The True Meaning of "Futbol"

Ok, it's official:  I have finally, at long last, after a lifetime spent hating the sport with a passion bordering on lunacy, discovered value in the game of soccer – or, as a young lady at work told me the other day, "futbol, as they call it in all the rest of the world" (Really?  Do the Russians, Dutch, Brits, French, not to mention the entire continents of Asia and Africa, use a Spanish word to describe the game?) – and now am officially a fan.

No, really, I'm serious here.  During the 72 month run of the FIFA World Cup "Futbol" Championships (ok, it was really only maybe 2 months, but it sure seemed like 72), there were three Saturdays and one Sunday when I desperately needed to take a nap, but because I was in pain from one ailment or another, I had a heck of a time falling asleep.  Each time this happened, I forced myself to flip the TV in my bedroom over to one of the 85 channels televising a "futbol" game (presumably, roughly 8 Americans were tuned into each channel at any given time), and I kid you not, each time I was sound asleep within five short minutes.

Those of you who have insomnia and currently take Ambien or some other medication to help with rest, I am here to tell you that you too can live a drug-free life.  Just run down to the local Barnes & Noble and purchase DVDs of any "futbol" contests that might be on the clearance rack, slap 'em into your player, and you will now be able to enjoy hour upon hour of sound, uninterrupted sleep.

I used to believe that the best thing to have on TV when trying to take a nap was golf.  But compared to socc…er, "futbol", golf is positively stimulating.  I mean, there is actual scoring in the game of golf.  On every hole, there is scoring. 

In most sports, you see, scoring is the point of the game.  But not "futbol".

No, in "futbol", the point of the game is to bore the fans in the stadium to such a high degree of frustration that they engage in riots both inside the stadium and outside.  The other object is to frustrate the leaders of the countries represented by the teams to the point that they declare war on one another, as Paraguay did with Argentina back in the '60s.  There is also a growing body of evidence that Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 not to put a buffer between his country and the Russians, but out of the incredible frustration he felt after the German and Polish national teams played to their 5^th consecutive scoreless tie in "futbol".  (And yes, that's how Hitler pronounced it, too.)

I have learned that this true objective of the game of "futbol" is the reason for the senseless rule that denies the players the use of their hands.  Think about it:  If "futbol" players were allowed to use all of their God-given limbs, there would most likely be actual scoring in most of the games.  So, the prevention of scoring becomes the only reasonable explanation for why "futbol" officials would place such an idiotic restriction on those who play the game.

This also explains why the official "futbol" field of play is roughly the same size as Manhattan Island.  I mean, if the game were played on a reasonably-sized field, one that could be adequately covered on high-definition, wide-screen television, then again, there would be scoring going on, and that would greatly lessen the level of frustration felt by viewing fans and national leaders before, during and after the games.  And honestly, where would be the fun in that?

No, golf is a far more exciting game than "futbol", and thus not nearly as frustrating for the viewer or for national leaders.  I mean, you've never seen an American President declare war on Europe over losing the Ryder Cup, have you?  No, although I personally think President Bush could have made a really good case back in 2006.  But I digress.

Luckily, I didn't need to take a nap on Sunday.  So, rather than flip the TV over to the final FIFA "futbol" frustration fest, I put it on NBC and watched Paula Creamer's masterful taming of Oakmont Country Club to win the LPGA U.S. Open Championship.  Her score?  Three under par 281.  My God, there haven't been 281 goals scored in the entire history of competitive "futbol".  Yes, friends, even the LPGA is more exciting than "futbol".  No way I could have slept through that.

At any rate, I am thrilled to death that I have finally discovered the true meaning and usefulness of the game of "futbol".  Because for those of us who simply don't care about the ultimate outcome of any given "futbol" game, it is the greatest sleeping aid ever invented by the human race.

Gosh, after writing this, I think I need a nap.

Michael Steele Was Right! And Wrong.

