100 Days of Competence Versus Crazy

One of the most striking aspects of President Obama's first 100 days has been his ability to not necessarily "feel our pain" but instead to become a role model for how we should deal with our pain. In other words, we're all in the shit -- even the president -- but here's how best to deal with it: remain calm, think clearly, set an agenda, and make sure to spend time with your family. (Because, as the famous line goes, "a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.")

There's a classic astronaut quality to President Obama in that, so far, he's been able to confront enormous strain with a cool but competent grasp of the mission -- there appears to be a natural respect for his duty as well as for the 300 million people he's serving. President Obama's first 100 days haven't been flawless, but considering the Apollo 13 nature of the situation he inherited, his errors could've been far more serious.

Meanwhile, his opposition has behaved like a googly-eyed, flop-sweat soaked mess -- crapping their cages and shouting gibberish about the end of the world.

The striking contrast between President Obama's grace under pressure and the apoplectic insanity of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or Michele Bachmann is the Republican Party's greatest weakness. They're missing the narrative for the sake of blind rage. Rather than grasping, as the president has, the very simple concept that, in general, people under tremendous stress don't respond well to screeching maniacs -- especially screeching maniacs who are clearly making things up as they go -- the Republicans have, by design or by instinct, embraced this screeching maniac base.

Looking at the recent polling, it's obvious that the post-election spike in the FOX News ratings are indicative of nothing more than a consolidation of the fringe rather than a broader indication of a growing movement. In an historical sense, FOX News and talk radio numbers more closely resemble General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during the final days of the Civil War: old men, walking wounded and terrified children hunkered down in a long and imposing U-shaped array of earthworks around Petersburg. Each unit spread thin and deployed with huge gaps along the line so as to give the illusion of more soldiers. The Republicans don't seem particularly interested in gathering real numbers and, instead, would rather just make their existing numbers seem more intimidating than they actually are.

And perhaps this is because the tea party base of the Republican Party -- certainly its de facto leader, Mr. Limbaugh -- isn't really capable of the leadership required for the challenges we face. Challenges that require a respect for details, science, logic, analytic thought and steadiness.

It's no wonder considering how, over the last 30 years, the Republican Party has become dominated by bumper sticker marketing gimmicks and dress-up play acting in lieu of substance and reason.

In the last 100 days, this costume party fakery has been illustrated by Glenn Beck dressing up like Howard Beale and making random loud noises without realizing that Beale was a tragic, suicidal character. Bobby Jindal and Michael Steele dressing up like Barack Obama knockoffs, even though it's not really President Obama's ethnicity that makes him a popular leader, but rather his character and political instincts. Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds dressing up like Sam Adams, even though there's very little in common between the Sons of Liberty, who were protesting against a corporate tax cut, and the tea partiers who support tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent.

Marketing -- in this case, using patriotism and platitudes to trick people into buying their crap on a stick -- has long been the Republican strong suit, but lately it's been reduced to the logical equivalent of speaking in tongues; typically coming off as disingenuous, self-contradictory, uninformed, unserious, accidentally sexual or desperate.

As for desperation, so many of the right's attacks against the president in last 100 days have been based upon otherwise unremarkable observations, but delivered with an outraged or snarky tone so as to make the observation sound like an egregious trespass. Teleprompters, for example. Desperate for something to stick to the wall, they went with attacking the president for using a technology which literally everyone in politics and media uses.

Glenn Beck, in particular, has proved to be a master at making an otherwise normal observation sound like an attack simply by rolling his eyes and waving his hands around -- employing the sarcastic set up: "Idon'tknowaboutyou, but..." For example: "Idon'tknowaboutyou, but [rolls eyes, waves hands] Obama's use of an oval-shaped office -- that's not change we can believe in! Call me crazy, but BRAP-BEEP-FFFTT-ZOOOM!"

With pied pipers like this, it's difficult to see how the GOP can ever expect to recover on its own merit. It turns out that, in absence of substance and inspirational leadership, wishing for the president to fail is all they really have left as a path to winning again. The Republicans certainly don't possess the ability to compete based upon their own ideas and so they need the other guy to fail in order to appear more palatable.

