Posted on 04/26/2009 3:42:02 PM PDT by anniegetyourgun
I was going to leave it to the policy wonks to argue about Obama's 100 Days, but then I reconsidered. Act one of the Obama Era, I believe, should also be judged in terms of sheer showmanship, and by that criterion it's been, to use a Variety word, downright boffo. Barack Obama's persona could easily have been buried amid economic upheaval. The unprecedented blizzard of policy initiatives could have canceled each other out and diluted the Obama message.
But somehow this hasn't happened. What has emerged from the 100 days is not confusion, but rather a clear presidential presence -- one of focus and intelligence -- buttressed by some shrewd media manipulation and fierce online initiatives.
And some very good luck has also helped the cause along the way. If Jimmy Carter had sent sharpshooters to kill pirates off Somalia, they would have shot Captain Phillips, not their intended targets. That was the Carter luck.
If the Bush administration had controlled the mission, the pirates would already be in Guantanamo getting waterboarded, and that would be the headline.
Obama is lucky, too, to face a pathetic opposition party, which sings an anthem of fiscal austerity after presiding over an era of unbridled profligacy. Having battered the free market system, the party now says free markets are democracy's last bastion.
No wonder the new president's message gets through. And no wonder a Pew Research poll found that viewers generally feel the networks are not "too easy" on Obama, while four in 10 Democrats specifically cite Fox News as being too critical.
The Obama team has demonstrated it knows how to produce smartly staged European tours and how to meticulously manage the Obama Family Image, so that even adopting a new dog becomes a national obsession (will Mother's Day and Father's Day now be augmented by a Dog Day?).
The presidential spinmeisters have shrewdly invited coverage from the likes of "Extra" and "Access Hollywood" and let US Magazine know that Michelle is a loyal reader while reserving for the New York Times the first glimpse of the White House vegetable garden.
And all the while the emails keep spewing out to the loyalists and cognoscenti.
But if Obama's performance deserves an A for showmanship, the new president also seems to understand that he cannot afford to relax. His 62% approval rating is outstanding, but George W. Bush actually hit that mark at the same point in his first term. Obama's popular vote margin over John McCain was 7%, but Franklin Roosevelt clobbered Herbert Hoover by 17% in 1932.
FDR, too, had a banner 100 Days during which he established the foundations of the New Deal -- which brought about Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the WPA and, best of all, an end to Prohibition. Hence, everyone could celebrate FDR's achievements with a stiff drink.
Amid the present economic woes, a stiff drink is exactly what most Americans could use now.
I’d bet that the author is a homo.
Truly he was a gold plated, polished t*rd.
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