I smiled wryly at a new story about an F-16 fighter jet intercepting a small single-engine Cessna that entered airspace reserved for POTUS, almost certainly by total accident. It was forced to land, and no doubt the poor pilot got subjected to the laser beam hypnosis and the truth serum, to reveal what he/she was up to on that plane. Of course, the thing that caused no shock whatsoever was the airspace that was reserved for his POTUSness: Los Angeles. Again. Or more specifically, Hollywood. Again. The guy spends more time there than George Clooney! I wouldn't be surprised that Air Force One hovers more or less permanently over Hollywood in future years, with the new Star Trek transporter beam whisking celebrities right up into the aerial penthouse for an audience in private with POTUS. All for a million dollars a pop, no doubt. The name Star Trek actually seems hilariously appropriate for that particular aircraft and campaign!
"We goin' to Hollywood, woo-hoo! We gonna hang out with George, and Ellen, and Steven, and Beyonce'n'Jay, we gonna par-tay, and we gonna fill this lil ol' plane with hundreds of millions, y'all! Yowza!"
The aspect that put the "wry" in wryly the most was the occasion for this visit: yet another big fundraising affair at the Regent Beverly Wiltshire, sponsored by gay and lesbian supporters. Wait, hang on a second, wasn't this guy de facto against gay rights (i.e. marriage), for the first four years of his presidency?! Didn't he only "come out" of his closet mere weeks ago, and claim the light bulb went on in the night, suddenly seeing the light at the end of the tunnel that leads to equality for one and all? Mere weeks, and already he has set up gay and lesbian-sponsored fundraisers? This underlines magnificently what I referred to in a recent blog about this campaigner-in-chief - it's all about the votes (and the cash that assures them), and he will say or do almost anything to get them. From denying gay people the right to marriage, to suddenly being "hip" with an election looming, to using them immediately for the other thing he cares passionately about, raising money - for his re-election. He does it with a passion that is not so obvious in certain aspects of keeping his promises to those he grabbed money from last time, or even in his day-to-day job. Political pundits say that Presidents ought to be very transparent, and in this guy's case he has taken transparency to a whole new level. He's the Linda Evangelista of political fundraising: "I don't get out of bed for less than a mill, tell 'em sittin' at my table for dinner is two mill, and if they want a photo op with me, it's three mill, a head!" It's only about money, votes and staying in power. He didn't even show up to the fight in Wisconsin, where the Republican incumbent beat the Democratic challenger, again. Why? Well, because POTUS doesn't care. He has a presidency to run for, so he doesn't want to be tarnished by a potential loss of that guy in Wisconsin. He was asleep at the wheel in horrific fashion when he treated Coakley somewhat similarly and Dems lost the Kennedy family seat and legacy in Massachusetts, after almost 50 years. Unthinkable, not least that it also caused the loss of a supermajority in Congress. He didn't even appear to give a damn.
I suppose the most surprising thing is how quickly the LGBT community, and those with access to big money, jumped on his bandwagon. No one seems to question the timing of his surprising revelation, mere months before a general election? Does he have such star power himself that if he came out tomorrow and said that he had had some gay experiences in high school, the entire global LGBT movement would gush over him, and pour forth hundreds of millions of dollars in response? Even if there was no proof of it? I guess that the answer might be that the LGBT community sees him as their best chance to get some laws passed, and move on, whether they truly buy his new stance or not. They know he is totally buyable, and he knows they need something, and bad. While he does take every chance to hit the media with big ticket "achievements", you will notice that he is a lot quieter about all of these Hollywood fundraisers. Why? Well, I mean, do we want to bring people's attention to the fact that we are off raising staggering amounts of money based on promises I (or the other candidate) make, which I will then ignore when elected? As I did last time? It's quite a contrast that experts predict he will raise and spend an almost immoral billion dollars to get re-elected, and yet the country is in decline and so many normal working people have sadly become normal unemployed (and maybe homeless) people, under his watch. Given that we all know most politicians lie about what "I believe" or "I will do", why do we hand over a billion dollars to help them? Why do we not feel similarly emotive to raise a billion dollars to help people who lost homes during the recession, or to help feed kids who are going to school hungry, or to try and create even a few new jobs?!
Quite typically in today's world, it's about star power, people! We would much rather spend a hundred dollars of our hard-earned money to be able to sit in the same room that POTUS is at the front of, than feed a starving child. I don't get it all, especially when that guy walked away from many of his forceful promises during his first two years in the big white house. He's so transparent, he's see-through. A pure politician through and through, who has staying in power as his #1 priority at all times, and who will turn this light bulb conveniently on, or that one off, for votes, near to an election. If you gave this guy the truth serum, and asked which was better: him getting four more years in the big old white house, but little progress for the country, or the other guy winning, and the country doing slightly better; he would say that he prefers the former option. I am sure of it.
I personally think that he has hurt his own brand, by his flip-flopping, his lack of real leadership in Congress, his desire to please everyone, or whoever he is preaching to at any one time, for cash, but then stepping away from promises later, his constant money-sniffing, and his clear enjoyment of "hangin'" with super rich celebrities, even when people's lives and homes are in flames. He doesn't seem to care that people might find it distasteful, espeically those who helped him get elected the first time around. For sure, "hope and change" today sounds like more or less precisely what it really was, and only was - political rhetoric. I do not see any more "hope", and only very negative "change", after four years under him, and that my friends, is simply not good enough and should be sufficient to give someone else a chance. The tragic thing being that the Republican brand itself was so tarnished by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice that people will keep Obama in as the lesser of two evils;, and you can be rock-solid certain that ol' POTUS knows that very, very well. - Kevin Mc
No comments:
Post a Comment