FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam’s weekly commentaries are broadcast on WNZF on Fridays just after 9 a.m. Here’s this week’s.
Barack Obama could learn something from Rick Scott, the man attempting to be Florida’s governor. When Scott’s poll numbers showed him to be the least-liked governor in America, he did what any politician with no clue and worse policies will naturally do in the same situation. He took up cosmetology. He started smiling a lot more in public. He decided that the press was no longer the Florida Taliban. He’s been holding media interviews almost daily for the past three weeks, some of them in Florida. On his Twitter account he wrote about the “beautiful grouper” he caught in the Keys.
The other day he took up for a few hours the sort of job that have been created on his watch: he pretended to be a sales clerk making poverty wages at a doughnut shop, then delivered donuts to a television anchor in the middle of a broadcast. What a guy. And this week he sent a new photo of himself to news outlets around the state, all smiles, without a tie, begging editors to use that one “rather,” he wrote, “than any others you may have on file.” No more bug-eyed portraits, no more deer-in-headlight mug shots, please. It’s working. Scott’s approval rose from below freezing to the low 30s.
Obama needs to do the reverse. He’s been way too likable. Most Floridians don’t like his policies, but 70 percent like him personally. That’s the problem. He’s been too nice, too conciliatory, too compromising, and with who? With Republicans who’ve thought nothing of putting political dogfighting over the 2012 election ahead of any sensible solutions to the nation’s debt, let alone its jobs crisis, damaging the country’s credit along the way. Obama merely stood by, taking beating after beating and getting nothing in return but well-deserved disapproval from all sides.
He put on a good show of traveling the country as an angry man this week, only to begin today yet another 10-day vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, one of the planet’s most expensive resorts, while 25 million Americans are still unemployed or under employed. No wonder they call him Slacker in Chief. I’ve been having memories of Herbert Hoover or George W. Bush, and missing them both.
Obama’s routines could use a makeover. Fewer interviews, fewer smiles, fewer vacations, fewer anecdotes about Sasha and Malia, who are beginning to sound like the Amy Carters of the decade, and less compromising with the party of sabotage. The country desperately needs a president, not a moderator.
Lucine says
Wow…I could not have put it better myself. Not that any of it matters. Obama inherited a train wreck, a United States on the brink of no return thanks to George W. Bush. Raging, out of control debt, an economy in peril…and people are expecting miracles. When you are so deep in the hole, sometimes one cannot get out. But we will blame Obama anyway, because he is the one stuck with the hot potato right now.
We are headed to encharted territory. Blame who you wish. We will all feel major pain before it is all over.
PCer says
I believe both sides of the aisle in Congress are to blame for everything that is wrong with our country today. No matter what Obama says, they find a way to sabotage it. The Dems and Reps are no longer interested in the good of our nation, they are only interested in how bad they can stick it to the other guy. I just hope the gods of politics bring us a candidate that will not bow to the whims of the political parties. Someone more centered who will bridge the gap and get us out of this mess.
NortonSmitty says
Might as well pick up a few tips from Rick Scott. It seems he learned everything he knows about Presidentin’ from George W. and his carried over cronies: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/symptoms-of-the-bushobama_b_930260.html
palmcoaster says
President Obama needs to stop trying to get consensus from Republicans and do what as Commander in Chief he can do on his powers and “create jobs”even if taxing imports and repairing our failing infrastructure. Stop these banks evicting people to bull doze their homes. let the borrowers stay until they find a job and pay up again their mortgages and stop any outsourcing of American Jobs without heavy taxation. Tax all the wealthy and corporations same way we middle class and workers are taxed and improve revenue. Stop these useless wars and invest man and funds at home. He has to do this NOW!
Bush did whatever he pleases while on the White House as he described himself as “The Decider”!