That's a hell of a strategy. Waiting and hoping for the president to become more ridiculous than the Republicans. And in the event this occurs, how many millions of Americans will fail, too, as the consequence of both the Republicans and the president being equally as incompetent? It's no wonder why Americans are identifying with the president over the Republicans by as much as a three to one margin. Throwing in with the Republican Party in its present form feels comparatively like suicide.

I'm reasonably certain that historians will peg the legacy of the president's first 100 days based partly upon this contrast between the crazy and the calm, the substantive and the trivial, the buggy-eyed and the steady handed. And while the president has obviously won the day (the first 100, actually) on his own accord, there's no denying that this margin of victory is further widened by a remarkably self-destructive and tone deaf Republican Party.

BobCesca.com

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Comments

[WorldPeaceService]

I love the article, Bob. Brilliant! The comparisons you make between Obama and a psychotic republican party are priceless.

Keep them coming!

[RedKnuckles]

Ever notice how Bob's great posts bring out the trolls in droves?

[Roses]

Yeah, I consider it a badge of honor for Bob.....to produce this much high dugeon and desperation from our friends on the radical right.

[movielady]

Shhhh...Le­t's all stop pointing out how obvioiusly crazy the Republican Party is. If we ignore them, there is a good chance they might rant and rave themselves into extinction.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/movielady/

[levibatgirl]

Excellent and spot on as usual!

[alwqb]

Has anyone gone to the "Fox Nation" web site lately? OMG! They are insane over there. Read the comments, they won't let you post if you disagree but it is downright scary.

[Clayton139]

OMG they are insane wing nuts over there !

[notothyet]

I hadn't gone there before and won't be spending much time there in the future. They are past nuts... It really is freighteni­ng...

[billbb]

Loos like the loons have completely taken over that lake...

[vim876]

Michele Bachmann makes me wonder if the evolution-doubters are onto something.

[Bryan Hurst]

hey, nobody said evolving and progressing were the same thing. you know, if you don't use a particular part of your body, you lose it over time; hence, wingnuts will eventually not have cerebellums.

[AtomicallyLiberal]

Cere - who's a what's it?

[ChandraSF]

I miss the shifty-eyed, conniving, con-man from Texas. Remember the days, when the talk was about WMD. Of Iraq being behind 9-11. Intelligen­ce-cooking by the President. Promises of "cleaning-up" the White House - apparently, plotting torture in those quarters was Bush's idea of cleaning up. Everything about him and GOP reeked of duplicity. The budget figures were cooked - War funding was somehow off-budget. Unemployment figures were constantly revised upwards, three months after the fact. The sordid stories about Abu Ghraib were dressed up. Leaking the names of covert CIA agents was just a game for the Veep - no one paid any price for felonious crimes. One could go on. The irony is that on these pages we have defenders of Bush and "those good old days". Seriously, how poor is their judgment?

[KOisGod]

I kind of miss him, but my blood pressure sure has lowered since he slinked away from Washington. I used to fear hearing the news every morning, wondering if he has launched another illegal invasion overnight, sending more American's to die for his ego and cheney's friends.

[Vance1]

Man 100 days gone by and Trillions of $$$$ wow incredable
Shaking hands and bowing to dictators, what good use of tax payer monies.
We can only hope the next 3 yrs fly by.
Because his next thing is Free Healthcare for all... except it ainte free unless you are illegal.
Healthcare isnt a Right, lets get that straight Mr O!
Do you all want to wait 17 weeks to see a doctor? I surely do not and My present health care plan is fine.
I will not pay for drug using aids patients..­Period!
I am sick and tired of having socialistic ideals push down my american tax payer throat.

http://wwwamericanpatriot-vance.blogspot.com/

[Roses]

My, my, my Vance....c­alm down!

Now let's talk last 8 years, shall we?
Incredible, never thought that I'd see it! Economy wrecked be a "fiscally conservative" government who went wild with the checkbook and borrowed trillions! Put us in debt but good to "Red" China. Then our VP had 'secret' talks with Enron and other big oil/gas companies to devise an energy plan. Pretty sure that energy plan included lots of foreign oil, but then our president was buddy-buddy with the king of Saudi Arabia. Remember Bush kissing the king and walking hand-in-hand with him?
Pretty cool, huh?
Then remember the WMD? And the supposed mushroom cloud? And that little place called Iraq? And that little matter of an unnecessarry war? Those bodies? Who could forget?
Good times!
Then remember the trashing of our civil liberties, wiretapping domestically, and the torture?
Thought you did!