So we have this dustup going now over the remark made last week by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele that Afghanistan is now "Obama's war", and that the President should have known "you can't win a land war in Afghanistan".  Leftists in the national news media, desperate for a story, any story, that might help stem  the growing anti-Obama tide coming this November, immediately pounced on Steele's comment and have treated it as if it were the smoking gun in the Kennedy Assassination.  Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol and other conservative hawks have called on Steele to resign, and some senate Republicans – most notably John McCain and Lindsey Graham – have been extremely critical of the RNC Chairman.

There are several observations to make about this episode in the ongoing American political soap opera.

First, Steele should not have made such comments in a public setting – his critics are right that it is inappropriate for national leaders of either party to make such discouraging comments about a war while congress continues to fund a war that puts thousands of brave American soldiers in harm's way.  Steele's remarks are on a par with statements from the likes of Democrats Harry Reid and then-Senator Barack Obama that the Iraq war was "unwinnable" and "already lost", which were made just a few months before the beginning of the Surge strategy that won the war.  Steele should know better than to cast doubt on the ability of the U.S. armed forces to accomplish any goal they set out to accomplish.

Second, the rank hypocrisy of leftists in the Democrat Party and the national news media on this matter is so thick you could cut it with a knife.  If not "Obama's War", Afghanistan is without any valid argument the

Democrat Party's war.  How many thousands of times did we hear from Democrat politicians and liberal pundits in 2002 through 2008 that President George W. Bush had "fought the wrong war" by choosing to go into Iraq?

According to the national vast leftwing media/political complex, Afghanistan was the noble war, the place where the U.S. should be focusing its efforts to kill Al Qaeda, even as Al Qaeda massed its forces in Iraq and was demolished by the American military.  Not content with making grossly irresponsible statements on a daily basis about whether or not the Iraq War was "winnable", the Democrat leadership in the congress went to great lengths to actively undermine the effort for crass political purposes.  This is an inarguable truth of American history that we must never forget.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden based much of their campaign strategy in 2008 on the promise to massively escalate the Afghan War, a promise that they have kept in a big way since assuming office.  Not only have they escalated in Afghanistan – much as Lyndon Johnson escalated in Vietnam in the wake of the Kennedy Assassination – they have also ramped up U.S. incursions into Pakistan in a very big way.

For the leftwing media/political complex to now suddenly recoil at the idea that Afghanistan is "Obama's War" is absurd on its face, and a revelation of the truth about their deceitful motives for promoting its escalation since 2002:  They were doing that purely for political reasons, to damage Bush and undermine the effort in Iraq, and are even today not serious about actually "winning" the conflict there. 

Third, Vice President Biden, in his trip to Baghdad over the weekend, noted that the U.S. phased withdrawal from Iraq would begin on schedule in August, and claimed that his and Obama's strategy there has been a great success.  Huh?  Beg Pardon?  Say What?

The most hilarious aspect of this current Administration for my purposes of ridiculing the cocky, snotty leftwingers responsible for putting this collection of incompetent thugs into office is that the Obama Administration has not changed a single thing about the Bush strategy in Iraq.  A phased withdrawal once a viable Iraqi government had been established was always the Bush strategy.  The Guantanamo Bay holding facility for terrorists remains open and undisturbed despite the Obama campaign promise to close it.  

Warrantless surveillance policies enacted during the Bush years remain intact and functional.  Terrorists continue to be tried in military tribunals to this day.  Hell, Obama has even adopted the Bush "Surge" strategy for the Afghanistan War, and hired Bush's favorite general to conduct it.

The greatest irony for the dishonest lefties who put this bunch into office in 2008 is that Obama has continued the Bush policies because they were the right policies, and is now applying the Bush strategies to Afghanistan because they were the right strategies.  There is simply no other honest interpretation of the actions Obama has taken since assuming office.

But back to Michael Steele:  Should he resign?  Yes.  He was right in saying Afghanistan is "Obama's War", but wrong to doubt it is winnable.  It is winnable, thanks to Obama's decision to stick with Bush's policies, employ Bush's strategies, and hire Bush's favorite general.

