Unfortunately, the things I do not have in common with Barack Obama make up a much longer list. Near the top of this list is the difference between the levels of calm that Obama and I each exude. Admittedly, my level of calm is on the low side. It could even be said that overall, I am basically not calm. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I am what I call uncalm, which is the complete opposite of calm, making it more severe than if I was just simply not calm. Being uncalm renders me incapable of sitting still in any seat, enjoying long or even short rowboat rides, birdwatching (which I've actually never done), praying for longer than 10 seconds, or taking any yoga class because I will absorb all the freed thoughts that everyone else around me has cleared their minds of.
Recognizing my own uncalmness makes me acutely aware of the presence and degree of other people's calmness. This is what makes the President so amazing to me. He is not just calm. He is a level above calm. He is Obamacalm.
This Zen-like Obamacalm never wavers or falters, even when we think it will or wish it would. It seems to be his natural state, not something forced or affected, and is one of his most well-tested and dependable attributes. You don't have to know him personally or even be near him to sense it. It comes in perfectly clear over the airwaves for everyone to see and hear.
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| OBAMA LAMA |
I try to envision the Barack Obama that we never see. I imagine him more playful and sexy than he allows himself to be in public. When he and Michelle are laying in bed watching CNN and the Minority Leader of the Senate comes on to accuse the President of being unwilling to compromise, how do Barack and Michelle react? I picture them looking at each other dumbfounded and then laughing as they throw either Barack's slippers or Michelle's panties at Mitch McConnell's face on the screen. I hope that every time Senator McConnell comes on the air, Barack and Michelle make sure to have sex right in front of the TV, because nothing would bother a white southern Republican more than a black President fucking the First Lady in The White House.
Dealing with McConnell and the rest of the Republicans in Congress during The President's first term has been a great testament to the power of Obamacalm. Time after time, I've had to sit and watch the President get stomach-punched by the GOP. Like so many other Democrats, I've been both astonished and frustrated by the amount of ill-will lobbed at him and how much of it he is able to ignore, while still trying to reach across the isle. Somehow he has maintained a level-headed, open-handed willingness to work with a Republican Party that ' has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition' ( as described by Norm Ornstein in an article perfectly titled 'Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem').
Out of all the Machiavellian maneuvering and obstructing tactics the Republicans concocted to thwart President Obama, I have been most stunned by their acceptance of lying as a legitimate form of campaigning. Being a Republican used to mean you didn't have to be concerned about the environment, education, health care, the poor, the homeless, minority rights, the arts, and whatever children need after they aren't aborted. Now it seems being a Republican means you also don't have to care about the truth. From the top down, the Republican Party has mastered the language of claiming to be doing exactly the opposite of what they are actually doing.
As a Democrat, it's been infuriating to listen to the increasingly absurd transparency of lies spouted from the shared blow-hole of the GOP leadership. Republican politicians started to realize that lying about facts wasn't going to disqualify them from the race, and that if they say a lie enough times it becomes the truth. And if the lie is lucky enough to resonate, it becomes a soundbite. A good soundbite is so valuable to Republicans because they are inflammatory without having to be explanatory, and it's easier than actual facts for their voters to remember. Republican campaigns are less about recruiting new converts than it is about energizing their base, who don't mind hearing lies from their politicians as long as they are the lies that protect the agenda of the party. Republican politicians have two conversations, one that tells what they want to do, like stopping abortion and gay marriage, and the other conversation is the kind that masks what they really want to do, like all the new voter I.D. rules to prevent non-existent voter fraud. The way they get away with it is by somehow getting the entire GOP to go along with the lie, without anyone breaking ranks. They all read from the same playbook, which seems to be written in invisible ink. It's a script that uses sacred words like ' reform' and 'improve' but not their true meanings. This is where the exquisite lie lies. And this is where Mit Romney comes in.
Romney was the guinea pig in what turned out to be a grand experiment that tested how much a politician could lie before it started actually having a negative effect. He was the perfect candidate and the perfect torch-bearer, or lie-bearer. President Clinton did, after all, point out at the Democratic Convention that only ' Romney has the brass balls to tell you something knowingly and repeatedly that isn't true.'
As a Democrat, it's been infuriating to listen to the increasingly absurd transparency of lies spouted from the shared blow-hole of the GOP leadership. Republican politicians started to realize that lying about facts wasn't going to disqualify them from the race, and that if they say a lie enough times it becomes the truth. And if the lie is lucky enough to resonate, it becomes a soundbite. A good soundbite is so valuable to Republicans because they are inflammatory without having to be explanatory, and it's easier than actual facts for their voters to remember. Republican campaigns are less about recruiting new converts than it is about energizing their base, who don't mind hearing lies from their politicians as long as they are the lies that protect the agenda of the party. Republican politicians have two conversations, one that tells what they want to do, like stopping abortion and gay marriage, and the other conversation is the kind that masks what they really want to do, like all the new voter I.D. rules to prevent non-existent voter fraud. The way they get away with it is by somehow getting the entire GOP to go along with the lie, without anyone breaking ranks. They all read from the same playbook, which seems to be written in invisible ink. It's a script that uses sacred words like ' reform' and 'improve' but not their true meanings. This is where the exquisite lie lies. And this is where Mit Romney comes in.
Romney was the guinea pig in what turned out to be a grand experiment that tested how much a politician could lie before it started actually having a negative effect. He was the perfect candidate and the perfect torch-bearer, or lie-bearer. President Clinton did, after all, point out at the Democratic Convention that only ' Romney has the brass balls to tell you something knowingly and repeatedly that isn't true.'
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| " Come on in! The waters not bad at all." |
There were some politicians who watched him from the riverbank, some who only stuck their toes or maybe a foot into the river, and some who followed his signal into the water, but no one went as deep as Mit.
The deeper he got, the more buoyant he became, and he floated with ease. But then with only time for one more lie, he chose the wrong lie to tell and the wrong people in the wrong city to tell it to. And the water was suddenly over his head.
Romney declared from a stage in front of thousands of assembly line workers that Jeep production was being moved to China, only hours after Chrysler announced the hiring of 1100 workers to help boost production of Jeep in Detroit. Chrysler immediately called a press conference to report Romney claim was fabricated.
One of the best things about Mit Romney's love affair with lying was how it made President Obama seem even more honest than he already is. Only with Romney's unique kind of help could Barack Obama become something more than honest. Now he is Obamest.
The deeper he got, the more buoyant he became, and he floated with ease. But then with only time for one more lie, he chose the wrong lie to tell and the wrong people in the wrong city to tell it to. And the water was suddenly over his head.
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| JEEP CHEROKEE or THE ROMNEY HEARSE |
One of the best things about Mit Romney's love affair with lying was how it made President Obama seem even more honest than he already is. Only with Romney's unique kind of help could Barack Obama become something more than honest. Now he is Obamest.