But, I'll tell you one thing Vance. I'm tired. I'm tired of people who lost this last freaking election whining about every little thing. Elections have consequences. Have a nice day :)

[trunk65]

Let alone the fact that on 9/12, you had the most united citizenship in our history, and look what you did with that.

[TheBrizz]

Score!

[Goliadkin]

No mention of "checks and balances" or "single-party rule"? You're losin' it. Don't you know, it's all in the repetition!

Grade: C-

[KeepMeLearning]

Then do us all a favor and leave the country.

[nighthawk50]

Do you really exist? Or are you a fragment of irony created by some progressive who wants to effectively make the point that there are still your type out there; intellectually shipwrecked on a sea of the own ideology. Hey buddy if you do exist, you give me a tens of millions of other progressives all sorts of pleasure in enjoying your pain.

Here's to the next 8 years and also.... one word of advice "decafe".

[vim876]

Let's say you get sick...wit­h, say, AIDS. Not through sex or needles. Let's say you are in a car accident, and your bowling buddy bleeds all over you. Then you find out he is HIV+, and now so are you. So you get medicines and continue with your life. Until you are laid off. Then you're covered by COBRA, until it runs out you. But in this economy, you can't find a job that has health benefits, and you cant afford to pay the premiums the COBRA insurance company jacks up at will. So you stop paying for it, since food and rent are more immediate necessities. Now you have AIDS, need expensive medications, and no insurance company will take you for any amount of money. The only hope you have is to find a job with health benefits. Those jobs are fast disappearing. I'm not making this up. I know a 20-something with a chronic illness whose monthly premiums are $900. His parents pay them, because they know if he went off, he would not be able to get insurance. So tell me again how our system is sooooo great?

[trunk65]

Let alone, those of us who can't get insurance at any cost because of those pesky "pre-existing conditions­."

[PINOobama]

100 Days of Competence???

Promise #1 - NO TAX HIKES ON THE POOR: "I can make a firm pledge. No family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.
*What he did: Signed H.R. 2 into law

Promise #2 - NO JOBS FOR LOBBYIST: "No political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years...
*What he did: Appointed lobbyists Mark Patterson chief of staff at the Treasury Department & lobbyist Bill Lynn to be an undersecretary of Defense.

Promise #3 - TRANSPARENCY: He promised an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."
*What he did: Signed the Lily Ledbetter bill, the SCHIP/cigarette tax hike, and the stimulus bill all with far less than a five-day waiting period that he promised"and continues to promise"on his campaign Web site.

Promise #4 - PORK BARREL EARMARK REFORM: "We can no longer accept a process that doles out earmarks based on a member of Congress" seniority, rather than the merit of the project...­"
*What he did: Signs $410 billion Omnibus Appropriations bill. Contains 8,570 earmarks totaling $7.7 billion.

The opposition hasn't behaved badly.It's Obama who has behaved badly. And speaking of bumper sticker marketing gimmicks and dress-up play acting in lieu of substance and reason, remember ALL those other campaign promises he used to get elected.

[Shellly]

and ?

[scottinsd]

Hahahahahahaha!!!! L O S E R. Deal with it....you still have 4 more years to go, and I'm guessing another 4 after that. This is the most dead-on article I've ever read on the HuffPo, and I find it hysterically funny that you bothered posting a comment about your own sour grapes. You should go out immediately and buy a box of Tetley and wave those little teabags around until your arms fall off. Good riddance!!! You seriously made my week.

[KOisGod]

I smell desperation. I love the smell of right chickenwing desperation in the morning.

[vim876]

Don't wanna pay the S-CHIP tax? Quit smoking. Not only can you avoid taxes, which I know right wingers love to do, you can also save money, live longer, and lower your insurance premiums. Don't get help, just do it "by your bootstraps­." Also, go crawl into a hole because you're opposing health insurance for children, who cannot be expected to "take personal responsibility" and whatever other stuff you rightwingers say to excuse yourselves from taking responsibility for your community, your society, and your country.

