Monday, June 7, 2010

Obama Needs A Court Jester

Time warp since my last post, but not many have noticed I suspect ;-)

Obama really needs to act like he won the election AND like he does not intend to run for reelection.
At some point, hopefully quite soon, he needs to kick some butt, in a way not necessarily or even preferable military, but in a way that is quick, forceful, unexpected, and sans consensus. Nationalizing BP would do it. Throwing a few corrupt bankers and wall street thieves in prison would do it. So would treating Israel the same way we treat all other Mideast countries, with the same degree of self interest and skepticism. So would a proclamation declaring that overpopulation in the US and elsewhere is an issue of national security.

Just sayin'. Obama is surrounded by traditionalists and ex Bush advisors and a general bunch of wimpy don't rock the boat politicians, institutional power protectors, and general consensus kissers who if they can't avoid progress, would much prefer one step forward instead of ten.

One version of history is that in the old days the King always had a court jester. He was kind of a John Stewart of the time, a well informed truth teller who poked barbed fun at those who were trying to sell bags of bullshit. The court jester's primary role in this scenario was to tell the King things no one else was brave enough to tell him, to call bullshit on the King when appropriate, and to propose alternative problem solving options that no one else would or could. He was the only one in the court who was guaranteed to keep both his head and his job.

Obama needs a court jester. I'm open to offers.

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