Obama has a penchant for casting long, strained, and often silly metaphors to paint a pitiable picture of his Presidency:
I- describe us…as…I'm the captain and they're the crew on a ship, going through really bad storms. And no matter how well we're steering the ship, if the boat's rocking back and forth and people are getting sick and…they're being buffeted by the winds and the rain and…at a certain point-- if you're asking, "Are you enjoying the ride right now?" Folks are going to say, "No." And are they going to say, "Do you think the captain's good—doing a good job?" People are going say, "You know what? A good captain would have had us in some smooth waters and sunny skies, at this point." And I don't control the weather. Obama, coming up soon on 60 Minutes
Obama compared the country to a car Republicans drove into a ditch, "a deep ditch, muddy and hot, with lots of bugs." Democrats, Obama said, including him and Oregon's congressional Democrats, piled into the ditch and began pushing the car out. "We look up and Republicans are just standing there watching. We say, 'come on down and help''' Obama said. "But they just stand there and say 'you're not pushing hard enough. Finally, we get the car out of the ditch and the Republicans tap us on the shoulder—they want the car," Obama continued. "But we tell them you can't have the keys because you don't know how to drive." Then in his best laugh line of the night, Obama observed, "if you want to go forward in a car, you put it in 'D'; if you want to go backward, you put it in 'R.'" from the Willamette Week, 12/9/10
…We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement. All the stuff they asked for, we've done. But even though we've answered these concerns, I suspect there will be some who will try to move the goal posts one more time. They said we need to triple the border patrol. Or now they’ll say we need to quadruple the border patrol. Or they’ll want a higher fence. Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they want alligators in the moat! They'll never be satisfied, and I understand that. That's politics. But the truth is the measures we've put in place are getting results. Obama in El Paso, Texas
Mr. Obama also tried out a cleaning metaphor, accusing Republicans of acting like fussy supervisors who refuse to lift a finger to help the crew. “We’ve got our mops and our brooms out here, and were cleaning stuff out and they’re sitting there saying, ‘Hold the broom better; that’s not how you mop.’ Don’t tell me how to mop! Pick up a mop! Do some work on behalf of the American people to solve some of these problems.’’ from the New York Times, 5/13/2010
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Such dewy drivel might play well to his adoring audiences, but now I think I understand why The Barry never wrote nor published anything when he was the Editor of The Harvard Law Review.
