My Hero!
April 29, 2011
While doing research for work, I ran across this picture on the Web site of the Council on Environmental Quality.
A number of commentators have remarked on President Obama’s tendency to try to stay aloof and detached from the details of crafting policy, preferring to wait until members of Congress have done the hard work and then either jump on the bandwagon or criticize them for doing it wrong (e.g., in the health-care debate a couple of years ago, and in the budget debate now).
So I love this picture: Even when they’re staging a goofy, contrived photo-op, President Obama still comes off looking aloof and like someone who’s afraid to get his hands dirty. The alternative text that appears if you hover the mouse over the picture (on the CEQ site) identifies him as a “CEQ Hero”. Sure, look at how hard he’s working!
Enjoyment and Contemplation 
April 29, 2011 at 1:11 PM
Is it jus me, or does that photo look like they’re trying to evoke the raising of the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima?
April 29, 2011 at 2:33 PM
Why do you criticize everything the man does? I yet to hear you say one nice thing about our President in the history of this blog.
April 29, 2011 at 3:33 PM
I think you have a strange idea of what this blog is. I certainly don’t criticize everything he does on this blog; as I made explicit a little while ago, I say very little on this blog, only a small subset of the thoughts that cross my mind on a small subset of what’s happening in the world.
Given that, and also given that I disagree with 99% of what President Obama does, I think it would be exceedingly strange if one of the few things I said about him ended up being favorable. It could pretty much only happen if I went looking for it, if I went out of my way to report some chance agreement between him and me for the express purpose of proving that I don’t disagree with him on absolutely everything.
Of course we needn’t say that I disagree with 99% of what he does, if we considerably expand the denominator we’re counting (instead of counting only the points in which he or liberalism is distinctive). He believes in eating breakfast; so do I. Or he confines himself (more or less) to the legitimate powers of the executive branch; so do conservative presidents. And so on. If we measured in some such way, perhaps we could say that I agree with him 90% of the time, but those agreements would be unremarkable, and I don’t know why I would be blogging about them.
April 30, 2011 at 4:33 AM
Just say something nice about him. No noting of a chance agreement necessary.
April 30, 2011 at 10:32 AM
I think you have a strange idea of what this blog is.
April 30, 2011 at 2:34 PM
One nice thing please.
April 30, 2011 at 3:43 PM
Leroy, you are such a goofball! but sure, why not? Give me something favorable that one might say about President Obama, and I’ll agree with it.
April 30, 2011 at 5:29 PM
He’s a brilliant man, a wonderful father, and loving husband.
April 30, 2011 at 6:06 PM
As to the second and third points, I wouldn’t know. Perhaps you should ask his wife to “say something nice about him” on this blog.
As to the first, it depends on what you mean. If you’re thinking of IQ, sure, he went to Harvard Law; I’m sure he’s in the top 2% of the population for intelligence. If you mean something less easily quantified about his insight and judgment, and you want my opinion, honestly, I’m not impressed.
May 2, 2011 at 12:04 AM
George W. Bush, after carelessly allowing the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil, had seven years to kill this man and couldn’t. Of course, I don’t anticipate you’ll be making a post about this news, as it casts President Obama in too favorable a light.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/bin-laden-dead-u-s-official-says/?hp
May 2, 2011 at 3:47 PM
Well, since you insist!
May 2, 2011 at 4:21 PM
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