Obama’s latest mea culpa just confirms how far gone this presidency is.
In an interview with CBS’s Charlie Rose, Obama says that the problem he’s had isn’t with the failed policies of his first term, but rather that he failed “to tell a story to the American people,” according to a report in the Christian Science Monitor.
"The mistake of my first term – couple of years – was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that's important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times," said the president.
We’re paying White House staffers $38 million yearly, according to Politico, plus looking at roughly $750 million to a billion dollars in campaign spending to support this president- and the best excuse he can come up with for his failed presidency is that he’s not a good story-teller?
This is a man who largely won the presidency on nothing other than a fantastic and unbelievable story he sold to America via willing accomplices in the press.
Remember the story about Chris Matthews and the tingle that ran up his leg when Obama spoke?
That was a true story; a sad story, but still true.
But being president in one way or another, and at some point in time, for us grown ups in TV land, should become about truth, policy and the American way- not leg tingles.
Leg tingles are great for a romance, but they don’t create jobs; they’re no substitute for an energy policy; they don’t make medical bills magically disappear; they don’t pay the student loans the administration tricked students into taking; they don’t win the war in Afghanistan when you surge more troops into the country and more American troops die; they don’t solve the banking crisis; or make green investments smart; nor do leg tingles restore confidence in government and industry.
But what can you expect from an administration that has nothing to offer but new stories about it being someone else’s fault?
Leg tingles? Forget it.
That was 2008.
For 2012 the tingle is entirely different.
“Because that's how you play the game in Washington,” admitted then-candidate Obama according to a transcript of his 2008 “closing argument” speech released by the Chicago Sun Times. “If you can't beat your opponent's ideas, you distort those ideas and maybe make some up."
Indeed you do, Mr. Obama.
Because you can’t take the horror story that’s become Obama’s War-on-Everything and sell it as a children’s tome, or a feel good drama or even as a journey of personal discovery- as we were once warned about by Sarah Palin.
Because the story that led to those leg tingles has turned into one that makes the hair on the back of our neck stand straight up after three-and-a-half years.
And we can all feel the tingle now.
It’s the tingle of coal miners without jobs, teachers being laid off, public pension crunches, businesses, small and large, struggling with the most massive government intervention in this history of our country- outside of war- to what purpose?
So Obama can tell us that the only problem is that he hasn’t told us the right story yet.
Save it for your next, navel-gazing book, Mr. President.
And the sooner you write it, the better.
Because there’s another way to tell the story.
It’s the only way that really matters to all of us- regardless of our political persuasion.
You want money for roads and bridges and policeman and pension payments and health benefits already promised to retirees? You want money for teachers and new hospitals and wellness programs?
Then let’s try telling a story about prosperity.
For that story we’ll have to write a new chapter in the book of life; a chapter without President Barack Hussein Obama, and the new, improved massive federal government.
And the chapter will start like this:
Once upon a time there was a business that sold things to people. After a long struggle, it made money and sold more things to people; and so it hired more people to sell more things; and it made a very nice profit for Bain Capital, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, and so Wall Street and Main Street rejoiced alike.
That’s a story every president should believe in.
And never tire of telling us.
It’s a story that Obama will never understand.
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