Saturday, December 11, 2010

It’s 1996 All Over Again

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/the-surprise-trip-to-the-briefing-room/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Former President Bill Clinton put in a surprise appearance at the White House briefing room yesterday with President Obama to issue a firm, well-thought out, coherent, competent defense of President Obama's tax cut deal. In and of itself, that's not that big of a deal. President Obama has taken a shellacking from the Far Left for his perceived cave-in on the deal, so on the one hand, brings Bill to the podium is a clear message to the Far Left to well, 'shut the hell up and let me govern because the grown-ups are talking.'

And if they had delivered a joint smackdown, that might well have righted the ship. But instead, about ten minutes into this little joint love-fest, President Obama looks at his watch, apologizes to the press, states that he's late to a Christmas Party and then cedes the podium to Bill, who goes for 25 more minutes, looking downright Presidential and making everyone wish it was 1996 and that Presidential womanizing was all that we had to worry about.

I'm not wild about this, but I got ask: does it matter? In this age of media insanity, there's a premium put on appearances and for all intents and purposes it looked like the President of the United States either ceded the stage to his predecessor or let himself be massively upstaged by Bill Clinton, who for all his faults is a consummate politician that seems to take over whatever room he's in, whether people like it or not…

I'm no PR expert, but I would have kept them both up there, Christmas Party be damned. Obama can be all policy wonkish and Clinton can just have fun and together they can deliver a joint smackdown to the far left wing of the Democratic Party…

But the question remains: does this matter? Talk amongst yourselves and let me know.

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