Lobbyists? I'll give you this one. But you guys are the ones who usually love the Washington outsiders. Obama made this mistake because he was one. You can't put such a complete and idealistic ban on lobbyists when your party's been out of the White House for 8 years. You need to hire people who really know what they're doing to run the country, and they needed jobs while Bush was president. I'm glad Obama didn't put sticking to this promise ahead of picking people who know what they are doing.

[vim876]

He has made major legislation more transparent than any other modern president. What's more, he has pushed federal agencies to make their information more accessible and transparent. As Ray LaHood, Transportation Secretary, wrote ON HIS BLOG upon making bird strike information public, "Public disclosure is our job." I think that's an ethic that pervades the administration.

"Pork/Earm­arks"--Ok, I am so sick of this pork bullpucky. It's really easy to dis pork. Politicians do it, people from across the political spectrum do it. But as you drive across that bridge, remember that the funds to keep it from being another Minnesota disaster may well be classed as pork. And when you take your kid to the science museum (assuming you believe in that), the incredible exhibit they have on stars (you guys believe in those, right?) may well also be classed as pork. And the experiments they did at the state university that led to the cure for that disease you have? Pork. And the other experiments there that led to the growing tech industry in your city that's employing all those taxpaying citizens in well-paying jobs? PORK. Just remember, pork is in the eye of the beholder.

[KOisGod]

spot on. Pork, is how the political process funds projects for the reps districts. They are sent to DC to do precisely that. It's how that place works. And the republican's are pro's at it. No one is fooled.

[metalpipe]

It's beautiful to watch, don't you agree?

[SteveDenver]

I agree.

I can't understand the impatience and nit-picking by people who can't see they're floating down a flooded river and someone is trying to help.

[winnie47]

"Meanwhile, his opposition has behaved like a googly-eyed, flop-sweat soaked mess -- crapping their cages and shouting gibberish about the end of the world"....­PRICELESS!­!!! This whole article is PRICLESS! I think I'm going to frame it and hang it on the wall!

[KOisGod]

Agree, Bob is my favorite blogger on HP

[roch20]

This is by far one of the best articles I have read! Each and every one of the lines was meticulously crafted, without the need of the typical potty mouth line or the hatemongering like those at FOX News channel! Well done!

[PINOobama]

give me a break

[Cambridge9]

Which leg?? Oh, I forgot - We don't torture!! That's a promise he kept!!

[Scott Douglas]

aw.... do you feel a little ignored?

[SteveDenver]

Which arm? Which leg?

[CanuckInLyon]

I have a feeling this little fellow is way too proud of the crappy graphic he uses for his posts. Kinda puts his words into perspective, I would think.

[booksnmoreforyou]

You gotta love it when people who read of teleprompters criticize people who read off teleprompters.

[Nonpartay]

Huh?

[maddie0001]

How Shrub spent his first 100 days
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june01/100_days.html

cut off family planning funds
started no child left behind
cut taxes by 1.6 trillion
submitted budget of 1.9 trillion (see that's how you eliminate a surplus!)
established office of faith based initiatives
apologized to Japan
rejected Kyoto Treaty
apologized to China

[winnie47]

...you left out: played golf, took a vacation, and completely ignored Richard Clarke, who was warning of a growing terrorist threat to America.

[metalpipe]

I believe he was also recieving whispers, soon to be shouts, from EVERY state concerning the use of preditory loans and the impending housing bubble.

[richsmith]

And whispers also from God. God whispered, "George, you're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, people like you, no matter what your father says."

[Nonpartay]

Wow, what a list. I'm always amazed at what people endured back then and how some of his supporters now think it's President Obama who is destroying the country! Perception is everything, I guess. There's none so blind as one who will not see. I'm really hoping though that as time goes on, they'll see things aren't so bad after all as we pull ourselves out of the Bush morass.

[billbb]

Republicans believed all through the 1930s that their tax cut plan for the wealthy would have restored prosperity faster. That why you hear those renovated quotes from Republicans today. This is an alternative view of history that no one believes - but only because it is a totally discredited viewpoint. Ask the Japanese, who tried the Republican plan when their banking crisis hit and had an economy that went flat for a decade, allowing China to take their place as the dominate political and financial power in Asia.

[RegLib]

"They're missing the narrative for the sake of blind rage."

What a great line! I wish I could say so much with so few words.

[BeefyT]

Riiiiiiiiiiiight.