Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right.

The post title, "Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right" is a line from the song "Stuck in the Middle With You" from the band Stealers Wheel. Ironically, the phrase along with the title, might be exactly where the President perceives himself to be right now.

Pity poor President Obama - attacked by the right for being far too progressive (read socialist, read repressive) by the right, attacked by the fringe left for being too moderate, abandoned by the moderates who helped propel him to power, surrounded on all fronts by a clearly racist country, and attacked from within perhaps by an Orwellian (read Clintonian coup). Not to mention that he is beset on all sides by an unwilling group within Congress and a clearly incompetent leadership there and in the Senate.

Whatever.

This guy was catapulted to power with a strong majority in Congress and a thoroughly questionable filibuster-proof majority in the Senate that boasts such "stars" as Al Franken. On top of which he's got a few willing Republican accomplices in the likes of Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. He's got an apologetic press covering his backside. He's got a stranglehold on the mainstream media (yet he's fixated on Fox, the one outlet that dares question him).

He's got billionaires like Soros backing him financially in exchange for kickbacks in Brazil. He's got pit bulls working for him like Rahm Emmanuel. (It's starting to sound like a Bob Dylan song). He won a Nobel Prize for doing nothing. How Seinfeld is that?  He's spent trillions he doesn't even ow and despite all the fuss, no one can actually stop him (for now).

So I've got one piece of advice for you Mr. President. You won. Stop whining. You'd think this guy was really suffering from all the things in the first paragraph.  He HAS TO pick a fight with Fox because his administration's survival depends on it.  Yet this really is a case of someone who's got it all whining about the one thing he doesn't have.  We call that spoiled.

That one thing he doesn't have is universal love.  I guess he really expects it. We call that thin-skinned.  Thin-skinned is not a trait desired in a President (see G.W. Bush - for all his neo-liberal flaws, for all his flaws period, you cannot argue that the man was thin-skinned). Thin-skinned is really bad news in that job.  Coupled with under-experienced, we call that unqualified.

Of course he's always got Joe Biden to lean on.

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EXIT POINT: There may be some who argue that we can't afford to have the President stop whining and act like he won, the way he did in the weeks that followed his inauguration. I agree.  But giving him that advice doesn't matter.  Firstly, who am I to offer advice that he'd even consider taking?  Secondly, who is he to actually listen to his critics?