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Blumenthal flunks his orals; Obama’s seal slip quip — 19 Comments

1. self-deprecating remark I wanted to believe it when I read it but when the Seal fell and he responded .. what was he supposed to say?

   “What was that, oh, the Presidential Seal has fallen off … just like my approval ratings … as some polls suggest, haha!”

   That may be true but it would have not been a wise thing to say.

   ***Self-deprecating humor is my personal trademark. I do see the virtue in doing it and do so where ever possible.

2. nyomythus: actually, something like that would have been better. But so far Obama seems constitutionally incapable of thinking of such a quip, much less making it.

   He could even have made a comment about Christine O’Donnell and witchcraft. Now, that would have been funny—although he might have lost the Wiccan vote.

3. Why would some person, be ‘sweating bullets’ over the clumsiness of another?What a vulgar expression and it implies a lot!

4. Anna Rotheray: I think Obama meant the person was worried because he/she was the one who attached the seal to the lectern.

   However, my guess is that “sweating bullets” was a projection on Obama’s part.

5. Personally I’d like to think the Presidential Seal falling off is a sign of a higher power at work dropping hints to The One.

   Something along the lines of:

   *You, Obama, may think of yourself as [i]a[/i] god, but you will never be [i]The God[/i]!

6. I don’t know why everyone assumes this was an ad lib.

   To me it looks planned and staged. The whole thing. Obama trying to connect with people via humor. I am sure he really did script it, or someone did, as a stab at self-deprecating humor. Like, ‘Aw shucks. I’m just a simple guy and I guess gee whiz I’m President and I’m having it rough lately – even my podium is against me! ha ha!!

   It was staged. He kicked it inside or something. Look at it. Wouldn’t put it past his stage managers and handlers at all.

7. Regarding Blumenthal and “How do you create a job?”, I wish more Republicans and reporters alike would ask more of these simple, straightforward questions.

   We’re so used to these liberal notions – government creates jobs, fewer students = better class, more $$ always makes something that is failing better – that most Republicans forget to even question the premise when responding to a question. It’s the Republicans like Scott Brown and Paul Ryan who do this, and as a result, do so well in interviews (and avoid the gotchas embedded in the question).

8. The ghost of Ronald Reagan knocked it off…

9. What he said was not funny, and it was not self-deprecating. So, Neo, you can tell us. What is your analysis when a person is utterly incapable of self-deprecating humor?

10. I agree, a self-deprecating joke would have been far better (e.g. “Darn, I knew I should have used stronger duct tape”, or “that actually happens to me all the time; Michelle won’t let me hang pictures anymore”).

    Imagine this: someone backstage really did hang that Presidential seal. Instead of brushing off an anxious moment for them, he made it far worse.

    Some people seem to specialize in humor at someone else’s expense. It’s a cheap and easy way to get audience laughs, but it’s not a good way to be… and it does get tiring after a while. (As your mother taught you, someone who gossips to you will gossip about you.)

    I don’t know who that seal-hanger was. But I’ll bet President Obama just lost another voter.

    (It could have farther-reaching consequences. Does anyone remember Harry Truman’s opponent, who got in big trouble for suggesting that his train engineer should be shot at sunrise? No man of the people, he… and neither is President Obama.)

    Respectfully,
    Daniel in Brookline

11. Totally agree with Cap’n Rusty that Obama is ” utterly incapable of self-deprecating humor”. It can’t be acquired, it has to be there, and it ain’t. My strong guess is that Blumenthal doesn’t have it either. I had never seen, no heard him, before. Good grief! Go get ’em Linda!

12. Cap’n Rusty: One of the first things I noticed about Obama way back when was his lousy and/or non-existent and/or narcissistic sense of humor. I wrote about the phenomenon back in July of 2008, here, and also here.

13. Classic, bullying Baraq, making it sound a wee bit like a joke, but the threat of getting someone was quite clear. And he enjoyed that, getting the hangers-on to chuckle at his threat, Heh Heh Heh. Who’s next?

14. This via instapundit:

    IS THIS A PORTENT? Obama plans to be out of the country for 12 days following midterm election. “He will be away from the US for almost 12 days, one of the longest tours during his presidency, touching India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea, before returning to Washington DC on November 14.” I don’t know, but I think if he expected a stunning Democratic victory he’d have arranged to be around for a while to take credit.

15. I found his statements creepy and totally bizarre. What sort of person laughs about making one of his subordinates ‘sweat bullets’ ? Not only is there a narcissist there, but now it looks like there may be a bit of the sadist also.

    As has been predicted by others: when do we see the full-blown BHO in total meltdown?

16. This Blumenthal guy is like a caricature of an incompetent politician. I find it utterly amazing that there are people who would actually vote for him.

    I have my doubts whether Obama has ever blushed from embarrassment in his life. This very human feature doesn’t exist in any hardcore leftist come to think of it.

17. “Was that my, uh, . . .? Goodness.”

    It’s always about Obama, no matter the subject. ‘His’ seal. No, his seal is the seal of the Office of President-Elect, the faux seal he created just because he could. The Presidential seal is not Obama’s seal, never was and never will be. If he had laughed about the seal falling of the podium, it would not have bothered me as much as him claiming the Presidential seal as his own. Just like that ‘presidential’ captain’s seat on the plane he used for campaigning in 2008.

