BIzarro World

Naked Came The Presidential Manatee...

I think Obama's incessant prattling on about "bipartisanship" is annoying as hell.  How can he really expect any true bipartisanship from the modern GOP?

Let's look at two events and a blog post.

First, the Fox News Wurlitzer is cranking up outrage over a phone call that Obama made to Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie to discuss the impressive green energy plan for Lincoln Field.  He also took the time to thank Lurie for giving Michael Vick a second chance when no one else would.

Now, as a Falcons' fan and a dog owner, I have a special multilevel contempt for Mike Vick.  But he did his prison time, he appears sincerely repentant and as Obama noted, few convicts actually get a second chance.

But c'mon.  The Freak Out over this?  Are you telling me that the fact that Vick is the highest profile black quarterback in the history of the NFL has nothing to do with this?  Fox will incessantly link Obama and Vick until the next freak out comes along.

And this might be the next freak out.  Obama wants to give Manhattan back to the Indians because... Well, he was adopted by the Crow nation in 2008, so clearly this makes him a Kenyan-Muslim-Socialist-Atheist-Gay Loving-CROW INDIAN betrayer of 'Murica.

Obama did something that should not be at all controversial.  He signed the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights.  It is not a legally binding document, it simply affirms what any sentient reader of American history knows to be true: Native people got screwed royally, and efforts should be made to ameliorate their situation.

You could start an interesting blog war about whether enslaved Africans or Native Americans suffered worse under European Americans.  I might actually go with Native Americans, because of the microbial genocide unwittingly unleashed by Europeans, not to mention the ethnic cleansing.  While you have horror stories like the Colfax massacre for African Americans, that was SOP for dealing with Natives.  Phil Sheridan - who said the only good Indian is a dead Indian - fought to free black slaves.

But I digress.

The fact that Obama has reached out in perhaps the minimal way possible to another aggrieved minority is enough to send the Right Wing Wurlitzer into overdrive.  It's on the Right Blogosphere now.  It will show up on Fox sooner or later and then the real networks will "report the controversy".

And more of the aging white base of the GOP will become convinced that Obama is "not American" in some fundamental sense.

So, reaching out to the GOP seems a fool's game.  They cannot stoop too low in undermining his legitimacy.

On the other hand...

Obama remains the most respected man in America.

Ed at Ginandtacos notes that Obama seems to want applause for things that aren't really applause worthy.  While I greatly enjoy his writing, I think he fundamentally misreads the climate here.  Getting ANYTHING done is applause worthy.  While I agree that Obama has often acted in ways that have not upset the plutocrats, I disagree that HCR was not opposed by said plutocrats.  And Wall Street reform COULD have been tougher but was still opposed by our Galtian overlords.

It's tough to oppose Big Money in DC, but when you see anything that manages to crimp their style in any way, that's actually a "big fucking deal".

I think also, that Obama's incessant "shark hugging" (to reference the photo) is cementing in most people's minds his essential reasonableness.  For all the calls on the Left for Obama to be Angry, he understands that Americans get uneasy around Angry Black Guys.  So he displays a quintessential cool that makes Steve McQueen look like Bobcat Goldthwaite.  (Man, was that reference dated.)

Conventional wisdom is that if Palin wins the GOP nod, Obama wins in a cakewalk.  But I think we may have reached Peak Palin.  Instead, he seems to be allowing the entire Republican party to Palinize itself, so that it won't matter who they nominate in 2012.

The wingnuts are wrong.  Obama isn't a Muslim.  He's a Buddhist.