Our Disgraceful National Fourth Estate

In the wake of last week's firing of General Stanley McChrystal and hiring of President George W. Bush's favorite general – David Petraeus – to run the War in Afghanistan, the snotty leftwingers who run MoveOn.org quietly removed their famous "General Betray-us" ad from their goofball website.  That characterization of General Petraeus was fine when he was working for the hated Bush and preparing to testify before a Democrat congress skeptical about his "surge" strategy in Iraq, but not so good for snotty leftwingers now that he's working for their hope 'n change savior, President Barack Obama.

The great irony of the McChrystal firing (an entirely justifiable act by President Obama) and hiring of Petraeus was the glowing praise Petraeus received from media blowhards and congressional Democrats who took great pleasure in ridiculing and slandering him while he was employed by President Bush.  This group of Democrats includes President Obama himself, who, as a Senator, strongly opposed Petraeus' surge, which of course became the hugely successful winning strategy in Iraq, and which Mr. Obama ultimately adopted in Afghanistan.  Of course, a consistency of thought and honesty of reportage long ago became lost concepts to the leftist news media in America, which is why they find themselves in a long, irreversible death spiral.

It was kind of a bad week for the leftwing media in general.  In addition to the utterly hypocritical reaction to the hiring of Gen. Petraeus, it was revealed about midweek that the Portland Oregonian and other admirers of Al Gore in the leftist news media had sat for four years on allegations in a police report that he groped a masseuse in a Portland hotel room in 2006.  So what media entity finally made this complaint public?  Why, the National Enquirer, of course – the same media entity that issued the original reporting on liberal hero John Edwards' affair and fathering of an illegitimate child with a former campaign staffer.

One would think that, sooner or later, the snotty leftists who run the New York Times would tire of being scooped by the Enquirer, but one would be wrong in that thought, at least when it comes to reporting on the foibles of leftwing folk heroes.

Then, of course, there is the announcement by CNN that it is pinning its prime time ratings hopes on a new talk show featuring disgraced former New York Governor Elliott Spitzer, who was forced to resign the office a few years back when it was revealed that he had been hiring high-priced call girls on the state's dime.  Can there be any doubt that CNN is out trying to bring in Gore as the show's weatherman, Bill Clinton as a political correspondent, and Tiger Woods as its sports anchor?  Now, that would be a lineup lefties could be proud of.

You really can't make stuff like this up.

The final failure of the lapdog leftist media I want to discuss here is its abject refusal to do any real reporting on the criminal negligence of the Obama Administration when it comes to the BP oil spill.  Were this a Republican Administration, the media would be making every effort to hound the president from office, as it did to President Bush following Hurricane Katrina.  We all know that is true – even the most hopeless snotty leftwinger knows that is true.

Take the refusal by President Obama to suspend the Jones Act for this national emergency.  For those unfamiliar with it, the Jones Act protects labor unions by requiring all vessels performing oil and gas-related operations in U.S. waters to be U.S. flagged, and operated by U.S. citizens, i.e., members of U.S. labor unions.  Were the President to suspend this disgusting law, there would shortly be dozens if not hundreds more vessels in the Gulf, skimming up this oil.  But he refuses to do so strictly due to the fact that labor unions in this country are tools of the Democrat Party.  And the news media sit idly by and allow him to get away with this kind of criminal negligence with impunity.  It's disgusting and disgraceful.

Seriously, after a week like the last one, you have to wonder if anyone at the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS or any of the other reliably leftwing mainstream media outlets around the country ever stops, takes a step back, and ponders the reality that the only news organs actually performing any investigative journalism in America are a scandal rag and a magazine staffed by stoners.  Of course, this would assume that those who run these leftist media outlets were remotely capable of the slightest bit of introspection, which they obviously aren't.

That is your fourth estate these days – nothing more than a lapdog propaganda organ for the national Democrat Party and this feckless, incompetent, criminally negligent Administration.

Last Monday Morning in the Oval Office...

