Editorials

Who in the Media Will be Obama’s Gene Garber?

They’re casting lots, you know.

A month ago I’d have said this couldn’t happen, but now, all because of that snide little saunter out before the cameras a couple of weeks ago, when, as Rush Limbaugh commented, everyone in the room suddenly knew it was all a gag, Obama is suddenly very naked. Lady Penguin has it exactly right. Everyone in the room now knows Obama is undressed…

…except Obama, apparently.

So now we’re all waiting to see who will be first to raise the mirror.

You see, the cynical phoney (see Clinton)  picks up on these clues early, and races to regain some sense of equilibrium. Even the sociopath (and that may be Clinton as well) is in tune with his watchers and potential critics.

But not the narcissist. I’m trying to think of a film, Andy Griffith in “A Face in the Crowd”? No, that’s Clinton, too. But how about Jack Palance… in that awful film (but excellent novel by Thomas B Costain), “The Silver Chalice”? As Simon Magus, the Magician, he plummeted to his death while trying to fly off a tall building in Roman Palestine at the time of Christ.

You see, Simon Magus had convinced himself he could fly, only he couldn’t, which calls to mind Maud Frickert’s brother Maynard, who scotch-taped 142 pigeons to his arms, saying “I think I can fly, Maudie, I think I can fly” before having his brains dashed out when someone tossed a bag of popcorn into Miller’s Quarry, near Millville, Ohio.

Of course, Maude Frickert herself was the creation of Jonathan Winters, a comic genius, who, in the late 50’s checked himself into a sanitarium, because, by his own admission, “I started to believe my own stuff.”

Which brings us full circle back to Barack Obama.

For the self-delusional lug, the naval-gazer, the self-worshipping narcissist, well, he will continue playing to an audience even as it’s watching his slow spiral burn, until someone finally raises that mirror.

When that itch becomes irresistible someone  in the media will have to do it.

So Who Was Gene Garber?

Sports trivia buffs know who threw Roger Maris the pitch for his 61st home run (Tracy Stallard), or Hank Aaron his 715th (Al Downing), or Bobby Thompson’s Shot Heard Round the World in 1951 (Ralph Brance).

Each shared an ounce of infamy just for being on the mound the wrong day.

OK, no one’s going to serve up Obama a home run pitch. For that you have to throw hard, and Obama can only hit softballs. We have to look for a different kind of infamy, and that’s Gene Garber, who struck out Pete Rose ending his 44 game hitting streak, bringing about one of the most classless comments in the history of  any sport, Rose complaining that Garber was supposed to give him something he could hit.

I think this is how it will play out…looking for something easy to hit, someone will send Obama a low and outside sinker, and with one whiff, it will be done.

I’m not sure if the media are drawing straws, but all are aware of this man’s nakedness…perhaps worse for Obama, their own blindness for two years in not seeing it. While no one wants to go down in history like Bob Ford, “that dirty little coward, who shot Mr Howard”  (Jesse James), neither are they paragons of courage themselves. None of them want to still be tethered to Obama’s starship as it spirals uncontrollably earthward.

So, like Cassius, how to go about this deed? Do they wear the jutted chin of a man about to put down his favorite dog, or are they toe-dancing, like a child needing to go pee, just to keep from blurting out that fatal third strike in an unprofessional manner on national TV?

I can’t say, but if I were Obama, I’d be a little bit nervous. Like it or not, there are bragging rights involved. Uneasy about being first, still no one wants to be last.

And I think this day is drawing nigh, as there are too many tense moments already. Aspects of Obama’s childishness are peeping through almost daily; his mumbling retreat in front of Cantor, his summons to the House, first to Camp David, then to have a new plan on his desk (both with a polite “Piss Off” from the House) as if he were demanding a homework assignment. Even The Atlantic, while firmly in his camp on policy, took Obama’s childish petulance to task. Then suddenly Jake Tapper of ABC, (who may or may now be reflecting a policy shift at that news organization) has been asking questions no one ever expected to come out of Obama’s hip pocket. There’s something in the wind.

It may be sudden, or a series of gentle goads that will cause Obama to come undone. What conservative wouldn’t love to catch a “Pardon my Blooper” moment live, on stage at the White House, but I doubt it. Bill Clinton’s rage leveled at Chris Wallace was controlled, Obama’s won’t be. So I’m sure plans are already in place to prevent  that sort of show. Expect the cameras to suddenly go dark if handlers see even the least bit of a puddle under Obama’s shoe.

I expect this…sooner than later. Lady Penguin, who’s trained to notice these things, believes he may have been under medication for a long time. White House Insider, (this link but an example), says he’s been near the edge a long time. Things aren’t going his way on a lot of fronts, from Netanyahu to Boehner to that water cress sandwich for lunch to that double-par on 15, to that pile of &*#*’ing papers on his desk he’s supposed to read.

Just remember, he is the President, and even rats can be mean when wounded. He is surrounded by hundreds of people more villainous that he, and Obama is their rice bowl. Expect them to defend their turf with teeth bared.


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