The Un-American President

A movie derived from Barack Obama's presidency is not one I care to see. How about you?

Michael Douglas’ portrayal of president Andrew Shepherd in the 1995 romantic-comedy The American President fully encapsulated the distracted and whimsical state of presidential politics that real-life president Bill Clinton practiced at that time. This romanticized version of the American presidency was rooted in some order of truth—the presidency in the Nineties was all about a womanizing megalomaniac who was too preoccupied by his personal dalliances to meddle with policy. That is, policy beyond that which would effect his approval rating. Leo Solomon, played by John Mahoney, perfectly embodied the political meme of the day with his shallow line: “politics is perception.” Derivative? Yeah, it was. But that was what it took for president Bill Clinton to sustain his personal brothel at 1600 Pennsylvania—surviving only through his penchant for buoying his poll numbers with staged walks on the beach and puffing out his lower lip.

So what would a movie about the Obama Administration be like? Well…

Something is Rotten in the State of Denmark

The most courageous of the world’s elite from 193 countries hop private jets and catch limousines to gather this week in Copenhagen to brave the blustery cold and the driving snow which has blanketed northern Europe in recent days, in order to mount a last ditch effort to save the world from the perilous consequences of man-made global warming. Though it may be too late, according to eminent scientists such as Al Gore, these environmental martyrs will have to pack an extra pair of long johns, because temperatures in Copenhagen have dipped to four degrees below zero this week and Denmark is set to receive its first white Christmas in 14 years, on the coat tails of the coldest year globally in a decade in 2008.

I do believe I have solved the problem of global warming. Al Gore and Kirby team up to take on CO2.

If something doesn’t seem right with the world’s nare do wells debating the merits of confiscatory global taxes and punitively siphoning the wealth of industrialized nations to give it to “developing” financial superpowers like India and China to combat climate change, that is because it isn’t. God has a sense of humor though, as it seems every time Al Gore heads to Washington D.C., Copenhagen or some other large climate summit, record low temperatures, blizzards and snow delays are sure to ensue.

The Copenhagen Climate Council’s Manifesto (hmm) clearly states:

The story of the link between human
activities, observed global warming, likely future
warming, and the climate effects of this warming, is
becoming ever clearer: our Earth is now heating dangerously.
That the primary cause is human-generated
air pollution is beyond reasonable scientific doubt.

On the Other Hand…

Thousands of pages have been dumped into Law and into the Federal Register, un-read, since Obama took office.

Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison this week after stealing $13 billion from investors in the second largest ponsi scheme in U.S. history (Social Security being the largest). But what of Barack Obama and the 219 U.S. Congressmen who voted this week to steal $1 trillion inter-generationally through cap and trade? Not even counting the ’stimulus’ debacle, this Administration and Congress should, in a just world, be removed from office and sentenced to a similar prison recess. If not for the pain that these half-baked plans will cause our own generation, but for the next three, which may or may not be able to lift this oppressive tax.

President Obama said on prime time television weeks ago that worrying about the U.S. government’s finances “keeps [him] awake at night” and that the country needed to start planning now to tackle soaring deficits. In a pair of interviews on CNBC and Bloomberg television, Obama claimed to lose sleep over the Nation’s debt. Of course, that has not stopped the president from indulging his veritably narcoleptic tendencies, ringing up more debt in a single year than all the presidents in the 220 years prior. This has burdened the Nation with the largest debt in the history of the world.

Better Off Today Than Tomorrow Under Barack Obama

In November of 2008, Americans in record numbers voted for dubious terms such as “hope” and “change.” In doing so, we’re told, those who elected Barack Obama as the 43rd president of the United States (Grover Cleveland served twice—should we really count that as two?) declared eight years under George W. Bush an utter failure. But was it? What if we were to ask ourselves that infamous question from the Ghost of Elections Past: “Am I better off today than I was eight years ago?”

When Bill Clinton took the walk of shame in 2001, most Americans didn’t have a cell phone. Today, not only does every family have one, but nearly every grade schooler has a cellular appendage, and our mobile phones are now used to browse the Internet, play movies, and for your teen to send risqué pictures of his girlfriend to the entire senior class. When the dust had finally settled from Al Gore’s post-recount Ben & Jerry’s binge, most Americans’ web access consisted of a shrieking dial tone connecting them to something called Geocities.com or Yahoo.com. Today, we connect wirelessly to Google, Facebook, Youtube, and we twit at an alarming rate.