Obama’s first week – Silly

Declaration of Independence: Well, it’s been over a week since the election and I thought I’d publish the first Obama Watch.  Let me start with a disclosure – I am neither excited nor frustrated by the election of Barack Obama.  I was one of those “many in the middle” right up to election day.  After standing in line for 2 1/2 hours I voted.  And I won’t say who I voted for.  All I’ll say is that it was a close call and I see myself as independent.  I am not an Obamamaniac, I am not “in the Resistance”.  But I do want to burn some bits keeping track of President – elect Obama and, once inaugurated, President Obama.  So, here goes -

Week 1 – November 4 to November 10

Acceptance Speech: Was it just me or did Obama’s acceptance speech seem like a bit of backpedaling?  As always, the tone and tenor of the speech was amazing.  That dude can quack!  But can he govern?  Suddenly, the simple and easy truths he had been speaking during the campaign became long and difficult journeys after he was elected.  I guess this is common.  The original George Bush famously called Ronald Reagan’s fiscal policy “voodoo economics”.  Apparently he changed his mind once Reagan picked him as his running mate.  During the 1988 campaign the very same original Bush said, “Read my lips, no new taxes!”.  Lots of things change as the campaign trail becomes the walkway into the White House.  In most ways I am glad that Barack seems to be having this “Oh Shoot!” (this is a PG blog) moment.  Maybe the depth of the problems and the effort required to address the problems are sinking in.  Grade: B+

Insulting Nancy Reagan: What is it with newly elected Democratic presidents?  They all seem to fancy themselves comedians.  Clinton used to go on and on at banquets.  He was finally dubbed “Mr. Saturday Night”.  Then somebody with some sense must have told him to clam up with the jokes.  Maybe it was Monica.  Anyway, Obama starts his post election tenure with a speech including a gratuitous insult of Nancy Reagan.  Something about seances.  Why anybody would find it clever to insult an elderly widow who never held elected office and hasn’t occupied the White House in 20 years is beyond me.  Evidently it was beyond President-elect Obama after he engaged his brain (albeit a few minutes too late).  I understand he called Mrs. Reagan and apologized.  That showed some class.  Of course, stifling himself on the old lady insults would have been even better.  Grade: C- (would have been F without apology).

Leaking conversations with Bush:  OK Obama, you are the President-elect.  You are about to be told all kinds of things that need to be kept quiet.  Does America really need to know that every vice president for the last 20 years has actually been one of the space aliens who landed at Area 51?  No.  So, when you enter into a supposedly private conversation with the sitting president – should you keep the talk confidential?  Yes.  But President elect Obama was unable to do this.  Instead, he ran to his aides (who were not in the meeting) and chirped up a storm telling them all the steamy details of his chat with Dubya.  Then his aides, like adolescent schoolgirls, ran to the press to pass on the salacious gossip.  Needless to say, Dubya found this annoying and threatened to stop palin’ around with BO.  Meanwhile, both Cheney and Biden (communicating through alien mind melds) found the whole episode distressing.  They are once again silently bemoaning that day in the 1950s when they crash landed at that lake in Nevada.  Grade: F.

Not a great week.  Too much silliness.  Overall grade: D