December 2011: The Christmas Obama Tree
The Christmas tree placed outside the US Capitol prominently displays an “I Love President Obama” ornament, but contains no mention of Christmas, the nativity, or Jesus Christ. We already knew that Democrats thought Obama was the messiah, but couldn’t the nation’s Christmas tree have mentioned “Christmas” just once?
December 2011: Delusions of Grandeur
Record debt, out-of-control spending, high unemployment – that sounds like the resume´ of a Top 4 President to you, right? It doesn’t? Well President Obama begs to differ. He told CBS’ Steve Kroft that “I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history.” Of course, CBS edited that embarrassing moment out of their national broadcast.
November 2011: Are you Lazy?
Speaking at a business summit hosted by the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Hawaii on Nov. 12, Obama was asked about impediments to foreign business investments in the United States. The President didn’t mention his own administration’s oppressive tax and regulatory policies or his protectionist trade policies. Instead, he blamed the American people:
“But we've been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades. We've kind of taken for granted — well, people will want to come here and we aren't out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America.”
November 2011: Christmas Chaos
President Obama is playing the role of Grinch this year for many New Yorkers. The Presidential entourage will descend on Midtown Manhattan the same day the streets will be hopelessly congested by the Rockefeller Plaza tree-lighting ceremony. And what event is worthy of the disruption that the President’s visit will cause to businesses and citizens on an already chaotic day? You guessed it – a campaign fundraiser.
October 2011: Sorry for Ending the War
Leaked diplomatic cables revealed that the Japanese government nixed the idea of Obama visiting Hiroshima, site of one of the nuclear bomb attacks that ended the Second World War, and apologizing for the action. Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka reported to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the Japanese government felt “the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a ‘non-starter.’”
October 2010: With Friends Like These…
In a last-ditch effort to preserve his Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, President Obama warned Latino voters not to “sit out the election instead of saying, 'we're going to punish our enemies…’” It was only earlier that year that the President spoke in Arizona following the tragic shooting that injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and left six innocent American dead, and cautioned Americans from allowing political discourse to become too heated. Apparently, with his legislative majority on the line, that rule went out the window.
February 2010: Just Past the Trash, Your Holiness
After hosting the Dalai Lama at the White House, the President’s men ushered His Holiness out a back door – right past a large pile of White House garbage that had been accumulating for days (pictured above).
October 2009: Hardly a Gold Medal Performance
With the nation mired in a recession and embroiled in the legislative battle over Obamacare, the President took leave of Washington to personally lobby the International Olympic Committee in Copenhagen to bring the 2016 games to his hometown of Chicago. The President didn’t have the gravitas he thought he did: Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting, as Obama was outmaneuvered by midlevel bureaucrats from Brazil.
April 2009: False Alarm
Early on a Monday morning in April, hundreds of office workers were gripped by panic as they watched a jumbo jet circle Manhattan’s financial district for half an hour, followed closely by a fighter jet. Buildings were evacuated, people fled for cover and others stared at the sky in disbelief, fearing a repeat of 9/11. The jumbo jet was Air Force One, on what the White House would call – apparently with a straight face - an “aerial photo mission.” And nobody bothered to tell the Mayor.
April 2009: Her Majesty’s Royal iPod
It’s tradition for heads of state to exchange gifts upon their first meeting. When President Obama met with Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, he was greeted with silver framed signed photograph of herself and the Duke of Edinburgh. Obama’s thoughtful gift to the Queen? An iPod.
March 2009: DVD Diplomacy
Obama’s iPod gaffe was not without precedent. Unfortunately for the country, he didn’t learn from his first mistake. When President Obama met then-British PM Gordon Brown for the first time, Mr. Brown greeted him with such thoughtful gifts as a pen holder made with wood from the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet, the sister ship of the HMS Resolute, the ship from which the Oval Office desk was carved, and a first edition biography of Winston Churchill. Obama returned the favor with - drum roll please - a 25 DVD set of American movies. But none of Obama’s savvy diplomats realized that American DVDs don’t work on British DVD players.
March 2009: Not So Special
Talking about his bowling game on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Obama quipped, “it’s like the Special Olympics or something.” Tim Shriver, Chairman of the Special Olympics board, responded, “I think it's important to see that words hurt, and words do matter -- and these words can, in some way, be seen as humiliating or [a] put-down to people with special needs. They do cause pain, and they do result in stereotypes, and they do result in behavior that's neglectful and almost [an] oppressive moment of people with special needs.”
