Maybe in November we will all look back and Robert Gibbs will seem like a genius. Or perhaps we will not and instead we will see him for the schlub he appears to be while standing at the White House podium flacking for Barack Obama.
At the moment we ponder as the White House press secretary admitted on a Sunday talk show that, yes, the Democrats could lose the House of Representatives in the November election. It is always curious when one party or another signals a possible political ass-kicking. Perhaps Gibbs is trying to fire up the party as the highlighted article suggests. Maybe he is just stating the obvious.
It seems, though, that the top cats in a party shouldn’t get all negative when times don’t look so good. The party and its supporters want confidence in their leaders. Confidence isn’t a bad thing. Let’s say it a few times: “Confidence good!”
A good many people whom I know would be happy if the Democrats left together and took Obama with them. I don’t see it that way, of course. The “O Man” has had a rough stretch after what seems the shortest presidential honeymoon ever. The economy has improved, but it has done so in geologic time. Likewise the drop of unemployment to single digits. Don’t mean nothing, brother. People quit looking for work. And on and on and on. I still think that Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and the News Corp Noise Machine has put together one of the most effective propaganda campaigns in World history.
The right wing has shown an uncanny brilliance in turning most political news into words which manage to come back to bite the left. I say Murdoch and Co. I mean whomever is part of the “vast right wing conspiracy.” I am only joking. A little.
In order for the Democrats to maintain control of the Congress, they will need a rittle ruck. For one, that God awful underwater gusher in the Gulf needs to cease and desist. Obama needs to seize control of the clean up once it stops. He has got to make everything good appear as if he snapped his fingers and it came straight out of his ass nowhere.
Some of the Washington press, as well, need to start putting two and two together to at least make five. They are missing the easy stuff because they are so damned lazy. If I was in charge of a large newspaper chain, I’d pull my Washington reporters back and have them covering hometown community social events and meat pen rabbit shows at the local county fair. Then I’d put my best beat reporters, or investigative reporters (but aren’t all reporters supposed to be investigative reporters?) onto the White House, Congress, the Pentagon, the VA, and keep an eye on the other departments. At least faithfully read the Washington Post and Federal Times, for God’s sake.
We’d want to make sure our local Clark Kents didn’t go native either. I really don’t know how to do that other than ensure they don’t have enough money to go to the bars where all the powerful people hang out. But that shouldn’t be a problem for you newspaper execs as you know how to keep reporters in poverty and make them like it.
But we’re asking for rots and rots of ruck, at least those of us who prefer to keep the Democrats in control of both houses of Congress.
We would also need for Obama to clean his own house. His inner circle has just not clicked. We keep hearing chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is going to leave. Make it happen! Sooner and not later. It just seems Obama is not being served well within the White House. He needs someone who can deal with both parties in both houses as his chief of staff. I can’t think of any right now, for a Fantasy White House Inner Circle League.
These are the things which come to my mind, a mere observer from way, way away from the seats of power. These are observations from someone who knows not what he says and does less than he knows why. So I suppose this is not helpful. Maybe it’s not to many of you. But I surely got it off my chest and now am a little less burdened.