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:  'mornin', Mr. President.

President Barack Obama:  Hello, Bob, what can I do for you?

Gibbs:  Well, uh, I kind of need to talk to you about whole BP situation and the, uh, golf game you had this weekend.

Obama:  Yeah, it was great, man!  Shot a 78!  Can you believe that?  Of course, that was with 7 mulligans, and those great secret service guys kept kicking my ball out of the rough when they thought I wasn't looking, but still, best round of golf I've had since the whole BP thing started.  I'm finally getting that slice with my driver worked out, and…why are you looking at me like that, Bob?

Gibbs:  Well, you know, Mr. President, we're starting to take a little heat from all these golfing trips you've been having here recently.  I mean, you know that was the seventh round you've gotten in since this well blew out and…

Obama:  Yeah, this job's great!  I mean, if I'd known a President of the United States could just go out and have an entire golf course to himself and his foursome any old time he wanted to, I'd have run sooner.

Gibbs:  But sir, the impression all of this golfing and vacationing creates with the public is that you're more worried about your handicap than you are about all the people getting put out of jobs down there in hick country, er, Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama.

Obama:  Well, what could give anyone that idea?  I mean, I've already flown down there and given three speeches, walked around on those crummy beaches and met with all those losers who voted for McCain in '08 – I mean, c'mon, Bob, there's a real limit to how much compassion I can show to anyone south of the Mason Dixon line.

Gibbs:  Sir, don't forget, you won Florida…

Obama:  Oh, sure, Florida, throw that one in my face.  Besides, the beaches getting hit by the tar balls are up there in the Panhandle part of the state, and that's just South Alabama as far as I'm concerned.

Gibbs:  Ok, I'll give you that one, but still, sir, we have to think about appearances.

Obama:  'Appearances'???  Hell, BP's not worried about appearances – that Hayward guy spent Saturday at a yacht race!

Gibbs:  Well, yessir, I'll give you that one, too, but still…

Obama:  Still what?  There is no 'still' here – look, Bob, he's at a yacht race, I'm playing golf.  Every slob in flyover country plays golf, or at least that's what I'm told, but how many of 'em do you think get to go out and ride on a yacht?  I mean, if you put it in the right context, I'm the really common man here, doing what the common man does.

Gibbs:  Wow, you are good.

Obama:  You bet your butt I am, that's why I'm President and McCain's out there in Arizona having to fight with everything he's got to beat an ex-radio DJ who's been in more tanning booths than George Hamilton just to get his own party's nomination.  Meanwhile, I am somehow surviving with a walking gaffe machine as a vice president and have my main rival rendered completely irrelevant as my own secretary of state.  I am really, really good.

Gibbs:  Ok, well, having conceded you're really, really good, sir, I am going to ask you one more time to really, really consider lightening up on your golf game while this well is still out of control.

Obama:  Look, Bob, I already cut my vacation short by a full day to go make a speech down there – how much more sacrifice must I make here?  I mean, if I can't play golf, what can I do?

Gibbs:  Well, there's a bowling alley down in the basement…

Obama:  That was Nixon's deal – not for me.  Besides, you saw me bowl during the campaign – that probably cost me 40,000 votes in Akron, Ohio alone.

Gibbs:  Sir, all I'm asking you here is to focus more on governing and less on recreating while this thing is going on.  Maybe, you know, have some cabinet meetings about Afghanistan and Iran and stuff like that.

Obama:   Dude, you are one serious buzz kill, you know that?  Have you spent any time with my Cabinet?

Gibbs:  Well, not all that much, no…

Obama:  Well, you go spend two hours in a room with Janet Napolitano and tell me how you feel.   Gimme another idea here.

Gibbs:  Ok, how about I get you a pool table installed in the East Wing?

Obama:  All right, that's a start.  Pretty sure I can take Biden at billiards.  And if I can't, I can always get Rahm to break one of his thumbs.  Hey, this actually sounds like fun!

Gibbs:  So do we have a deal?