    I agree that Obama’s humor is creepy in an ‘Al Franken is a child-molester’ creepy kind of way. Gods cannot be mocked, even by the gods themselves. But then again, maybe Obama is dyslexic (among his other personality failings), and he cannot stand being mocked like a dog.

18. physics guy: I would not say a sadist. But I definitely would say a bully, and not just on the basis of that remark.

19. As for that lying jackhole, Blumenthal, like all politicians on the public teat their entire lives, he has no clue how to create a job, just how to regulate a job right onto the unemployment line (another government entity) with onerous taxes and regulations. I did so enjoy Ms. McMahon’s follow-up reply (‘government, government, government!’). The fact that Blumenthal’s reply was about keeping jobs in Connecticut, rather than how to create them, speaks volumes and him and Dems in general.

    The following is a Wall Streeet Journal op-ed from 1992 written by George McGovern concerning his stint as a hotel owner in Connecticut after his time in government. He found out about overregulation the hard way as his hotel went bankrupt.

    A Politician’s Dream Is a Businessman’s Nightmare

    (BY GEORGE MCGOVERN)

    ‘Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.’–Justice Felix Frankfurter.

    It’s been 11 years since I left the U.S. Senate, after serving 24 years in high public office. After leaving a career in politics, I devoted much of my time to public lectures that took me into every state in the union and much of Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

    In 1988, I invested most of the earnings from this lecture circuit acquiring the leasehold on Connecticut’s Stratford Inn. Hotels, inns and restaurants have always held a special fascination for me. The Stratford Inn promised the realization of a longtime dream to own a combination hotel, restaurant and public conference facility–complete with an experienced manager and staff.

    In retrospect, I wish I had known more about the hazards and difficulties of such a business, especially during a recession of the kind that hit New England just as I was acquiring the inn’s 43-year leasehold. I also wish that during the years I was in public office, I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. That knowledge would have made me a better U.S. senator and a more understanding presidential contender.

    Today we are much closer to a general acknowledgment that government must encourage business to expand and grow. Bill Clinton, Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerrey and others have, I believe, changed the debate of our party. We intuitively know that to create job opportunities we need entrepreneurs who will risk their capital against an expected payoff. Too often, however, public policy does not consider whether we are choking off those opportunities.

    My own business perspective has been limited to that small hotel and restaurant in Stratford, Conn., with an especially difficult lease and a severe recession. But my business associates and I also lived with federal, state and local rules that were all passed with the objective of helping employees, protecting the environment, raising tax dollars for schools, protecting our customers from fire hazards, etc. While I never doubted the worthiness of any of these goals, the concept that most often eludes legislators is: `Can we make consumers pay the higher prices for the increased operating costs that accompany public regulation and government reporting requirements with reams of red tape.’ It is a simple concern that is nonetheless often ignored by legislators.

    For example, the papers today are filled with stories about businesses dropping health coverage for employees. We provided a substantial package for our staff at the Stratford Inn. However, were we operating today, those costs would exceed $150,000 a year for health care on top of salaries and other benefits. There would have been no reasonably way for us to absorb or pass on these costs.

    Some of the escalation in the cost of health care is attributed to patients suing doctors. While one cannot assess the merit of all these claims, I’ve also witnessed firsthand the explosion in blame-shifting and scapegoating for every negative experience in life.

    Today, despite bankruptcy, we are still dealing with litigation from individuals who fell in or near our restaurant. Despite these injuries, not every misstep is the fault of someone else. Not every such incident should be viewed as a lawsuit instead of an unfortunate accident. And while the business owner may prevail in the end, the endless exposure to frivolous claims and high legal fees is frightening.

    Our Connecticut hotel, along with many others, went bankrupt for a variety of reasons, the general economy in the Northeast being a significant cause. But that reason masks the variety of other challenges we faced that drive operating costs and financing charges beyond what a small business can handle.

    It is clear that some businesses have products that can be priced at almost any level. The price of raw materials (e.g., steel and glass) and life-saving drugs and medical care are not easily substituted by consumers. It is only competition or antitrust that tempers price increases. Consumers may delay purchases, but they have little choice when faced with higher prices.

    In services, however, consumers do have a choice when faced with higher prices. You may have to stay in a hotel while on vacation, but you can stay fewer days. You can eat in restaurants fewer times per month, or forgo a number of services from car washes to shoeshines. Every such decision eventually results in job losses for someone. And often these are the people without the skills to help themselves–the people I’ve spent a lifetime trying to help.

    In short, `one-size-fits-all’ rules for business ignore the reality of the market place. And setting thresholds for regulatory guidelines at artificial levels–e.g., 50 employees or more, $500,000 in sales–takes no account of other realities, such as profit margins, labor intensive vs. capital intensive businesses, and local market economics.

    The problem we face as legislators is: Where do we set the bar so that it is not too high to clear? I don’t have the answer. I do know that we need to start raising these questions more often.

    I’m so sick of lawyers being in charge of making our laws that no one can comprehend, not even fellow lawyers (see: Conyers, John on the “read the bill” concept).

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