Obama “Swaggers” on V-day

Ladies did your men “swagger” like President Obama on V-Day? At first the story was really Superman-ish with Obama, in the middle of the economic stimulus, stopping to order a special cake for his first lady, 10-days before Valentine’s Day. But as the story crystallizes, turns out the two headed to a posh Chicago restaurant who shares a chef with Oprah. Not the same as ordering a cake in the middle of addressing the economic crisis, but it still counts as “swagger.”

As such, Obama extends his “swagger” to Delusional City (DC) politics. Before the stimulus went for a vote, Obama invited some Repug Senators and Congressmen aboard Air Force One as a super cool show of bipartisanship. Can you imagine Dubya flying Democrat lawmakers to Texas to watch the Super Bowl, all the while attempting to smooth talk them into seeing things his way? Didn’t think so: Emperor Bush did what he wanted without reaching out across the aisle first.

One Repug turned down Obama’s invitation to fly on Air Force One outright (I guess he doesn’t need anything whatsoever from the new POTUS), and the other flew, landed, and unceremoniously voted against the stimulus. The rest of the Repug Congressional fold all voted against the stimulus and patted themselves on the back. One WSJ conservative columnist wrote: the House Republicans’ zero votes for the Obama presidency’s stimulus ‘package’ is looking like the luckiest thing to happen to the G.O.P.’s political fortunes since Ronald Reagan switched parties.”

Lucky. How so? What the Repugs did was hand out a powerful zoom lens to the scrutinizing public, to help it identify that all of its so-called prudence is nothing more than classic obstructionist behavior. During a time when people are losing their jobs, homes and health care coverage, the Repugs have nothing more to offer the American people other than a big fat zero. They definitely have no “swagger.” If we were to quantify “swagger” it would read a little something like this:

The stimulus package arrived with the price tag and on roughly the schedule Obama had set for it. The president’s job approval percentage now ranges from the mid 60s (Gallup, Pew) to mid 70s (CNN) — not bad for a guy who won the presidency with 52.9 percent of the vote. While 48 percent of Americans told CBS, Gallup and Pew that they approve of Congressional Democrats, only 31 (Gallup), 32 (CBS) and 34 (Pew) percent could say the same of their G.O.P. counterparts (NYT).

It seems no one in Washington has swagger like Obama.
Swagger like Obama.
Swagger like Obama.