It happens so infrequently, that when it happened last Saturday night, I was taken aback. Was this really happening? Well, it was. Saturday Night Live (SNL) which has taken great pleasure over the years skewering the likes of Ronald Reagan, John McCain, and both George Bushes, was actually belittling the mainstream press’s favorite, Barack Obama.
For those who may have missed the sketch (and for those who may have seen it and are willing to consider my thoughts) here goes. The actor who plays Obama starts off by sheepishly congratulating Rio for getting the Olympics. (Some say the President was courageous for going to Copenhagen to try to get the Olympics for his hometown, but the prevailing view is that it was handled like amateur hour, that it was a humiliation for Obama, especially when Chicago came in dead last of the four remaining cities in contention. Besides he arguably had more important things to deal with, like Afghanistan, a nuclear Iran, a deep recession, rising unemployment, the healthcare debate, just to name a few.)
Next, the Obama character says “when you look at my record, it’s very clear what I’ve done so far – and that is – nothing, nada. Almost one year and nothing to show for it.” He then went through a check list of items. “Now on my first day in office, I said I’d close Guantanamo Bay. Is it closed yet – no.” (Thank God, since quite a few of the terrorists being held there would like nothing better than to go back to Jihad and kill Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, and wherever else Americans can be found. And who wants them brought to the United States and housed in our already-over-crowded prisons, where there poisonous anti-American philosophy might well spread to other inmates. Why take the risk?)
The Obama character goes on. “I said we’d be out of Iraq – are we? Not the last time I checked.” (And as a result of the surge, which Senator Obama opposed, we have a real chance of a relatively stable, pro-American ally in a country which previously was ruled by one of the world’s worst anti-American trouble-makers, the late Sadam Hussein.)
“I said I’d make improvements in Afghanistan. Is it better? No, I think it’s actually worse.” (Obama’s handling of Afghanistan has been confusing, tentative, unsteady, and I’m afraid demoralizing to our troops who expect and deserve the full support of their Commander-in-Chief. After Candidate Obama said victory in Afghanistan was critical to our nation’s security, and after picking General McChrystal to lead the Afghanistan effort, President Obama now seems to be undercutting General McChrystal and “re-thinking” Afghanistan.)
The Obama character next refers to lack of progress on healthcare reform and then his failure to bring the Olympics to Chicago. However, he says, there is good news. For every person who buys a new car over the next six months, they’ll get a free “Chicago 2016 Olympics” T-shirt. (It was a pretty funny sketch.)
He then claims that people on the left should be even more disappointed in him than conservatives because he says he hasn’t addressed any of the following issues Candidate Obama said he would: global warming (although the job-killing Cap and Trade/ Cap and Tax Bill did unfortunately pass the House, but is fortunately languishing in the Senate), immigration reform (amnesty), gays in the military, limits on executive power (remember the Czars), and torture prosecutions (first of all, it’s not torture, and secondly the last thing we ought to be doing is prosecuting those who are just trying to keep this country safe).
The Obama character then says his two great accomplishments are “jack” and “squat”. And that’s even with control over both houses of Congress he reminds us.
“Obama” concludes by saying he does actually have a few accomplishments. “The Cash-for-Clunkers Program really stimulated the economy – unfortunately it was the economy of Japan.” (The White House’s highly touted Cash-for-Clunkers Program most experts now agree wasn’t the resounding success most in the mainstream press had made it out to be. What it really did was cannibalize future sales – sales in August were way up, but in September and now in October sales are way down. And those who didn’t buy a car, which is far more people than those who did, are merely subsidizing other people.) His other accomplishments: killing a fly on TV, bringing a white police officer and a black professor together for a beer (if he hadn’t clumsily waded into the controversy in the first place, he wouldn’t have needed to invite them to the White House for a beer), and he finally reminds people that it took him four months to pick out a dog.
Again, this was pretty standard fair for treatment of Republicans on SNL (who can forget Dana Carvey’s impression of George H. W. Bush – “wouldn’t be prudent”) but Obama has been the mainstream media’s darling for the last two years. Maybe he’s finally coming down to earth. Or as one headline read after the Obama Olympics debacle, “The Ego has Landed.”