“The White House has roused itself to military action in Libya, but cannot summon equal resolve on another matter of vital national interest: fiscal policy. Halfway through the current fiscal year, the US still has no budget and shows little sign of getting one. …Every day of this ridiculous drift increases the risk of a market backlash and another economic setback. It won’t require troops on the grounds, but Barack Obama needs to intervene….Mr. Obama should be embarrassed that the Senate finds it necessary to ask him to do his job….Public opinion must be brought round, otherwise the stasis on Capitol Hill will drag on.. The President, if he chooses to engage, might sway the country and break the impasse. Failing to try is inexcusable.” ’Editorial: End ridiculous fiscal drift’ The Financial Times, March 23, 2011
The Financial Times is far too kind to President Obama. It assumes that his fiscal inaction is a non-response to complex political pressures. Instead, the Editorial should focus on the state of the President’s little grey cells.
In the early 1960s, Britain’s Conservative Party replaced Harold Macmillan with Sir Alec Douglas Home as Prime Minister. Sir Alec was a ‘jolly nice fellow, what!’ However, he admitted to being a bit of a dunce intellectually, graduating from Oxford University with a Third (a gentleman’s F grade at Oxford at that time), and having to rely extensively on matchsticks to count beyond his own ten finger digits. Sir Alec did not last very long. In the heat of Britain’s so-called new industrial revolution, Labour’s Harold Wilson replaced him as Prime Minister within a matter of weeks.
Could it be that Sir Alec has crossed the Atlantic and morphed into Barack Obama? Millions, billions, trillions, what the Hell? They are only wretched numbers, and I cannot even read all those zeros on the teleprompter! Now when it comes to calculating my golf handicap, I always rely on a good caddy to help me out. There is a smart idea! Danny Noonan, how about taking over at the Office of Management and Budget, while you also make sure that my golf handicap remains impressive! And we can quaff down a flagon or two of good claret together while U.S. fighter-jets go down in the Libyan desert!
Tags: numbers-challenged president limited to golf handicap statistics, Obama runs out of match sticks in counting budget deficits
March 24, 2011 at 12:22 am |
Excellent post!
Most poor golfers wants to improve their game and hence improve his/her handicap. That is, they want to more fully enjoy golf. However, there remains a small group of golfers that merely enjoy “the environment of golf”. They like the pomp and circumstance.
April 19, 2011 at 7:30 am |
Actually it is way too kind even on the issue of Libya. The ditherer almost left it too late to try and stop what could have been an horrific genocide.
As it stands, the crimes being committed by Daffy Duck are mounting, the latest being the use of cluster bombs against civilians in Misrata.