President Obama: An Army of One

I'm reading this story about Republican attacks on Obama for traveling to Copenhagen in an effort to woo the Olympics to Chicago in 2016, and all I can wonder is if there's anything they won't attack Obama for and whether they'll finally attempt to start wooing non-Obama haters to their side. 

And this is just insane.  According to Republicans, nothing can get done in Washington unless Obama does it.  To hear their complaints, Obama's some sort of one-man army solely responsible for fixing the economy, reforming healthcare, and saving our country from terrorists within and without.  And if Obama takes a brief trip to a foreign land, nothing can possibly get done until he gets back. 

But of course, if Obama were to even suggest such a thing himself, you can most assuredly count on Republicans to attack him for it.  Even as it is, they attack him for daring to suggest that he's the Messiah, the One True Savior who the world revolves around.  And now they're saying that themselves and insist that Obama needs to focus on fixing our problems or they won't get fixed.  Bush had more vacation days than any other president, spending over 1,000 days at either Camp David, his parent's home in Kennebunkport, or his "ranch" in Crawford (and that doesn't include his other vacations), yet Obama is neglecting his official duties if he goes to Europe in an official capacity. 

But of course, we were always assured by conservatives that Bush only took "working" vacations, while Obama is clearly only interested in using his popularity to help his country; which the article describes as "a boondoggle for Obama's hometown allies."  And it definitely is, assuming we completely flip the meaning of the word "boondoggle" into being the exact opposite of what it normally means.  Seriously though, the word they were looking for was "boon," which rarely has negative connotations.

Counterproductive Attacks


And as they did during the Clinton days, because they reflexively attack their opponents for everything, they completely swamp their attacks, as it's too difficult to keep track of what Obama supposedly did wrong.  And even if they had a reasonable attack on him, nobody would remember it a week later, as they would have jumped on twenty more attacks in the meantime. 

And that's something the Bushies used to their advantage.  We became so accustomed to hearing new Bush scandals breaking every day that nobody remembered the old ones.  Fortunately, Obama is copying the Bush way of dealing with this instead of the Clinton way; as the Bushies knew how to ride out scandals until they disappeared, while the Clintons always tried to push back on each one, which would only make them more noticeable.

And so all these stupid attacks are making people who don't reflexively hate Obama immune to the attacks; just as Clinton was largely immune to attacks.  Clinton got impeached, yet still the public didn't care.  And every day, the Republicans are yelling about the stupidest of stupid attacks on Obama, which only gain traction with the 30% of people who already hate him. 

And anyone else paying attention is going to read an article like this and think "Huh?  They're attacking him for trying to bring us the Olympics?  Well, it's obvious that Obama is a powerful man."  And so they're just reinforcing the image of Obama as an influential power player, while making themselves look like complete boobs for attacking him.  Seriously, what rational American could possibly be upset at Obama trying to get us the Olympics?  And if he succeeds, it will only make Obama look more powerful, while marginalizing Republicans further.  I see no upside for Republicans with these attacks.

Conservative Bubble

And yet it's obvious that Republicans are too locked-into this to even give a damn about what non-haters think.  They're still trapped into their little bubble of Obama-bashing that it doesn't occur to them that appealing to the base's hatred is a rewardless endeavor.  They don't need to be egged on any more into hating Obama.  They've gone so far past the level of sane opposition that it's now considered rational to believe that the military will bless us with a bloodless coup against Obama.  Obama hatrers have already gone over the cliff and each attack will only make Republicans look worse.

So the GOP continues to whip the choir into a frenzy, while the rest of America is slowly realizing how cuckoo these people are.  And good for them.  The more they smeared Clinton, the more popular he became and Obama is even more adept at handling these sort of attacks. Even if Obama truly did something wrong, I can't imagine how Republicans could possibly capitalize on it. 

I'm now putting in my prediction that, unless some super-major event changes our political landscape before the mid-terms next year, that Democrats will easily hold onto both houses of Congress and could possibly gain new seats.  Even a complete block on healthcare reform and a continuing poor economy isn't enough to save these freaks now, and only an unpredictable catastrophe could possibly help them.  And the only reason I'm not predicting a definite gain in seats is because there really aren't many more we can realistically grab.