Snapshot Of A Presidency

No matter how bad things might get or how long I might live, I cannot imagine ever being nostalgic about the Obama era. Still it might be fun to stroll down memory lane and have a chuckle someday. The president has not provided many opportunities to laugh with him but he has provided opportunity to laugh at him.

Don't ask me why I think about this trivial event so frequently except that it is, as far as I know, unprecedented and it is perhaps the snapshot that most clearly captures this man's essence. It happened right after the 2014 midterms when the president flew to Vegas to sell his executive order.

Stop and think about it. Has anyone in any walk of life ever sold an order? By its definition, an order is a mandate, not an offer. Has anyone ever placed an order at Amazon and then drove to their warehouse to make sure the shipping guys were OK with the plan? Has anyone ever ordered shrimp scampi and then followed the waiter into the kitchen to sell the order to the cook? Then again, if the dinner companions were sick of one's company and tuned out the tiresome dinner host and the host really, really, really wanted an audience...

The snapshot is a portrait of a vain and shallow man desperate to rekindle yesterday's glory. Barack Obama is hooked on adulation. What once flowed freely is now much harder to find. But as long as there is an appreciative audience somewhere, Obama will find it. If none is readily available, he will do whatever it takes to create one. If it means pandering to a select audience by issuing an executive order affecting millions of Spanish people to coincide with the Latin Grammies, Yes He Can.

When we think of the labels that have been applied to this guy, they are usually ominous or sinister or both. There might be something to those labels but this snapshot suggests a vapid figure who will do anything to stay in the spotlight. The aging starlet doing dinner theater in Saginaw bowing to what might be her last receptive audience. The one time diva no longer looks so menacing. Cue up Sondheim. "Don't bother, they're here."