Daddy Dearest

Though this whole administration behaves like they’re stuck in some nasty flashback to junior high school, sometimes I find I’m starting to think of Barack Obama less as the president and more along the lines of “Daddy Dearest”.  With all his chiding and scolding and gloomy-doomy fears, he sounds a lot like the parent of a teenager.  A really bad parent.  One of the “do as I say, not as I do” kind of parent, replete with the full quota of hypocrisy.

He says, “We can’t drive our SUVs…as much as we want….”  But he takes a brand-new Air Force One to Chicago for a weekend vacation after his first 3 weeks in office.  Oh, and don’t forget the 28 new Marine One helicopters (costing $11.2 billion).

He says, “We can’t…eat as much as we want….”  But he and the extended family will dine on Waygu beef, and the staff will make so much mushroom risotto that there’s too much left over.  Of course, then Michelle can have her very own photo op at a food bank.

He says, “We can’t …keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times….”  But he’s from Hawaii, ok?  So the Oval Office will be kept warm enough to “grow orchids”.

He says, “There are a lot of individual families who are experiencing incredible pain and hardship right now.”  But he and Michelle will go out partying with the folks from 3 of Washington’s local luxury lifestyle magazines — Capitol File, DC magazine and Washington Life.  It’s part of their job to “embrace Washington’s glittery social scene” while the economy falls in around the rest of us. 

He says, “The fact that we’ve had to take these extraordinary measures and intervene is not an indication of my ideological preference, but an indication of the degree to which lax regulation and extravagant risk taking has precipitated a crisis.”  But he was only (supposed to be) serving in the Senate.

He says, “It’s important that we…ensure that the budget process works better, that taxpayers are protected, and that we save billions of dollars that we so desperately need to right our economy and address our fiscal crisis.”  But his personal assistant had to attend New York’s Fashion Week.  For research.

I find it amazing that people still continue to think he’s some kind of “good guy”.  One staunch supporter I recently questioned, despite secretly admitting to now having serious misgivings, resorted to blaming the Republicans for not allowing the President to “do his job”. 

I never realized that Republicans had some magic power to make people act like hypocrites.