Obama:  Done!  But call that nitwit BP CEO and tell him he needs to hurry up and get that damn well plugged, because I really need work on my long irons.

Gibbs:  Consider it done.

Barack Obama: President of ... What?

The biggest problem with President Obama is that he so often seems not to have a grasp on just exactly what it is that he is president of.  There appears to be no recognition in this White House that, once the election campaign is over, the winner becomes the president of all 50 United States, along with every person who resides within them.

We have never had a president who so openly demonizes huge swaths of American society on such a regular basis as we have seen this President repeatedly do with Tea Partiers (even resorting to the obscene "tea bagger" reference), opponents of socialized healthcare, anyone making more than $100,000 per year, and the entire state of Arizona, to name just a few of his chosen rhetorical targets.  Then there are those segments of our society to whom this President and his gang of Chicago thugs offer nothing more than benign neglect:  The people of Nashville, who just weeks ago suffered through flooding comparable to what Katrina did to New Orleans with barely a mention from this President, millions of Americans living along the border with Mexico who suffer with the drug trafficking and violence that are a facet of daily life in the region while this Administration steadfastly refuses to do anything about enforcing the laws on the federal books, and the people of the Gulf Coast, who had to wait 37 days before this President summoned the interest to deign to hold a press conference about the ongoing tragedy of the BP oil spill.

To that growing daily list, we can add the families of America's fallen veterans, insulted on Monday by this President's choice to vacation in Chicago rather than take part in the traditional Memorial Day presidential ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.  The breaking of this tradition is just the latest in a long line of insults to the military offered by Mr. Obama and his Administration over the last year and a half.

Given these and many more divisive acts taken by this President, it is increasingly obvious that Mr. Obama considers himself the "president" only of those who voted for him and support his radical leftist political agenda.  Can there be any real question, for instance, that had it been a very blue-state Boston that suffered through massive spring flooding rather than deep-in-the-heart-of-a-red-state Nashville, this Administration would have staged a massive federal response to the disaster?

If the BP oil spill threatened the coastlines of blue-state California, Oregon and Washington rather than red-state Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas, does anyone really believe that this President and his minions would have sat benignly by for a full month doing little other than deflecting blame before finally and begrudgingly beginning the process of treating the event as a disaster of national proportions?  If you do believe that, well, you'd be much better off reading Alice in Wonderland than this column.

Whatever else one thinks about George W. Bush, as President – and as Texas Governor before that – he was studiously careful not to use derogatory rhetoric about any segment of our society.  Where Obama derides Tea Party activists at seemingly every given opportunity, Bush never lowered himself or the office he occupied to criticize those who participated in the thousands of obscene and often violent anti-war protests that became a staple of American life after the invasion of Iraq.

Bill Clinton was also very careful to avoid the use of divisive rhetoric against any segment of the American public, and clearly understood the necessity of any president staying above the fray.  In reality, until the elevation of Mr. Obama to the office, one would be at great pains to find an example of any sitting president since Woodrow Wilson who openly and frequently demonized large segments of the U.S. population for political gain.

Clearly, President Obama feels no similar need for restraint, and in fact obviously believes that dividing the nation is in his own self-interest.  As long as that political calculation holds at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we can anticipate two and a half more years of a nation becoming increasingly and more bitterly divided.

And there is no reason to believe the political calculation will change.  This strategy is in keeping with the Obama Administration's adherence to the demonize-and-conquer strategies taught by late Chicago radical Saul Alinsky, whose teachings have guided this President throughout his adult lifetime.  This is who Mr. Obama is, and who he will remain.

This reality will bring joy to the hate-filled cretins who inhabit leftwing websites, but it won't do much for the rest of a population yearning for a President who actually gives a damn when a tragedy such as the BP oil spill devastates an entire region of the country, regardless of how that region voted in the 2008 presidential election.  For that, they will have to wait until January 20, 2013.

Welcome to yet another thrilling edition of the only newspaper column in America that hasn't lied about serving in Vietnam, Hobnobbing With Dave!

