Two Presidents for the Price of One
By Johnny Roosh
As I worked in my office yesterday, over my shoulder the television set to Bloomberg, I heard President Obama step to the press conference podium. Blah blah blah, me me me, etcetera, and then I heard a familiar voice from the eighties and it wasn’t Michael J. Fox or Duran Duran.
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.
As the television buzzed in the background, I came to realize that Clinton had been talking for a while and yet went on…and on and on and on. I swung around to look at the screen, and President Obama…was gone! I wondered if Clinton has the nuke codes now too?
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.
…and cigars? No?
Hey Barry, at least your old teleprompter had an off switch.
Barack Obama is the man who swept America off her feet (and to complete the metaphor, slipped her a mickey and violated her as she lay unconscious). A scant two years later, his political capital is so deeply overdrawn that he needs a loan from Bill Clinton to sell his compromise to his own party.
But after Mr. Clinton began taking questions, the current president politely interjected that Michelle Obama was expecting him at one of the many holiday parties that presidents host during December.
“I’ve been keeping the first lady waiting,” Mr. Obama said.
Best not do that with Bill Clinton in the House. You might find him on your spouse.
December 11th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Obama’s political capital – and our country’s economic capital – are so overdrawn that the next person to step to the microphone to explain the benefits of not boosting the income tax rates should have been the Chinese finance minister.
December 11th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Sweet. Not only does he let Slick Willy upstage him, he has to go running because his wife snapped her fingers.
December 11th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
The “Obama was born in Kenya” rumor was started by Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2008 presidential primaries: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-02-08/the-secret-history-of-the-birthers/
If this goes on Media Matters will want see Obama’s birth certificate — the original, not the PDF!
December 11th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
It’s like we are living in a Twilight Zone episode.
December 12th, 2010 at 1:36 am
In Obama’s defense, Bubba loves a microphone, a press conference, and the attention of the press more than cigars. It was all the networks could do to keep him to State of the Union addresses that were 50% longer than any other President ever delivered, and the networks were in the bag for him! If Obama hadn’t bailed the odds are pretty good Clinton would still be talking.
December 12th, 2010 at 8:45 am
In Obama’s defense
Just listen to yourself, nerdman. If 0bambler can’t control Clintoon, how can anyone expect him to lead the free world? Oh, wait, he is leading it… into oblivion that is socialism.
This was an abdication, pure and simple.
December 12th, 2010 at 9:02 am
December 12th, 2010 at 9:39 am
JPA, just listen to yourself. Do you really believe Obama wants to be leader of the free world? He’s bowed and apologized for years now, he’s begged China to make changes to monetary policy that he could easily affect if he wanted to, and as for freedom, well, that concept is pretty foreign to Obama.
December 12th, 2010 at 11:29 am
nerdman, and there I thought it was you who were defending 0bambler.
December 12th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Biden resigns. Hillary steps in. Obama resigns.
Hillary becomes prez and names Bill as veep.
I bet Glenn Beck is thinking about this. He may even theme a show about it.
December 12th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
JPA, I was just commenting on Bubba’s loquacity. The man can’t shut up in the best of situations, but put him in front of the fawning press at a Presidential microphone and he’ll put Castro to shame. I’m surprised he still isn’t there droning on.
Terry, that would be an improvement over what we’ve got now. Which also means no Democrat would allow it to happen without demanding a tax hike in return.
December 13th, 2010 at 2:25 am
What annoys me about the Hillary boosters, Nerdbert, is that they have similarities to the Obama boosters of ’08.
Her actual record is mediocre, at best. Hillary’s boosters want her in the White House because she is a feminist Boomer. Her actual record is not important.
December 13th, 2010 at 11:30 am
It is no secret that Clinton advises Obama, and makes speeches for him. This was just more of the same support.
So what?
Presumably Bush I advised Shrub from time to time as well although Junior wasn’t always smart enough to listen.
Ol’ Bill did seem to enjoy being back in front of the press in the White House though, LOL. What struck me was the degree to which Clinton’s face was flushed as he was speaking. Wonder what that suggests about the state of his heart and blood pressure, and if Bill’s health has any effect on Hillary’s political plans or not.
December 13th, 2010 at 11:37 am
It is no secret that Clinton advises Obama, and makes speeches for him. This was just more of the same support.
No, DG, it is not. It is utterly unprecedented for a President to start a press conference, and then to hand it off to someone else to finish in its entirety.
Sorry, DG – your rose-colored glasses about all things Obama are fogged, yet again.
Presumably Bush I advised Shrub from time to time as well although Junior wasn’t always smart enough to listen.
Unless you can show me where George HW Bush finished a press conference for an absent George W Bush, you have yet again pegged the non-sequitur meter.
Ol’ Bill did seem to enjoy being back in front of the press in the White House though, LOL.
Who wouldn’t? All of the fun, none of the responsbibility!
What struck me was the degree to which Clinton’s face was flushed as he was speaking. Wonder what that suggests about the state of his heart and blood pressure, and if Bill’s health has any effect on Hillary’s political plans or not.
I think Julian Assange’s health is going to have a bigger impact.
December 13th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
All of the fun, none of the responsbibility!
In engineering we call it the fun factor = input/responsibility.
So attending someone else’s design review can have a huge fun factor, almost infinity in some cases. You get to see interesting stuff (sometimes), you get to give lots of input and generate tons of tasks, but the odds of you getting anything you’re responsible for out of it is pretty low.
On the other hand, being a “team leader” rarely has a fun factor over 0.10. You get all the responsibility of being a manager while having to do the work, and none of the power of a manager.