What if President Obama wrote an advice column?
Q Dear President Obama, My white shirt has chewing gum stuck to it. Any suggestions?
Vanessa Phelps, Stevenage, Herts.
A Let this be known. Where there is chewing gum, there shall always be a problem.
But let there be no doubt. It is a problem we shall overcome.
Be that gum on the lowermost reaches of the heel of your shoe, or be it on the uppermost reaches of your beehive hair-do, let this be known.
We shall not rest in our struggle for its removal.
The piece is pretty good about picking up on the rhythms and phrasings of Obama's overblown rhetoric, which once passed for eloquence in many quarters. But it misses one important Obama trick -- the ubiquitous "false choice" framing, as in:
"There are those who say we cannot be bothered with chewing gum on our shirts in today's crisis-filled world, and there are those who say we must spend every waking minute determining how to eradicate chewing gum from every shirt on the planet. I reject such false choices perpetuated by those who refuse to act like adults and give up their partisan posturing."
Comments
Leo:
Or, they could get Al Gore on the team and find out about GREEN gum "alternatives"...the kind that doesn't stick to anything, has no taste, costs FIVE times as much, and IS good for the environment, but requires a HAZMAT team when you wish to remove it from your mouth!
Sounds like a plan to them, hmm?
;)
Brilliantly played Leo, well done.
"The bubble gummaging has been misunderestimated by the citizenshippery of Excited States..."
God lord, after eight years of listening to George W. mutilate the language, can't we just appreciate that the current guy knows how to pronouce "nuclear"?
By the way, I appreciate any attempt at humor, but your parody sounded a lot more like Jesse Jackson than Obama, at least to me.
It's kind of bizarre the way Obama-haters will come up with the most trivial things to criticize. The guy's diction is perfect. He's unusually articulate. Like all politicians, he dances around and avoids direct answers, especially when a simple "yes" or "no" might offend some voters. But you know as well as I that they all do that.
And no Tim, I don't think he's the "annointed one" or whatever you're preparing to write. I think he's wrong on Afghanistan and Gitmo, and way too slow on DADT. He's broken promises. I wish we had a better president. But everyone always thinks that, don't we, no matter who it is.
Among the Republican contenders (and likely contenders), I don't see anyone I would prefer. And I see several who frighten me.
Imagine the parodies of speeches given by President Palin or President Bachmann. Tiny Fey has already given us a pretty good idea.
LittleJohn, Does it bother you that Jimmah Carter can't pronounce "nuclear" either?
Michael, I guess the "overblown rhetoric" part kind skipped right over your head, eh?