THE TEFLON PRESIDENT

When will people start making fun of President Obama? It's damned creepy and unnatural not to have a sitting American president ridiculed on a regular basis. Other than the sour grapes gang on the right wing wishing him failure and lying even more than they were in power, the guy gets a pass from almost everybody. There isn't even the usual bunch of comedians who have perfected a hilarious impression of the president. What, comedians have ethics now? And where's the look-alikes, ordinary guys who happen to bear an uncanny resemblance to the president and cash in big time while he's in office. What gives?

Okay, a lot of people are giving him a chance to clean up the disaster area America became under shadow president Shotgun Dick Cheney and his bumbling puppet Bush The Younger. They left our nation and its economy in such a shambles that it could take Obama's whole 4 year term to undo their irresponsible carnage, we all know that, but that doesn't mean he gets 4 years of being idolized. His predecessors left the economy in such ruins that even famous American brand names like Merril Lynch disappeared and General Motors is filing for bankruptcy, hoping to become a smaller and more efficient car manufacturer, the complete opposite of its former goal. Even Pontiacs now sleep with the fishes, something unthinkable in car crazy America.

Unemployment and home foreclosures are approaching Great Depression levels and America is stuck in two Vietnam-like quagmire wars. The president can't even properly prosecute terror suspects because the previous administration tortured them and violated their Geneva Convention rights repeatedly, making a fair trial impossible not only in the United States but in any international tribune. In the field of education, Obama inherited an Every Child Left Behind policy. In commerce, he has to contend with arrogant corporate princes accustomed to dictating their own policies to the government even as they led their companies over the edge of a cliff because of their own naked greed, incompetence and criminal behavior. He took over a government that allowed a major city to drown and screwed our disabled veterans out of the medical care they needed as the result of honorably serving in their wars.

So, everybody knows Obama's got a really hard job. But still, this is America, and America makes fun of its presidents. Commentators comment upon his policies and body of work, critics criticize and no holds are barred. It's not like Obama is perfect. When he first started throwing money at banks it turns out there were no strings attached and the corporate princes decided to pocket a huge chunk of the bailout dough and to continue the practices that got them into trouble in the first place. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when you give somebody hundreds of billions of dollars, a binding contract needs to be signed as to what the money is used for and how it will be repaid. You don't throw money at a problem and hope for the best from people who have proven to be incompetent thieves. Why he didn't insist on their companies replacing them as a condition for the bailout is a mystery.

And on the military front he still hasn't made any major moves to remove our troops from Iraq, a nation America attacked and destroyed just because we can. He has also continued Bush's policies of detaining suspects in foreign prisons indefinitely without recourse to legal counsel or appeals of any sort. And while he claimed loudly that "America does not torture," America under his watch is quietly letting other countries that do torture take suspected terrorists into custody and doing the dirty work for us. That's pretty much the same as torturing. He has not repealed the ridiculous "Don't ask, don't tell" policy that formalizes discrimination towards homosexual Americans in the military, nor has he spoke up in defense of their civil rights at home, where they are being denied the same basic human rights as other Americans.

And his attempts to reach across the aisle for a bipartisan approach to government turned out to be a lame idea. The hell with that. The reason he was elected was to take a different approach to governing from the people across the aisle he sought to embrace. Just govern the damned country and let the other side do all the accommodating if they want to have a say in what goes on. They bit the president's hand and spit out the olive branch when he tried to reach out to them. Well, now at least he knows exactly why the American people rejected these arrogant assholes, even if he should have known coming in that he was the one in power and it was up to them to be cooperative if they wanted to be anything but the people who voted against successful legislation.

And doesn't Obama realize that he's the head of America and not the United Nations? While you need to be a good neighbor, some of your neighbors will always be rotten bastards who will never wish you well. There's no reason to give a rat's ass about what they think, and if they want to something from Washington, let them kiss a little ass and come here hat in hand with some real concessions in exchange for any favors they seek. While Mr. Nice Guy is a refreshing change from Mr. Dumb Guy, don't forget that Americans elected you to be Mr. Smart Guy too. There's no reason to placate fools when you're President of America. Even in our reduced circumstances, America is still the gold standard among nations when it comes to practically every measure of quality of life, except when it comes to universal heath care.

Don't be a Mr. Nice Guy about that and let your fellow Democrats water down your health care plan just because they are in the pockets of powerful lobbyists. Remind them that Congress has one of the best health care plans in the world and that they are no more deserving of that health care than any other American, and unlike the majority of Americans, most of them are rich. The 20,000 Americans who die every year because they are denied life-saving medical procedures by insurance bureaucrats is more deaths than occur by murder in a murdering nation like ours. Is that okay with everybody?

And what's with that Ozzie Nelson, 1950's sitcom normalcy this guy projects? Doesn't he ever get pissed off? Doesn't his perfect wife ever break his balls and his precious little daughters become shrieky little pains in the ass like everybody else's kids? And, let's not forget that he's a black guy running the show in a white dominated land. Are we still too racially sensitive to mine some comedy out of that situation? There must have been a thousand comedy routines about that before it became a reality. Now, nothing. Let's save the reverence for funerals, comedians, and get busy. We don't need a Teflon President to bask in our adulation and get elbow cramps from patting himself on the back. That's for dictatorships.

When we elect a guy, he knows going in we also reserve to right to get on his ass for any bonehead moves he makes, or just for the hell of it. Besides, why should our comedians let the rabid wild-eyed right wing buffoons take their jobs? Those guys have no experience crafting quality comedy, something that takes brains and wit, qualities sorely lacking in right wing attack dogs. America has long been a leader in the comedy industry, but our nation's comics seem to be in withdrawal after losing their biggest inspiration and meal ticket, Bush The Younger and his band of idiots. Well, the easy pickings are gone now, and it's time to step up show the world your talent and creativity by peeling the Teflon coat off of Mr. Obama. Honeymoon's over, boss.