THE DAILY BLADE: Mao-Maoing Obama
Chinese designer and entrepreneur Liu Mingjie created a T-shirt and other tchotchkes with an "ObaMao" image that has President Barack Hussein Obama dressed in Mao Zedong’s signature green jacket and cap that is all the rage amongst “urban young people and online netizens,’” reports The Washington Post. But “uniformed officers from Beijing's Industry and Commerce Administration” warned shopkeepers not to sell souvenirs bearing Obama’s image – “particularly” the ObaMao items.
One shop clerk surmised that the crackdown was meant to avoid embarrassing Obama. If you think about it, the ObaMao concept hits too close to home.
On the other hand, the government curiously allowed one Beijing store to keep hawking an Obama action doll dressed as Superman. Perhaps Asian etiquette requires hosts to oblige the vanity of their honored guests – but only to a point.
And Obama rewarded his host’s instincts by again giving his vanity full throttle, explicating U.S. history to university students in Shanghai by making himself a protagonist in the narrative (emphasis, The Stiletto):
[T]he story of our nation is not without its difficult chapters. … We fought a very painful civil war, and freed a portion of our population from slavery… after they were freed, African Americans persevered through conditions that were separate and not equal, before winning full and equal rights. … But we made progress because of our belief in those core principles, which have served as our compass through the darkest of storms. That is why Lincoln could stand up in the midst of civil war and declare it a struggle to see whether any nation, conceived in liberty, and "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" could long endure. That is why Dr. Martin Luther King could stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and ask that our nation live out the true meaning of its creed. That's why immigrants from China to Kenya could find a home on our shores; why opportunity is available to all who would work for it; and why someone like me, who less than 50 years ago would have had trouble voting in some parts of America, is now able to serve as its President.
Obama’s so busy preening that he doesn’t take the time to contemplate the meaning of words he quotes from our Constitution and from the speeches of our greatest presidents. Which is why he doesn’t treat foreign monarchs as his equals by greeting them with a firm, manly handshake and instead reflexively bends his entire torso in a deep - and deeply subservient and submissive - bow.
The Uniter: Part III
Barack Hussein Obama ran as a uniter, but ended up becoming an extremely divisive candidate – and now, as polarizing as his White House predecessor. His inability to bring legislators together is hobbling his politically naïve - if not cynically empty - promise to “change the culture of Washington,” reports The Boston Globe:
Despite early pleas for bipartisanship, President Obama is forging ahead with his domestic agenda with a largely single-party strategy, unable to corral more than a handful of Republicans on a wide range of major legislation before Congress.
Vowing to bring change to Washington, Obama had hoped to draw Republicans into the development of sweeping proposals on the environment, health care, the economy, and the workplace. Publicly, Obama and his team continue to insist they welcome GOP input on controversial legislation. Democrats facing tough reelection campaigns next year are eager for bipartisan votes that could help inoculate them from partisan attacks on their records.
But lawmakers in both parties say the relationship between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill has reached a new low that has all but killed any chance for broad bipartisan collaboration. Democrats, with majorities in both the House and Senate, plan to try to pass their proposals with the votes they have. …
Republicans insist they are willing to work with the majority party, but say that Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress have shut them out of the process and that the two parties are so far apart on their visions for the country that there is little room for compromise.
Comments