The local newspaper where I work occasionally runs a column by Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of the National Review Online (NRO). Most of the time, I glance at her essay, skim through it and move. Nothing to see there, nothing to capture my interest. Just another conservative spinning the day's news and bending it into a pretzel to make it fit their conservative, anti-Democrat/anti-Obama worldview.
But this week's essay, O Vanity, O's Vanity (caution: that's a link to NRO), well, it just takes it to another level. It literally had me laughing out loud in our lunchroom.
Dissection after the jump.
Here's the bit that really got me going:
Some of those who try to make some sense — or science — of politics for a living have been scratching their heads about Barack Obama lately. There was the ostentatious vacation, followed by the apparent boredom with the Iraq address the president didn’t even have to give, and certainly not in the way that he did — as a formal, evening, Oval Office address. There was the wading (botched and incoherent) into the Ground Zero mosque debate. There is the constant belittling of his Republican critics, lowering the office of the president by attacking the largely unknown house minority leader.
Let's take these one a time.
First: "Ostentatious vacation"? Is she talking about the First Lady taking her kids to Spain? Or is she talking about the whole Obama family traveling back to Hawaii to visit friends and relatives? Did I miss an entire vacation or what because, as I recall, the vacation that got so much negative conservative press was the one MRS. Obama took. With her kids. Not the president.
Second: "Apparent boredom with the Iraq address the president didn’t even have to give"? WTF? The president ends major combat operations in a war we've been in for years and he "didn't even have to give" it? And what's with the "apparent boredom" swipe? Was he supposed to have had sparkly eyes and the trademarked Obama grin when he's talking about ending a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people including thousands of Americans while draining our national coffers and giving us a black eye on the international stage?
Third, "Botched and incoherent" comments on "the Ground Zero mosque debate"? Really, Kathryn? Let's have a quick look at his comments:
"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country," he said Friday evening.
"That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan in accordance with local laws and ordinances," he said. "This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable."
Botched and incoherent? Ehhh...not so much, Kathryn but thanks for playing and please try again sometime, m'kay?
And, then, the final, most comical bit of all: "There is the constant belittling of his Republican critics, lowering the office of the president by attacking the largely unknown house minority leader."
Boehner is largely unknown? Kathryn, are you kidding me???! The guy is on the national news about every 6 minutes or so. There's hardly an American alive with a television that doesn't know John of Orange. And if you had any knowledge of history at all, you'd know that plenty of presidents have called out there critics in Congress. Few as deserving as Boehner, perhaps, but it's hardly "lowering the office of the president".
Here's a few other choice quotes from her essay:
Some of what Barack Obama does can be attributed to a fondness for socialism.
Kathryn, that line is so 2009. C'mon. Freshen it up a bit, will ya?
He doesn’t seem to be an ideologue in the purest sense.
Uh...okay. And that's a bad thing???
He’s also not a long-term thinker in any kind of strategic, political, or ideological way.
Right. Man, Obama, that dude just doesn't know how to plan ahead or think strategically. That's why in 2008 he ... aw, hell, nevermind...
The answer for all the analysts may be just a bad old-fashioned vainglory, one that the man just can’t keep in check.
Obama: Super Egotist. Please.
House GOP leader John Boehner has been making concrete bipartisan proposals, so he can’t legitimately be attacked for standing on the sidelines
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!! Heh, heh. That's a good one, Kathryn. [Eclectablog wipes away tears of mirth...]
His version of bipartisanship is that you abandon your partisanship.
Transference much, Kathryn?
Of course, a presidential election is not American Idol. But one gets the sense that’s what he thought it was...
Yes, President Obama thinks this is all one big reality show. Got it.
[T]he man is in such a vainglorious fluster now that he seems to lack any self-awareness about it.
Okay, now I'm getting ready to shake this woman by the lapels. Seriously, lady? Are you for real?
There’s good news, though. His poll ratings are falling and the intensity of the rallies against his policies is mounting.
Well, she's at least got that part right. The teabagger Republicans are definitely having bigger rallies. Glenn Beck and the Koch brothers have really opened up their check books and Fox News has really amped up their support. That simply must mean that things are getting better.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: a one-woman history revisionist. Except don't people usually wait a few decades before they do that?
I'm just sayin'...