Mr. Cool Reveals Himself

Barack Obama once stated to an interviewer that one of his jobs was to make the Presidency "cool" again. Until his latest press conference, he was having quite a go at that. But then, it all fell apart.

I'm about to state an opinion; you may or may not agree. I'm picking on Obama and the Democrats mostly because they often somewhat haughtily claim to be on the "High Road", and along with the Globalist Media, look down upon the Republicans as nothing more than naysayers. [It's too bad that more Congress people don't say "Nay" to the asinine levels of borrowing and spending by the Fed Government.] Don't misunderstand, though, I don't think much of the Republican Party either.

If you watch Obama's last press conference carefully, quite often you'll see right through the man's polished slickness directly into his true nature. At times his normally composed, clipped speech pattern becomes hesitant, a little confused, and disingenuous. That usually happens while he's trying to relate to the people being impacted by the catastrophic oil discharge in the Gulf. He can't quite get there; he comes off as being too academic, too distant, almost uncaring. At one point the normally eloquent Obama summed up the catastrophe to Gulf residents and the environment as "messed up". That seems to be his grasp of the depth of the disaster. Members of the Press Corps sometimes looked at each other in disbelief according to a few pundits. His performance was dismal and basically demonstrated that he really isn't much of an inspiring leader.

Toward the end of the conference, Obama finally admitted that the Fed Government has been in charge of the oil discharge response since day one. I knew that should be the case because I'm familiar with the 1990 Oil Pollution Act and the National Contingency Plan (dealing with responses to massive oil and hazardous substances spills). I'm convinced that the only reason he finally claimed ownership of the response is because so many critics were asking, "When will the government take over?". That ownership was not apparent prior to the press conference because, in my opinion, the Executive Branch didn't want people to know that the Feds were totally in charge...because the response was perceived as not going well. After finishing speaking, Obama almost ran out of the room...no smile, a somewhat blanched look on his face. He knew he had given a poor performance, that he had not related well to the situation.

That press conference demonstrated to me that Obama is not the person his devoted followers perceive him to be. He's just another slick, millionaire, well dressed, normally well spoken politician who really can't relate to people out of his sphere, or to their suffering in cases like this disaster. I saw the same exact thing in Bush (except for the well spoken part) relative to Katrina.

So much for "cool". Who cares about that in the Presidency anyway? Just once I'd like to see a President who dresses like Ralph Nader, cares like Jimmy Carter, communicates like Ronald Reagan (in his prime), and thinks as well as William F. Buckley, Jr. once did. Oh, and please, no more millionaires.