3/22/2009

Fish. Barrel. Gun.

I am usually a modest man, but it is good for one's soul to give yourself the occasional pat on the back....

A little over 2 months ago, I wrote this:
The Coming Obama Bubble
...this whole giant group salivation over Obama reminds me of when a fad sweeps through a high school, and the peer pressure takes over. Or the herd mentality, when people are influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors, follow trends, and/or purchase items. Soon the fad or fashion will be will move onto the next cool thing. Especially when the the herd discovers that they hadn't gotten everything they were expecting out of the current craze.
Today we find that many of the intelligentsia at the NYT have decided to sell their shares in Obama Inc.
Friendly fire: NYT hits Obama
It's not unusual for Barack Obama to take a little friendly fire from the Times. But it's perhaps unprecedented for him to get hit on the same day by columnists Frank Rich, Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd—and in the paper's lead editorial. Their critique punctuated a weekend that started with a widely circulated blog post by Paul Krugman that said the president’s yet to be announced bank rescue plan would almost certainly fail.

The sentiment, coming just two months after the president was sworn in, reflects elite opinion in the Washington-New York corridor that Obama is increasingly overwhelmed, and not fully appreciative of the building tsunami of populist outrage.

There is still time to sell any shares you have, and get your Obama memorabilia on eBay before the coming crash in values...

And a little over a month ago, I also wrote this:

First They Came For the Executives...
...if this is the road that Obama wants to go down, the real question needs to be...how far is he prepared to go??

Will he be prepared to call for a limit on the salaries of professional athletes? Much of their exorbitant paychecks are due to ticket sales. Tickets to seats in many stadiums around the country that are subsidized by taxpayer funding. If they had to play in stadiums actually affordable to their team's owner's wallets, there would be no glut of money to pay them millions. New, shiny, tax-payer funded stadia/arena permit the owners to shower manna upon these athletes. And by definition, most of these players are failures, but still accept millions without shame. Thus I would expect Obama to call on the NFL, NBA and MLB to cap their salaries...or else they could feel some pain...Janet Reno style!
Today, the indespensible Scrappleface hops on the bandwagon...

Obama to Limit Pay for Wall Street, NFL, NBA, MLB
With the debate over AIG executive bonuses nearly bringing official Washington to a standstill in the past three weeks, the Obama administration today expanded its plan to control Wall Street executive pay, adding provisions to limit compensation for star performers in the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Baseball (MLB).

“Some of these sports stars, like AIG execs, have negotiated sweetheart deals paying them millions of dollars, and yet they lose games,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. “The president shares the outrage of the American people at these obscene salaries and bonuses. There’s nothing that makes the little people feel littler than the thought of these fat cats getting fatter just because that have specialized skills that are in high demand in a free-market economy.”
Unfortunately he forgets the Hollywood angle...but hey.

Were these wholly original thoughts on my part? Of course not. As the title suggests, it wasn't that hard to foresee. But I would like to think I am a little prescient, now & again! ;-)

7 comments:

LargeBill said...

Continuing the thought of Obama being like a bad fad, is he more of a pet rock or a mood ring?

Spaz said...

He's a Chia Pet. Only the vegetation is poison ivy.

Stoutcat said...

Obama is Disco. Just barely "Stayin' Alive".

Anonymous said...

"Unfortunately he forgets the Hollywood angle...but hey."

No, he doesn't forget the Hollywood angle. He covers that, too (in the last paragraph):

The proposal would exempt most Hollywood stars and popular recording artists, he said, “since much of their money is already returned to the people in the form of contributions to the Democrat party and its candidates.

AST said...

A lot of us are feeling this way, but it doesn't assuage the anger or the fear.

I dubbed Obama the first Post Modern presidential candidate because he showed no sign of knowing that he was telling lies or even contradicting himself.

I've been thinking lately about the foolhardiness of trying to solve the housing bubble by keeping it inflated with borrowed money .. . . It's more like "No fish. Barrel. Fishing pole."

Andrew_M_Garland said...

Obama fearlessly follows the voice inside him, telling him what is right and wrong, and guiding his actions and thoughts to the good.

That isn't my opinion. Obama said this in an interview about his religious feelings.
Obama and God

Ralph said...

I just finished reading Dr. Drew's book, and this post is similar in the argument that eventually when a flaw is discovered (Brittney, etc.) the public is especially cruel.

The just of his book seems to be we live in a narcissist society reflected by the narcissists we raise up only to tear down.