He’s Carteriffic
By Mitch Berg
One of the reasons Senator, professors, academics and “intellectuals” make such lousy presidents is that they feel the need to micromanage everything.
One of Jimmy Carter’s great failings – among many – was his need to have his fingers stuck deeply into everything his government did, from noodling with the specifics of the various farm bills to directly interacting with the commanders of the Desert One raid as the mission progressed. A president is supposed to delegate.
Micromanaging is bad.
Especially when the president gets down to trying to micromanage people’s opinions, as with last week’s 17 minute answer to a Town Hall question:
His discursive answer – more than 2,500 words long — wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, “F-Map”). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as “FICA”).
I’m getting a headache just reading about it.
Always fond of lists, Obama ticked off his approach to health care — twice. “Number one is that we are the only — we have been, up until last week, the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance,” he said.
A few minutes later he got to the next point, which seemed awfully similar to the first. “Number two, you don’t know who might end up being in that situation,” he said, then carried on explaining further still.
“Point number three is that the way insurance companies have been operating, even if you’ve got health insurance you don’t always know what you got, because what has been increasingly the practice is that if you’re not lucky enough to work for a big company that is a big pool, that essentially is almost a self-insurer, then what’s happening is, is you’re going out on the marketplace, you may be buying insurance, you think you’re covered, but then when you get sick they decide to drop the insurance right when you need it,” Obama continued, winding on with the answer.
Leaving aside that it’s lousy oratory – running off at the mouth like that is rude; it’s the prerogative of someone who believes his time is worth much, much more than yours.
April 5th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
In his response to the question our man Barry was demonstrating his ability to be pompous. Clearly he accomplished that.
April 5th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Great Leader likes to hear himself talk. That’s just one more thing we don’t agree about.
April 5th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Narcissist. It’s really that simple.
April 5th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Did you read where the federal gov’t is starting to regulate college textbooks?
April 5th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
That’s only about 1/16 the length of a typical Fidel speech, so he needs to work on it a bit…
April 5th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Carter micromanaged the white house tennis courts, so Obama has a way to go. Not a long way, but still not quite there yet. OTOH, I dont remember Carter spending as much money.
April 5th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
That’s only about 1/16 the length of a typical Fidel speech, so he needs to work on it a bit…
Bubba, you mean more like Chavez, that’s who he’s closer to. Heck he already has state run media, now all he needs to do is shut down Fox News and conservative talk radio and he’s set!
April 5th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Mitch, as a victim of Univ Ave scammers, you may like this. I was at Big Top liquor on Univ and Snelling last week. From across the parking lot I hear “Excuse me. Sir. Excuse me”. Great, so I jump in my car and try to get away. The lady plants a Rainbow Foods ad on my window. She claims she is going to purchase her first ham ever, and needs $11. Has 6 so far, so only needs 5 dollars more. I almost was going to give her something for the good use of visual aids. Tire replacement guy should show a picture of the $22 tire he needs.
April 5th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Hey Chuck, they remodeled the Rainbow on Larpenteur at Fernwood. Technically in Roseville so you don’t pay the St. Paul extra tax to fund the hockey arena and the parking lot clientele is MUCH nicer. Give it a look.
April 5th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Out in Plymouth they are asking for $20 so they can get the Audi washed. Times is tough.
April 5th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
In his response to the question our man Barry was demonstrating his ability to be pompous.
Does this make DogNabbit and Peevees pompous? Why, yes it does! Wait, have we ever seen those two and 0B in the same room together?
April 5th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
nate, in a sad way, I would miss the street theater in the parking lot. Why pay big bucks for the Ordway or Gutherie when you can see such fine performances as:
“I ran out of gas and need cab fare”
“I found a guy that will sell me a tire for $22”
“My kids haven’t eaten in 3 days” (a little known Rogers and Hammerstein production)
April 5th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
The Won’s Presidency will be remembered as a love story – a man so in love with himself, hearing himself speak, his ideas, his voice when he expresses his ideas, etc. You have to have a pretty big pair to run for office, especially when you run to be the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. But this kid has got such a large ego it defies description. He is a poor off the cuff speaker – if he were a Republican a whole industry would have been created just to document the Obamaism’s and the circular logic. He reminds me a lot of the kid in class who skimmed the Cliff Notes and gets called up to the front of the class for an oral book report. He just keeps hitting the buzz words he picked up and keeps going around in a circle until the time is up. As he is such a charmer, the teacher lets him get away with it. He stumbled badly with Bret Baier when his fillibusters got cut short. BTW, now it’s 50 million uninsured. Now that they have stopped the created or saved nonsense, watch for the number of uninsured to soon exceed 300 million.
April 6th, 2010 at 7:46 am
Seflores, you’ve hit on something about Pres. Obama that’s been nagging me a while. I always thought I knew him from somewhere; I just remembered where.
I had to take Poli Sci classes to fill Humanities requirements. The prof would drone on about the Founding Fathers being hypocrites because they said All Men Are Created Equal but they also owned slaves. Some kid would raise his hand to ask “So, you’re saying that the Founding Fathers were hypocrites because they professed freedom but owned slaves?” The prof would get all excited because Somebody Got It. Yes, yes, that’s it exactly; you Understand The Truth!
The rest of us – recognizing a Brown Noser when we saw one – were too busy sticking our fingers down our throats to bother taking notes. Naturally, that kid got a much higher grade than I.
I think that kid was Barry Obama. And he never grew out of it. Always trying to score brown-nose points by reciting how sophisticated he is, never realizing from the sound that the audience is not applauding, it’s wretching.
.
April 6th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
“My kids haven’t eaten in 3 days” (a little known Rogers and Hammerstein production)
BWAHAHAH!!
Moochers and leeches are one of the biggest reasons I take great pains to avoid “urban” gas stations and convenience stores.