Saying Goodbye to Obama

I rarely cry, as I consider such displays unseemly. (Also, crying makes my nose leak sadness-juice.)

But when Barack Obama won his first term, I wept tears of joy. I did so again when he was inaugurated, and when he won his second term. Barack Obama is the best president —by far— that I’ve seen in my lifetime.

(My credentials: I read a wide variety of news sources, I have a Master’s in history, and my ideas on foreign and domestic policies are among the most cogent you’ll find within a 10-foot radius of my office. So my credibility on this matter is, ahem, "unimpeachable.")

I didn’t have the heart to read this piece by David Remnick about Obama until this week. It’s worth your time; in the following passage, Remnick describes listening to Obama give a campaign speech for Clinton at Fayetteville State University (NC):

I was standing to the side of the stage. Nearby, a stout older man appeared in the aisle, dressed in a worn, beribboned military uniform and holding a Trump sign. People spotted him quickly and the jeering began. Then came the chant “Hil-la-ry! Hil-la-ry!” 

Obama picked up the curdled vibe and located its source. “Hold up!” he said. “Hold up!” 

The crowd would not quiet down. He repeated the phrase—“Hold up!”—sixteen more times, and still nothing. It took a long, disturbing while before he could recapture the crowd’s attention and get people to lay off the old man. What followed was a lecture in political civility. 

“I’m serious, listen up,” he said. “You’ve got an older gentleman who is supporting his candidate. . . . This is what I mean about folks not being focussed. First of all, we live in a country that respects free speech. Second of all, it looks like maybe he might have served in our military, and we’ve got to respect that. Third of all, he was elderly, and we’ve got to respect our elders. . . . Now, I want you to pay attention. Because if we don’t, if we lose focus, we could have problems.” 

That night in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Trump informed his supporters that in Fayetteville Obama had been abusive to the protester: “He spent so much time screaming at this protester and, frankly, it was a disgrace.” 

Either Trump was retailing an account he’d found online in the alt-right media or he was knowingly lying. In other words, Trump was Trump.

Life imitates Arthur

Via.

Southpaws Are All Right

Rahm Emanuel is left-handed. I base my astute observation on this gesture that the White House chief-of-staff made as he mocked former House colleagues at the Presidential Inauguration.

On the one hand, radical liberals are members of the “left wing.” On the other, hardcore conservatives are considered to be part of the “far right.” But if one considers U.S. presidents, many of them (including Obama) have leaned left.

As of right now, five of the last seven presidents have been left-handed. This despite the fact that lefties only account for about 13 percent of the general population! So what gives? Are left-handed people just naturally superior?

Yes. Studies show that lefties are more commonly found in leadership positions, and they seem to be better at some creative tasks. Not only that, but on average, lefties make 15–26 percent more money than righties.

As a reader of this blog, the odds are good that you’re already left-handed. If so, please carry on. But if you are right-handed, consider a change. Sure, it will be difficult to brush your teeth or text-message at first. But long term, not only does a pay raise await, but you will also be granted continued free access to Unexpectedly Bart!

(Yep, this will be a pay-to-use site soon. Although you're already paying in a way, aren't you? Oh, and let me vouch for Melissa Roth's book to the left. Very interesting reading; click on the pic for the link.)

Political Allegory from the Animal Kingdom

"If you're done up there, it's my turn next."

Mollycoddling Under a Glass Dome

In 1797, two weeks after being sworn in as the second president, John Adams wrote to Abigail about his new presidential lodgings:

“There is not a chair to sit in. The beds and bedding are in a woeful pickle. This house has been a scene of the most scandalous drinking and disorder ...”

The presidential digs were a disaster because George Washington had put the servants in charge of the transition. In the 1700s, that meant one thing: PAR-TY! Actually, it meant a series of parties, and the servants out-of-control behavior led to broken furniture, missing china and silverware, and suspicious-looking stains everywhere.

Dealing with suspicious-looking stains is how a president should take office. It puts him (or her!) in a righteously peevish mood, and that's what you need to take on the world. But today, it's all about mollycoddling the Commander-in-Chief. When the Obamas take residence of the White House, their clothes will already be hanging in closets or folded in dressers, and the family pictures will be on display.

Looking to the future, a competition called the White House Redux asked this question: What if the ultimate architectural symbol of political power (the White House, that is), were to be designed today? My favorite proposal is this Buckminster Fuller-esque one that puts a glass dome over the White House.

