Of Plays on Names and Back to the Future

It's been a busy week, as always. And I very nearly didn't make it to post some great stuff I read this week. This week, I have three brief selections. The first is by Mark Steyn in an article from National Review Online. The article is actually dated February 14, and the title alone qualifies it for great stuff recognition: "The Obamateur Hour." Steyn begins his article by quoting British prime minister Harold Macmillan. Someone asked Macmillan what he feared most in the months ahead, politically speaking, and his reply was, "Events, dear boy, events," meaning that it is off-the-radar-type circumstances such as wars, earthquakes, and other catastrophic events that throw governments off course. Steyn builds on that idea in his own analysis of the current administration:

"It suggests a perverse kind of genius that the 44th president did not wait for a single 'event' to throw him off course. Instead he threw himself off: 'Is Obama tanking already?' (Congressional Quarterly); 'Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed?' (the Financial Times). Whether or not it’s 'already' failed or tanked, the monthly magazines still gazing out from their newsstands with their glossy inaugural covers of a smiling Barack and Michelle waltzing on the audacity of hope seem like musty historical artifacts from a lost age. The ship didn’t need to hit an iceberg; it stalled halfway down the slipway. This is still the phase before 'events' come into play, when an incoming president has nothing to get in the way of his judgment and executive competence. President Obama chose to nominate Tim 'Indispensable' Geithner and Tom 'Home, James!' Daschle, men whose enthusiasm for the size of the federal budget is in inverse proportion to their urge to contribute to it. He chose to nominate as commerce secretary first the scandal-afflicted Bill Richardson and then the freakishly scandal-free Judd Gregg, and wound up losing both."

And the rest of this brief article just gets better.

We've laughed at former presidents like Bush for his incoherence, Clinton for his lack of ethics, Ford for his clumsiness, and Reagan for his nap-taking and love of Jelly Bellies. If you take on the job, be sure that there will be something. In this case it would seem to be our president's last name--so far. There just are so many fun things, word plays --nearly endless--that pundits can do and make with "Obama." And in the spirit of this name play, a person that I love very much put this definition together in a moment of frustration over a doctor's office that just doesn't seem to be able to follow through administratively:

*obamacracy [n] --intertwined bureaucratic processes that prevent any actual progress from being made, while giving every indication that success is imminent. Similar to bureaucracy but providing no hope of actual change. ~H.G.

And finally, in the continuing spirit of fun and lightheartedness, take a look at this. It will take you less than a minute, but you'll laugh for twice that long.