Item:  So this is why libertarians never win elections…

Well, Sarah Palin can celebrate now:  the leftwing news media has discovered a new boogeyman to hound, and his name is Rand Paul, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky.  Though nominally a Republican, Mr. Paul is in fact a libertarian, as is his father, Texas Congressman Ron Paul.  While libertarian views tend to be technically correct about what the Constitution actually says, those GOP voters in Kentucky who nominated Mr. Paul for this senate seat are about to find out exactly why it is that the Libertarian Party seldom fields candidates who can actually win elections.

Libertarianism is all about telling people what the government cannot do for them.  Like it or not, the truth about America is that most voters want to know what the government can do for them, and base their voting decisions accordingly.  In a poll released just after last Tuesday's primary vote, Mr. Paul led his Democrat opponent by more than 20%.  You can bet that the leftist news media will make sure that gap closes quickly – helped along by the foot-in-mouth disease that Mr. Paul inherited from his father – and that what ought to be an easy Republican win in November will instead become a nail-biter at best, and possibly even a Democrat win.

Item:  Blumenthal is the left's latest gold medalist.

So a Democrat politician is revealed to be a bald-faced liar, and liberals rally around him in support.  What else is new?  From Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton to Al Gore to John Kerry to Barack Obama, American liberals have made it obvious for a long, long time that bald-faced liars have real political potential as far as they're concerned.

The latest winner of the liberal gold medal for creative prevarication is Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who has now been starkly revealed to have repeatedly lied throughout his political career about having served in Vietnam.  Were he a Republican, Mr. Blumenthal would not only be removed as the Party's nominee for higher office, he would be hounded from the AG's job by the leftwing news media.

But because he's a Democrat, the reaction from the news media has been a round of perfunctory reporting on the matter that will soon die away, and a statement from the Obama Administration that its support for Blumenthal has not changed.  Knowing this would be the case, Blumenthal last week responded to the revelation of his serial lying with a statement that he would not allow his record to be attacked.

His "record" is that of a bald-faced liar, which makes him the perfect liberal candidate for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut.

Item:  The Great Climate Fraud Morphs into the Great Species Fraud.

If you thought that the death of Global Warming as a viable driver of government policy means you can relax a little bit, think again.  As is always the case with the world socialist movement – the driver behind Al Gore's Great Climate Fraud - the death of one political fraud only gives birth to the next.  As of Friday, May 21, we know what that next fraud will be.

On Friday, the United Nations leaked excerpts from its soon-to-be-published fake study on endangered species, and in the process made it obvious that this will be the next great cause of world socialism.  For those who closely followed the political drivers of the Great Climate Fraud, it will come as no surprise that this Great Species Fraud will advocate that the UN report will advocate:

• "...a whole sale revolution in the way humans do business, consume, and think about their lives." And
• "…massive changes to the way the global economy is run."

In other words, like the Great Climate Fraud, the Great Species Fraud will be little more than a concerted attack on the free market industrial economies of Western Europe, and more importantly, the United States of America.  The devolution of market-based economies to the socialist model – with ever-increasing influence of the UN and other world government organizations – has been the singular focus of socialists around the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.

The collapse of the Great Climate Fraud changes nothing in that regard, and the frightening fact of the matter is that this kind of thinking completely dominates the Democrat Party at the national level, and pervades the senior leadership of the Obama Administration.

So while we should all celebrate the death of fake climate "science" as a driver of government policy, we mustn't kid ourselves that the world socialist movement has died along with it.   These people are like zombies – they just keep coming back from the grave to try to strangle us.

The President Gets the Bad News

Recently in the Oval Office…

President Obama:  Rahm, I gotta talk to you about this memo we just got from our pollsters.

Rahm Emmanuel:  um, yeah, go ahead, but I'm in a hurry here – got some heads to bash on the whole Wall Street reform deal, and then I gotta go dig up some dirt on a couple of Blue Dogs who aren't toeing the party line on climate change.