Another proposal called for a number of mini-White Houses to be spread throughout Washington D.C. The First Family would rotate through a variety of neighborhoods this way, and different communities would share the “symbolic mantle” of the office.

One team put a theme park by the White House in order to "recover it as a public space." Uh-huh. I guess seeing the President in a bumper car would be a more common sight then! (Insert smiley-face emoticon here.)

Tax the Robots

“I’m the most experienced vice president since anybody.”
Vice President-Elect Joe Biden, interviewed in today's New York Times.

I've been a little concerned that our new executive team might be feeling a surge of unseemly hubris. So I was encouraged to receive this message from the Obama/Biden transition team yesterday:

Dear Bart,

We wanted to tell you about a new feature on Change.gov which lets you bring your ideas directly to the President. It's called the Citizen's Briefing Book, and it's an online forum where you can share your ideas, and rate or offer comments on the ideas of others.

...after the Inauguration, we'll print them out and gather them into a binder like the ones the President receives every day from experts and advisors....your idea could be included in the Citizen's Briefing Book to be delivered to President Obama.

Did you hear that? The ideas submitted by people like us will be in a binder just like the ones the President gets from experts! Chortling with glee, I went to the site, and while I formulated my thoughts, I took a look at the most recent idea that'd been left for the President Elect:
We are doomed.

"Oatmeal Sucks!" (repeat as needed)

The sports teams at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. are known as… the Friends. That’s not very intimidating, but it’s a Quaker school, so it makes sense. And Sidwell’s Friends keep it real— they're not above a little friendly trash-chanting.

At a recent high school basketball game against city rival Maret, the Sidwell supporters chanted “O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!” This taunting referred to the fact that both Malia and Sasha Obama will be attending Sidwell next year. The Obama's runner-up school? Maret.

As reported by the Washington City Paper, Maret supporters were not amused by the chants, which were "insulting and incendiary” according to one parent. I suppose, though it can only hurt as much as one lets it. Perhaps it’s better to have a sense of humor about being excluded?

Anyway, what I liked was the Maret rooting section’s response to the Quakers' incendiary chanting of the President-Elect's surname:

“Oatmeal sucks! 

Oatmeal sucks!”

Sidwell won the game. Some people get everything.

Simply Weird

Reversing the candidate's races is a cute trick; now that I see it, I'm wondering what took so long! While Obama's hair is a bit freaky, the real problem is that the graphic designer who depicted McCain needed to do more fine tuning of the fine tones.

The ad agency Grey New York is responsible. Tor Myhren, its chief creative officer, said, "This is a non-partisan image. We wanted to address the race issue straight on." (Was Myhren tempted to say that the agency was addressing the issue "head on"?)

Sunrise, Sunset

Guerrilla stickers stick again. These Obama sunrise logos are appearing on street signs in Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina. (Created by ad agency BooneOakley, the decals are apparently free at GObamaNC.com.)

Does this qualify as mischief, pernicious or otherwise? Dunno! Here's another question: Are there any sticker campaigns going on from the opposing party?

America's Worst Writer (Who Also Happens to Be President)

Since time immemorial, savants have picked the winners of presidential elections based on Amazon.com’s bestseller rankings. Currently, Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope is ranked #52, while John McCain’s family memoir, Faith of My Fathers comes in at #2,822.

For the sake of non-argument, let’s assume that both of these candidates can write well. But who was the worst writer of any American president? Warren Harding is generally thought to be the worst president of the twentieth century. Journalist H. L. Mencken wrote of him, “No other such complete and dreadful nitwit is to be found in the pages of American history.” But was Harding's writing as bad as his administration? Mencken thought so, maintaining that it was “so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it.”

Of course, it was hardly Harding’s fault if he was a bad writer. First, his middle name was “Gamaliel.” Second, his mother nicknamed him “Winnie.” And thus Harding’s doom was assured.

What is odd is that Harding was a former journalist and newspaper owner who should have known his way around a prepositional phrase. To his credit, Harding wrote his own speeches. To his discredit, the results could sound like this: "I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved."

Mencken again:

“He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. . . . It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.”

You’d think that would be the final word, but when Harding died, E. E. Cummings snarkily lamented, “The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead.” Man, that's cold. (My sources are here.)