C’mon Mr. Pres…do the same, is useless to try and get these conservatives to approve anything you need to do.
flagler beach native says
Not a thing the pair lie like a rug!!!!One is screwing up the united states and the other one is screwing up florida !!!!
palmcoaster says
Our President needs to act now. Starting by placing limits on oil future traders that are the only reason we are being gouged at the pump for their betting benefits as well as the oil companies that come quarter after quarter with all time historic high earnings as they bleed our pockets.
We all here need to hear and follow the advise of Independent Senator Bernie Sanders fighting daily for our middle class, workers and students. Look what he found out and the powers that be, do not want us to learn about:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-oil-speculative-data-rb-4160467525.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=
All time high earnings of these thieves:
http://coons.senate.gov/newsroom/releases/release/with-oil-company-profits-at-an-all-time-high-senator-coons-cosponsors-repeal-of-big-oil-tax-giveaways
Meanwhile 25 million Americans are out of work being also gouged at the pumps and these billionaires and corporations keep packing up their pockets with tax breaks, exemptions and incentives while polluting our environment to their will. All thanks to the conservative deregulation and green flag to steal.
They accuse our financial distressed Americans of being lazy and overpaid. What a nerve they have. Today I am driving Moody Blvd East and at the foot of the bridge over the intracoastal, I see two ladies on the noon summer Florida sun heat with their landscaper trimmers in hand and “one of them heavily pregnant”. Do not come and tell me that our people is not trying enough hard to find a job! How many of the conservatives writing here would have their wives working as landscapers trimming the public right of way curve with a noon scorching Florida sun so they can contribute with some bread at their table? Wake up America.
Riley says
The problem is the Republican congress!!!! They could care less about the middle class and will attempt to cut or eliminate any programs that help the poor or retired to maintain a decent quality of life. Since 2008 the Republican have focused on making Obama a one term president and will use whatever tactic or dirty trick to achieve their sworn goal. Rick Scott and the previous 12 years of Republican governors have screwed over the people of Florida.
Layla says
What was the problem for his first two years, when he had a clear majority? Oh, I forgot….it was all Bush’s fault.
Layla says
Who is Governor Scott blaming?
NortonSmitty says
Hell Barack can teach the Republoons himself. In a “Nixon Goes to China” way, as a Black “Liberal” President, he was the only one that could gut all of the social safety nets at once as was done in the Debt Ceiling budget deal and not have people rioting in the streets.
An excerpt from the article linked above:
“The usual turn from unsatisfying wars abroad to happier domestic conditions, however, no longer seems tenable. In these August days, Americans are rubbing their eyes, still wondering what has befallen us with the president’s “debt deal” — a shifting of tectonic plates beneath the economy of a sort Dick Cheney might have dreamed of, but which Barack Obama and the House Republicans together brought to fruition. A redistribution of wealth and power more than three decades in the making has now been carved into the system and given the stamp of permanence.
Only a Democratic president, and only one associated in the public mind (however wrongly) with the fortunes of the poor, could have accomplished such a reversal with such sickening completeness.”
That about sums it up for me. How about you? Gotta go soak my torches and sharpen the pitchfork.
Outsider says
Trying to give Obama a media makeover is like buying new drapes for the Titanic. You can’t create jobs while systematically destroying businesses ala Saul Alinsky’s model. If he wants jobs created, why is his state department blocking an oil pipeline from Canada to Texas that would employ 20,000 and supply us with 700,000 barrels of oil a day from our FRIENDLY neighbor? Why is his interior department blocking Exxon from developing a huge find in the Gulf that would supply us with our OWN oil?
palmcoaster says
I totally agree with you Riley. Bush handed a box of rotten eggs to Obama to bake this cake and here are the results of the 8 years Bushonomics benefiting the wealthy from the pockets of the middle class and the poor. Look what we will get into if the likes of Texas governor Rick Perry would be elected in 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/19/rick-perry-texas-tax-system_n_931623.html
This are some of the ways that the wealthy make their billions here of our sweat and hard earned underpaid labor wages. We are still being bleed by Wall Street thieves::
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/29/bernie-sanders-demands-ac_n_855495.html
http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=bef81764-887e-4b96-a5b3-9eeeb7a9b831
Banks got trillions to help the home owners in the mortgage crisis and instead of doing that banks used the stimulus to pay bonuses to their VIP’s and buy each other out and pay dividends to shareholders, while booting unemployed home owners into homelessness to bulldoze their homes now!
