Obama is "furious" about the oil spill. How do I know? He told Larry King he is "furious." I heard him say it. It's a word thing -- and it's making big news that he used such a word and revealed such a feeling.
It's too bad that it's all about the words with Obama, and not the actions.
Looking visually back on the last three presidents, from the entitled jaws of Clinton to the dumb, glazed emptiness of Bush's head and eyes to the now-furious Obama, it is easier to find a worthwhile summer movie than a psychologically appropriate person to be our President.
We now have a speech-giving figure of a President, and he and his teleprompter are appearing everywhere. 24/7 yakking about what "The American People" want and need. Talk is cheaper and more abundant than ever. From what I see, people have stopped listening and are just plain angry. (Ask Joe and Jane Schmo if their economy is improving).
Backing the empty Presidential words is a media establishment who are either screaming about such nonsense as Obama's faux birth certificate or are desperate apologists for daddy, cautioning empathy for Obama and insisting that we, the disgruntled, ignorant public, are unaware that Obama is wisely playing a subtle political game in a perilous world.
It's exhausting to witness inaction interpreted and spun as adroit, as well as to watch Obama's face bristle with outrage at some latest breaking news revealing another Presidential failure. Too little, too late, and always too staged, as in his third trip Friday to the Gulf of Mexico since the April 20 oil spill disaster.
The reason comedians alone are left to deliver the real news is that they don't hide behind an academic pretense that they have information and knowledge the rest of us lack. This frees them to get to the obvious and naked truth in their political analysis. It turns out that of course the world is complicated, but behind the wizard's curtain is the staunchly played, same-old game of greed and lies.
Hypocrisies haven't missed a beat between administrations. It is one thing to sternly lecture the Big Banks in a public address, and quite another to bail them out. Is the angry speech louder than the simple act of flooding the banks with fresh cash and bonuses? If you're busy texting "Oh My Gods" (OMGs) about Sandra Bullock's love life, yes.
The audience has been systematically shut off and dumbed down to such a degree that talk shows are analyzing not the phony wizard, but instead, white trash "reality" celebrities and their Nazi tattoos.
Wake Up, You Sleepy Heads. Enough with the sympathy for the beleaguered leader who, in fact, clawed every inch of the way up the flagpole, helped along with piles of big bank and Wall Street cash.
As President, Obama is accountable for either showing up -- or not -- in his actions for a better America, to make definitive choices on important issues, and to clearly lead. Dropping a mention of an issue into a speech doesn't count. A nod is not an embrace, is not an action, if you know what I mean.
Obama's War in Afghanistan remains hushed and underplayed theatrically, notwithstanding the news of American casualties. Even when he takes a decisive action--in this case, perhaps because it is such a wretched choice-- he refuses to be seen aligned with it.
This unwillingness to stand for something and act on it comprehensively, in full voice, is confusing to a synthetically overstretched and disturbed public. The response has produced a louder American rage and a new spin on civil unrest: the utter entitlement of incivility.
If Obama lacks the true heart to care for the American people, if he requires a teleprompter for caring, then he must hire not just speech writers, but brilliant minds who can shadow-lead, a Dick Cheney, only this time for the positive. Yes, I know there are those who will say Rahm Emanuel, et al, already have this gig. If that is the case, take a lesson from the Dick Cheney power playbook and hire a fiercer, and truer, progressive cast, one more likely to lead us up from the extreme pits of distresses we face.
So far, in Obama's White House, we are trapped in a theatre of indication. We cannot continue laying the blame on either the House or Presidential fatigue for Obama's inability to be a quality President.
We, too, are tired.
Narcissism is exhausting.