If he’d been this guy since September, where would he be now?

I can’t recall ever seeing a standing ovation at a debate.

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I have so far concluded that it’s run-of-the-mill, predictably-stoked wealth envy and class warfare.  (When The Nation is calling it the most important thing happening in the world, you can be pretty certain it’s receiving some heavy-duty PUUUUUUUUUSH from the clowns to the left of you.)  Our esteemed president has signaled that he intends to attempt to smear Romney with it.  (I am shocked that a hard-left ideologue would try to use class warfare as a political weapon, aren’t you?)  Finally, it seems pretty clear to me that they’re considerably more vulgar and enamored of much less personal hygiene than your typical Tea Party crowd.

Well, they are filthy hippies.  I kid, I kid!  You know, mostly.

Here’s the thing, folks.  You can throw all of the endlessly fascinating charts showing supposedly grave inequalities at me that you want.  You can find heart-rending anecdote after heart-rending anecdote allegedly illustrating that decent, solid people with good work ethics can’t get ahead because the deck is so stacked against them.  I shall continue to calmly maintain that the most reliable path to a comfortable living is a willingness to work hard.

That’s the truth most of the time.

Consequently, to the extent that I believe the government should be involved in legislating here at all, it should be with that at the forefront.  Consequently, to the extent that I believe the government should be involved in educating here at all, it should be with that at the forefront.

Consequently, it’s tough for me to discern anything truly resonant with thinking, reasonable people in the rhetoric I’ve encountered, so far, of the average “Occupier.”

Now I certainly did not grow up rich, but some good things happened to me by the grace of God.  I have never disputed that.  I am highly intelligent, and I had a conscientious mother and father who recognized that and nurtured it.  I had a father who made the tough call to move our family to northern Alabama right before my junior year in high school, and increased opportunity for me and his stepchildren was a significant factor in his thinking.

I was making $6 an hour at a bookstore when I moved into my first apartment, and things were tight.  More than once, I had a weekly food budget of $10 or so.  But I don’t pretend I was ever truly poor, because had I ever been in imminent danger of being hungry or cold, my father would have helped me.  I’m glad he never had to, but I don’t minimize the confidence boost that knowledge gave me.

(I also had a father who worked his ass off and didn’t teach me to resent rich people, by the way.)

I’m confident that a lot of these malcontents squatting at these gatherings can tell similar stories, if not better ones.  To anyone who had it significantly worse, I offer that our government has never in history offered more legs up—from student grants to small business loans—to anyone willing to pull a load.  If you want a better life, for the most part, it’s out there to get.

If you work.

For those of you working and making a good living, isn’t it nice?  Want more?  Work harder.  Take risks.  Sacrifice.  Did you know that’s what most rich people really do?  (You know, as opposed to sitting around lighting Cohibas with $100 bills, swilling 20-year-old Scotch, and thinking up ways to screw poor people?)

That’s the truth most of the time.

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And good riddance to a bitter, doddering old has-been.

I used to like Andy Rooney a lot.  My dad never made much effort to watch TV systematically—he was pretty much a “whatever’s on” guy—but he did watch 60 Minutes regularly, and everybody had to be absolutely silent for “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney.”  Loved it.  When I was in middle school and high school, I read every book he’d written.  I still chuckle thinking about some of what he wrote about buying a car.

But he slowly wilted.  For one thing, he got obnoxiously political.  (Really, everything does not have to have such an angle, and in fact you do alienate a large chunk of your audience when you work too hard to find it.)  For another, there’s a fine line between finding a witty way to complain about something and just being a tedious jackass, and he lost all sight of said line at least a decade ago.  He was once almost avuncular in his segments.  He’d gripe, and then almost as an aside he’d soften it just enough to let you know he was an okay guy.

But at the end, he was indistinguishable from Joe Piscopo’s harshest caricatures.

Godspeed, Mr. Rooney.  Thanks for the good times, however long ago they might have been.

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I encountered another scream this morning in this vein:  “Carter, Clinton and I all have sort of the disease of being policy wonks,” Obama is reported to claim in published excerpts of Ron Suskind’s new book.

Now can’t you just hear the nervous chuckle, and see the not-quite-subtle-enough glance around the room?  Can’t you see the wheels turning (“okay, did I get away with that?”)?  It’s kind of like a person, exactly on his/her 18th birthday, “casually” referring to himself/herself as an adult.  Funniest thing about it is that, as Karl Rove points out, he’s about as far from being a “policy wonk” as anyone who’s ever sat in the office.  He has no interest in it.  He throws it at someone, says “handle it,” and he’s off to make speeches.

And never mind the dazzling political instincts it takes to compare oneself to Jimmy Carter in the first place.  In a Mike Allen article on the same book (and the White House’s less-than-warm reaction to it), former Newsweek editor and presidential biographer Jon Meacham notes:

“For 30 years, fairly or no, ‘Carter’ has been political and cultural shorthand for an ineffectual and uninspiring president who is captive to, rather than captain of, events. To compare oneself to President Carter is kind of like Nixon evoking Harding.”

That’s our Barry.  Hammer down, Mr. President.  You’re doing fine.

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“Conservatives are far more open to reaching out to someone with a different point of view than a liberal is.”

This didn’t surprise me out of the chute, simply because it matches my experience.  Some of my best friends are liberals.  Heh.  But the more I chewed on it today, the more I started hearing relevant crosstalk with this post.  After all, you can easily be friends with someone who’s merely mistaken, but not with someone who’s just a bad person.

Rush has some fun with this from time to time, calling his audience “mind-numbed robots” and what-not.  However, this is typically the comic setup for devastating validation that it is far more liberals who are lockstep drones, not conservatives.