http://economyincrisis.org/content/griftopian-thievery-tea-party-ignorance-and-disappearance-american-dream
What kind of human rights abuses are these in a country like ours always taking us to wars for the sake of other countries human rights abuses! Now even threatening to get involved in the Syrian affairs. C’mon Mrs Clinton you are really out of context with our economic reality here you are really failing the image I always had of you maam.. Let them Syrians resolve their own problems and stop yielding to the Israeli influences against the betterment of Americans. We have plenty enough here in our domestic broken plate to resolve. No more wars, “let our so called allies to fight the battles they pick on”, please. Where is our Democratic promise that wars will end with Obama? Failed promises next? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8712701/US-troops-may-stay-in-Afghanistan-until-2024.html
CLUE says
Enough of the finger pointing… How do we fix it??? To all of you protecting or standing up for the President, he’s done nothing for you or me…
Let’s fix these problems;
1. fair tax or flat tax
2. term limits on congress
Any other idea’s?
Layla says
Since you asked…
3. balance the federal budget, beginning with cuts to Congress instead of military and retirees.
Layla says
4. require Congressional schedule to include more time in Congressional districts, with Member present, not staff. Instead of coming home, they travel to exotic locations.
When was the last time anybody saw John Mica or Bill Nelson at a townhall?
Riley says
CONGRESS, CONGRESS,CONGRESS, is the problem, period. The President can present ideas ,submit budgets, plans or initiatives to congress all day long, but if they are unwilling to act on them, we get nowhere. Congress is the legislative branch of the government, they write the legislation and bring it to the floor for a vote. Compromise is the key to getting anything done. The President does not make the laws, only Congress can, he can sign them into law or veto the bill. Congress can override the veto with a two thirds majority. Money and power is what controls the Congress along with the lobbyists.
@outsider
Who pays for this pipline?
@CLUE
The whole tax system needs to be rewritten, whether a flat tax or fair tax, along with eliminating corporate tax loop holes, but if you thing Congress is going to vote for term limits, that is not going to happen. If America has elected McCain and Palin, we would all be sitting at the corner with our begging cups or dumpster diving for food scraps.
Layla says
Riley: That dumpster diving is not far off. Unfortunately, more are doing it now than you realize. I have never seen a more arrogant Congress. That scares me to death. I do not recognize these people anymore.
I do not believe this President knows what he is doing. That being said, I don’t see anyone with a solution, either. I thought a good candidate might step forward with a plan, but all I am hearing are the same empty promises.
And in the meantime, constant new reguations are continuing to kill our businesses. Not a great formula for success.
We can’t all work for the government, or can we?
And what scares me the most is that I don’t think Congress realizes the desperation and urgency of many Americans. Or worse yet, they are deliberately ignoring it.
How else do you end up with 25% of the nation’s homeless children here in Florida and nobody is doing anything about it?
palmcoaster says
Layla and Riley totally agree, with you this congress play like children with our lively hoods. Last time I saw Mica was in the 4th July Washington DC enjoying with his wife front row seat on the PBS patriotic show video that I recorded. First thing I would request to be done, is that we no longer pay and provide free health care insurance for anyone elected to the federal and state government….as the conservatives vote against the very peoples (universal health insurance) that pay for theirs, let them bite the dust and pay from their own pocket so they get a taste of it. Anyway as many of them elected for office are millionaires won’t matter much to them except the reality shock message. No more corporate or first class flights anywhere use the online meeting capabilities…that goes for Obama also. As we are in a deep recession and 20 million or more Americans are unemployed. No more vacation time on us for Congress or the Pres., at least until we get over this recession….and the 20 million get jobs and healt insurance coverage. Talking about we “all” tightening our belts now.