M2RB: Radiohead
Disappointed people, clinging on to bottles,
And when it comes it's so, so, disappointing.
Let down and hanging around,
Crushed like a bug in the ground.
Let down and hanging around.
And when it comes it's so, so, disappointing.
Let down and hanging around,
Crushed like a bug in the ground.
Let down and hanging around.
Obama’s weaknesses are exposed when he encounters a determined opponent.
By Jonah Goldberg
It was the Puss in Boots eyes.
If you’ve seen the Shrek movies or the spin-off cartoon
starring the storybook cat voiced by Antonio Banderas, you know what I’m
talking about. Whenever Puss in Boots really needs something from
someone, he flashes these enormous kitten eyes that melt anyone in their
path. Whenever my daughter really wants something, she tries to lay
them on me, and I have to say, “Stop trying to give me the Puss in Boots
eyes . . . you can’t have chocolate cake for dinner.”
I knew Barack Obama was miserable when he tried to give debate
moderator Jim Lehrer the Puss in Boots eyes. “You may want to move on to
another topic,” Obama implored Lehrer, a bit like a motorcycle thief
begging a cop to take him into custody rather than let him stay with the
surly biker gang that caught him.
I expected Romney to beat expectations and win the debate (though I had no clue how decisive his victory would be), not because I thought Romney was such a fantastic debater, but because Obama is the single most overrated politician of my lifetime.
That’s not to say he’s a bad politician. He’s not. He’s fine, even
pretty good. But he’s not the master so many people claim he is.
The Irish have a saying: “Hunger makes the best sauce.” And it’s
true. If you’re hungry enough, roadkill will make for a king’s feast.
Liberals were so hungry for someone like Obama, he seemed like so much
more than he really was.
You could hear indications of this fact in the way some of the more
crotchety members of the Democratic establishment described Obama.
Senator Harry Reid was blown away by the potential of this
“light-skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he
wanted to have one.”
In 2007, Joe Biden said of his then-opponent, “I mean, you got the
first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean
and a nice-looking guy.” He added: “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
Storybook Man, indeed.
While such comments could be described as racially insensitive, they
weren’t necessarily racist. They simply reflected the fact that even
cynical Democrats understood that the Democratic party — and, to be
fair, much of the country generally — craved a mainstream black
presidential candidate. Jesse Jackson was too polarizing, some would say
too embarrassing, for the job. Obama, meanwhile, was “storybook, man.”
The problem for Obama was that he always believed the most ludicrous
version of Storybook Man. He once told a reporter, “You know, I actually
believe my own [bovine excrement].”
For a guy who supposedly gives wonderful speeches, he rarely
persuades the unpersuaded or inspires those he didn’t already have at
“hello.” That’s partly the fault of his speechwriters, who always did
him the disservice of producing the kind of pedantic and clichéd
boilerplate that Obama mistook for soaring oratory. He thought he
smashed through the Democratic primaries like a battering ram through
concrete when he mostly pushed on open doors.
As president, he’s convinced himself that he is a policy wonk with a
deeper understanding of the machinery of government and the mysteries of
the economy than even his advisers. And yet he had to learn on the job
that “shovel-ready jobs” were magic beans sold to him by party hacks
hungry for pork. He bought a stimulus that only stimulated political
cronies. In the debate, he touted windmills and solar power as the
energy sources of the future as if he still honestly believed that.
The media’s infatuation with Obama and/or their contempt for his
critics only served to reinforce his delusions. When the press laughs at
all of your jokes and takes your glib excuses as profound insights, the
inevitable result is a kind of flabby narcissism. Kings can be forgiven
for thinking they are the greatest poets when the court weeps at their
clunky limericks.
The Obama who delivered a shockingly lackluster convention speech
last month is the same man who walked into that Denver stadium in 2008
to rapturous approval. The man who lost the debate Wednesday night is
the same man who never managed to make Obamacare popular after more than
50 speeches and pronouncements on it in his first year.
The key difference now is that the hunger for Obama has been replaced
with the indigestion that follows after four unimpressive years in
office. In sales, they say you sell the sizzle, not the steak. In 2008,
the man was all sizzle, and the ravenous throng was sold. Now he must
sell the steak itself, and it’s full of gristle, fat, and bone. He may
yet still close the deal, but only if people fall for his Puss in Boots
eyes.
- Jonah Goldberg is the author of the new book The Tyranny of Clichés. You can write to him at JonahsColumn@aol.com or via Twitter @JonahNRO. © 2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc...
- Jonah Goldberg is the author of the new book The Tyranny of Clichés. You can write to him at JonahsColumn@aol.com or via Twitter @JonahNRO. © 2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc...
Let Down - Radiohead
Starting and then stopping,
Taking off and landing,
The emptiest of feelings,
Disappointed people, clinging on to bottles,
And when it comes it's so, so, disappointing.
Let down and hanging around,
Crushed like a bug in the ground.
Let down and hanging around.
Shell smashed, juices flowing
Wings twitch, legs are going,
Don't get sentimental, it always ends up drivel.
One day, I am gonna grow wings,
A chemical reaction,
Hysterical and useless
Hysterical and
Let down and hanging around,
Crushed like a bug in the ground.
Let down and hanging around.
Let down,
Let down,
Let down.
You know, you know where you are with,
You know where you are with,
Floor collapsing, falling, bouncing back
And one day, I am gonna grow wings,
A chemical reaction, (You know where you are)
Hysterical and useless (You know where you are)
Hysterical and (You know where you are)
Let down and hanging around,
Crushed like a bug in the ground.
Let down and hanging around.
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