prime time.
Barack Obama is two years into the Presidency and he's still calling Big Daddy to come save him. This is just downright embarrassing, and quite frankly a little disturbing. Jon Podhoretz describes the scene:
...In the Senate, Vermont's Bernie Sanders was in the seventh hour of a filibuster against the tax-cut deal, showing that when you give an old Socialist Jew a microphone, you do something more dangerous than you know. Then, suddenly, as Sanders was blathering on, the president appeared in the White House briefing room with Bill Clinton.
Clinton endorsed the tax-cut deal, and began leaning into the microphone and talking. And talking. And talking. And then...the president said, and I'm not kidding, "Michelle is waiting for me," patted Clinton on the back, and left his predecessor there at the microphone. And he is talking and talking and talking.
"I'm out of politics now," said Bill Clinton, two minutes after saying he did 133 events for Democrats in 2010. This is a treasure trove of self-revelatory stuff, as is Sanders's filibuster, which features him praising a book on the Senate floor by Arianna Huffington, an article in Slate...
Video at RealClearPolitics. Story at New York Times:
...With Mr. Obama standing largely silently at his side, Mr. Clinton took over the lectern to lend his backing to the tax compromise the White House reached this week with Republicans. And then Mr. Clinton went on, for half an hour, answering questions and holding forth on topics from triangulation to Haiti to the mortgage crisis and the nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
Even after the 44th president excused himself and left the room, the 42nd went on. On cable TV, Mr. Clinton's presence in front of the blue backdrop with the White House logo was familiar, as were the wagging finger and the occasional bitten lip...
The '08 election left this country rudderless. We're strong enough to survive it, but it's not a comfortable feeling.