The Republican Party would do well to embrace the “larger tent” that is waiting for it.  The longstanding obsession with social issues, particularly at the federal level, is unhelpful, and I think there’s some evidence of realization there.  A great many of us are reach-outin’ sort of people, and if we can genuinely rally diverse support around fiscal discipline, then our beloved country shall be better for it.  What interest has this match.com engineer in misleading?  I can’t see any.  So maybe there’s something to the claim?

Maybe it encapsulates a primary impetus for saving the United States of America?

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Laura Ingraham: Can you make a promise right now–this is a really important promise–a pledge on The Laura Ingraham Show, that you will never vacation in Martha’s Vineyard?

Rick Perry: I’m not even sure if I know where it is…

I’ve not spent any more time looking into Rick Perry than I had the last time I mentioned him, which I know really must be bumming out those of you who look to me to know what you should think.  Patience, kids.  Still months and months to go.

However, Perry certainly is effective at enraging people who are rather comical in an enraged state.

Oh, and everybody?  Let’s make a deal.  Let’s none of us ever say “liberal enclave” again, okay?

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Now did you monitor the markets at all yesterday?  Would you say investors were jittery?  Would you say the country was rattled?  Even given the seriousness of the situation, that should not have been a difficult speech to give.  It was a time for a president to speak of what is right and good about America.  It was a time for a president to speak of America’s resilience.  It was a time for a president to remind us of the things that unite us.  It was a time for a president to calm and inspire.

So, of course, Barack Obama, demonstrating all the awareness and nuance of a warthog in a cottage garden, wagged his finger and moaned “they started it.”

Again.

Given Obama’s campaign, I remain amazed at how badly he speaks day-to-day as president.  It’s like there’s a switch on his back with two settings:  “transcendent visionary” and “boorish dickhead.”  For a guy who’s supposed to count oratory among his strengths, he’s never had even loose command of the feel of presidential rhetoric.  He’s clearly aware that he has the largest audience in the world, but I think he thinks that’s enough.  He doesn’t get that he really needs to be above typical verbal sniping in a speech like that.  He doesn’t get how the power of the bully pulpit works.

Even the President of the United States must persuade.  The traction comes from making that initial positive impression on a large number of people—there’s that audience size thing—and putting those people to work for you.  A president’s position lives or dies in the following hours and days, as we talk to one another.  I think Obama doesn’t get that.  I think part of him is genuinely flummoxed as to why what he says isn’t eagerly and immediately accepted.

(It’s that same part of him that probably wondered what the big deal was when he said “I won.”)

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I can remember trying it myself when I was younger, probably the first time he told me about that.  I liked it all right.  It’s not terribly far off the beaten gustatory path.  If you’ve had steak tartare, or even sufficiently rare beef, you know what raw cattle flesh tastes like in general, and that’s pretty much the vibe.

I thought of it again when I read about Japan’s “carnivore girls”—”young, aggressive women” who feast on raw meat (as in pork, chicken, and horse) twice or thrice weekly at the featured sushi restaurant.  These are in direct contrast to “herbivore boys,” or young Japanese men who’ve lived their entire lives in a time of economic malaise and are consequently less interested in sex and providing for a family.

And, you know, raw meat.  I guess.

The story’s kind of a mess, and I suspect a bit of inflicted relevance here.  Moreover, I’m sure there’s offense to be taken, particularly at the portrayal of a young woman’s aggression being some sort of novelty in 2011.  What I’m really chewing on, though, is the casual description of these meek young men as this incredibly complex socioeconomic phenomenon, complete with diffused fault.  I suspect it’s better explained by a society that implicitly permits their behavior by insufficiently punishing it.

Wonder if there’s a “nanny state” argument to be made?  Stay tuned.

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“I’ve asked leaders of both parties and both houses of Congress to come here to the White House on Thursday so we can build on the work that’s already been done and drive towards a final agreement.  It’s my hope that everybody is going to leave their ultimatums at the door, that we’ll all leave our political rhetoric at the door.” – President Obama, July 5, 2011

“The debt ceiling should not be something that is used as a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners, for oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high.” – President Obama, July 6, 2011

Hat tip, Jim Geraghty.

Clearly, when Obama said “political rhetoric,” he didn’t mean comparing the Republicans to murderous, hostage-taking thugs.

Wow, that was just one day.  Boffo, Barry.  What’s next?

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For quite some time into his presidency, his demeanor suggested impatience with the slow-wittedness of the electorate.  We needed to understand and appreciate his genius more rapidly than we were doing so.  Now, I wonder if he’s not just sick of the whole affair, and already dreaming of the afternoon of January 20, 2013, when he can take his teleprompter back to Chicago with him and spend all of his time giving feel-good speeches.  (Mind, that’s speeches that make him feel good.)  Jim Geraghty drily noted this week how little Obama says he cares for being in Washington.

Poor Barry.  2012 just isn’t 2008.

In many ways, but particularly in terms of its value and implications in campaigning, the sobriety of governance must be crushing.  If I were Barack Obama, I wouldn’t want to run on my record either.  What’s he done that makes you say “yes! More of that”?

I’ve remained cautiously hopeful that our economy will eventually recover (as much as it ever does, anyway).  Said hope is mostly reinforced by the fact that it’s not any worse than it is right now (and how’s that for an endorsement?).  I’m still terrified that his sustained gross incompetence and naiveté in foreign policy will hurt the United States badly, in ways that may not be apparent for years, or even decades.  So what’s the campaign theme there?  “Hey, Nothing Really, Really, Really Bad Has Happened”?  “This Would Have Sucked Even Worse with the Republicans”?  “Let Me Finish My Great Work For You”?

(Actually, I bet it’s pretty close to that last one, sprinkled liberally with those wonderful old chestnuts of “rich people suck” and “only I can save your grandma from the Republicans.”)

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