Obama:  Says here that our pollsters are advising Democratic congressional candidates to avoid mentioning things like healthcare reform, immigration reform, and jobs in their re-election campaigns.

Rahm:  Yeah, so?

Obama:  Says that the very mention of these issues – issues, by the way, that have been the very centerpieces of my administration thus far – can ensure defeat for members of our party in November.

Rahm:  (glancing at watch) uh-huh, uh-huh, can we get to the point here?

Obama:  Well, uh, Rahm, reading this memo, you'd think our policies are unpopular with the people or something.

Rahm:  (nodding head rapidly while fidgeting in chair)  Ok, so what are you wondering about?

Obama:  …

Rahm:  Look, you're acting as if you're surprised here – haven't you been paying attention?

Obama:  Well, I've been kind of busy…

Rahm:  Mr. President, the people hate our policies.

Obama:  What?  But I'm fabulously popular!

Rahm:  Sir, don't you read those polling memos we place on your desk each morning?

Obama:  Not really.  I'm not good with paper. I'm more of a high-tech guy.  It'd be better if you'd give them to Betty over there and have her scroll them on the TelePrompter, like she does with the newspaper every day.  That as you know is my learning tool of choice.

Rahm:  (Sigh)  Sir, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you are not fabulously popular anymore.

Obama:  I'm not?

Rahm:  No, sir.  Now, you're not in Bush territory or anything like that, but your job approval rating has been down in the 40s for quite some time now.

Obama:  (gasp!)  But how can that be?  I mean, I'm The One and all…

Rahm:  um, well, sir, it turns out that country really didn't move to the left politically in 2008 like we initially thought.  Turns out the voters just had Bush fatigue, and voted for you just because you were less like Bush than McCain was.

Obama:  Wow.  You know, that's damn near impossible for me to believe.  I mean, my entire world view is now in jeopardy because of what you just said there, Rahm.  Are you certain about this?

Rahm:  Yessir, I can get you the polling data if you like.

Obama:  Ok, just get it to Betty over there so she can scroll it up on the TelePrompter.

Rahm:  And, uh, sir?  It really is worse than that.

Obama:  What do you mean?

Rahm:  Well, see, you are actually more personally popular than your policies are.

Obama:  (smiling broadly)  Well, that's good news, right?

Rahm:  Depends on your outlook, really.  I mean, I guess it's good news to you…

Obama:  Yes!  I knew it!

Rahm:  …but it's really not good news to Democrats running for re-election who voted for your healthcare nationalization bill, and who support your policies on other issues.

Obama:  But, but I've always thought that good news for Barack was good news for everybody.  I mean, that's how I've lived my entire life!

Rahm:  Yessir, I know that – it's pretty self-evident to everyone.  But the reality of the situation is that your healthcare bill makes about 60% of the population sick to its collective stomach, and public approval for your immigration policies is even lower than that.

Obama:  hmmm…that does present a bit of a problem, then.  But what about jobs?  I mean, wasn't the public listening last November when I announced from my TelePrompter that my administration would henceforth have a "laser-like focus" on job creation?

Rahm:  uh, well, yes they were, but you know, they were also watching as we moved on to healthcare nationalization immediately after you read that speech.  And then they watched as you moved to Wall Street reform immediately after that.  And they have watched over the last couple of weeks as you have spent your time bashing the State of Arizona over the immigration law they recently passed.  And they've also watched as the rate of unemployment has continued to hover at around 10% ever since you read that speech last November…

Obama:  Ok, ok, enough! Geez!  So tell me this:  If our candidates can't run on healthcare, immigration, or jobs, and Wall Street reform isn't doing us any good either, how in the world are they supposed to run?

Rahm:  Well, I'm suggesting they run away from you, sir.  Heh-heh.

Obama:  Ok, that was uncalled for.

Rahm:  I know, but I couldn't resist.  Now excuse me while I go bash some heads and blackmail some Blue Dogs.  After all, that's the way we really get things done around here.