October 28, 2014--Gar-bage Time

It's Gar-bage Time in Washington, with the emphasis on the second syllable--Gar-bage.

As a basketball enthusiast, Obama knows about Gar-bage Time. It is now that time for Barack Obama and his administration.

In the NBA it's when LeBron James' team is 30 point ahead in the fourth and final quarter. Rather than continuing to run up the score and thereby taunt and humiliate their opponent, it's when the coach puts in the third stringers and they run up and down the court for the final 10 minutes making fools of themselves.

In this case, the Obama administration is 30 points behind and there's only a little over two years left in his term. He's entering the fourth quarter of his eight-year term.

I know, this will feel like an eternity. Just as it always does during Gar-bage Time. But with Obama there are things he and his team can do to avoid making fools of themselves.

Before turning to that, to drive home the basketball analogy, in 2004, just before delivering the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention that launched him--the "One America" speech--to pump himself up as well as to give us a rare glimpse of his ego, Obama proclaimed, "I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got some game."

He really said that.

That may have influenced the Nobel Prize Committee, which in 2009 awarded him a premature Peace Prize, but for those of us paying attention during the first three quarters, Obama's initial six years, to paraphrase Lloyd Benson's barb delivered to his hapless VP opponent Dan Quayle, who had the chutzpah to compare himself to John F. Kennedy, "I know LeBron James, and with all due respect, Mr. President, you're no LeBron James. In fact, you don't have that much game."

I should add that Quayle, George H.W. Bush's VP nominee, actually won.

Overnight I was thinking about what the first Wikipedia paragraph will say about post-presidential Barack Obama. Currently, the first sentence says he is the "first African American too hold the office of President." I assume that will remain and certainly the first paragraph will include Obamacare; but when it then comes to sum up the rest of the essence of his presidency, to highlight his major achievements, these will include extracting us from two George W. Bush wars, finally tracking down and killing Osama bin Laden, and playing a leading role--even before he was elected--in supporting measures to prevent the Great Recession from becoming the Second Great Depression.

Then, the rest of the Wiki entry will be a list of disappointments and out-and-out failures.  Here's a list--

The Obamacare rollout
The VA hospital scandal
The IRS scandal
The Arab Spring which quickly devolved into the Arab Winter
The Ebola response
The return of the Cold War
Reupping the Patriot Act and expanding its use
Supporting the extension of Bush's tax cuts
Edward Snowdon
Red Lines in Syria
Angela Merkel's cell phone
Losing the Democrat majority in the House and, soon, the Senate

So, in the face of this and the public's disenchantment with him, how can Obama avoid two-plus years of Gar-bage Time?

By being bold. Show that like LeBron you do have game.

Prodded by Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan during the doldrums of the last year's of his presidency, in the midst of Iran-Contragate, made a deal with the Soviets to effectively end the Cold War.

I can only imagine what Michele is now pushing for--

• An easy one--bring Cuba back into the fold of Western nations
• Stop the continuing flood of deportations being carried out by your administration and stand up forcefully and repeatedly for the "rights" of undocumented immigrants who are essential to our economy
• Put what little is left of your political capital on the line and honor your Nobel by personally and directly intervening in the Arab-Israel nightmare. If necessary, begin the process of cutting Israel loose since they are at the heart of the ongoing problem. Ignore the Israel Lobby. You don't need them. You're not running for anything anymore.
• Reiterate your agenda even though there is no chance whatsoever of any of it being enacted into law. Maybe some of your lofty ideas will influence future presidents. As with Teddy Roosevelt.
• Speak more about race. Reread your own amazing speech delivered during the heat of the Reverend Wright affair and get back to those themes. Many of us think much of your problem with Congress and with too many Americans is lingering racism. Who other than you can do this in ways to help get more of that malignant affliction behind us. 
• Most important, devote much of your remaining time talking about the American Dream to disaffiliated young people. Poor, middle class, and wealthy. Too many of them fear for the future. And they are right to do so. Someone has to help them understand what is happening and figure out how to deal with a host of new realities. 

Or, you can continue to drag yourself dispiritedly up and down the court, feeling sorry for yourself, running down the clock. And, one more thing, put Air Force One in the hanger and if you go anywhere travel commercial.

October 22, 2014--Roar Lion, Roar

In case you've been living off the grid and haven't noticed, it's football season.

The NFL is about halfway through its schedule and as far as I know no one has been arrested for spousal abuse for at least a month.

Florida State is Number 1 again and its Heisman-Trophy-winning quarterback, Jameis Winston, hasn't been caught selling autographs, arrested for DUI, or accused of sexual harassment. Also for the last few weeks.

And the footballers at Sayerville High School in New Jersey are maybe back in class and not at the moment abusing and sexually harassing their freshmen teammates.

Then, closer, to home, my college's football team, the Columbia Lions (not the disgraced Nittany ones) continue to lose almost every game they play. In fact, on Saturday they set an Ivy League record for the most loses in a row against a single team when they were beaten for the 18th consecutive time in 18 years by Penn by a score of 31 to 7.

Well, at least they scored.

Also, over the past two years they have lost 16 games in a row, which is dwarfed by what they perversely achieved back in the 1980s when they lost 44 straight. That is not a typo, they actually lost 44 games in a  row. About five years' worth of games.

This is even worse than when I was enrolled during the late 50s. As I recall (and I am by now not that good at recalling), while I huddled in the rickety wooden stands against the wind blowing off the Hudson River, the Lions won one or two games. Not per season, but during my entire four undergraduate years.

Why am I not ashamed of the Lion's dismal record? Why, in fact, am I feeling a little good about this pathetic history?

For one thing the team used to be a football force. One year, 1934, they beat otherwise all-powerful Army and went on to the Rose Bowl (you can look it up) and shut out Stanford, 7-0.

So we know about winning, though almost everyone who was a student at that time is dead or in deep decline.

Our quarterback back then was a Jewish kid from Brooklyn (just like me--the Jewish part), Sid Luckman, who, after graduating, joined the Chicago Bears and there had a Hall of Fame career.

And of course, of a very different sort, Jack Kerouac went to Columba on a football scholarship; but after one year, 1940, dropped out and, well, went on the road. Not with the team but with his pal Neil Cassady.

We used to chant, when getting our annual trouncing by Rutgers, about how though they might be better jocks we had Lionel Trilling. Not the coach but the literature savant. This made us feel superior in realms on a higher plane than football.

And so maybe last Saturday, while getting whipped for the 18th year in a row by Penn, the otherwise forlorn Columbia students who made the trek to Philadelphia reminded the opposition that, since 2000, we have had six Nobel Prize winners on our faculty while Penn, on the other hand, has had . . . well, twelve.

Clearly you can't win 'em all.