100 Days of Obamanians

As the Obama administration enters its second hundred day cycle, the internet, the blogosphere, and that other source of news, information, and opinion–the dying mass media–is awash with people voicing their many and varied opinions on the success or failure of those days.

In a way, it’s unfair to pass judgement so soon on a new president since 14+ weeks is hardly sufficient time to draw valid conclusions. Obama himself doesn’t think so, however, and is using the 100-day milestone to toot his own horn in the Midwest, after which he jets back to Washington to do some more tooting on his prime-time special tonight.

Not one to stay home when he could be visiting his subjects somewhere, our Traveller-in-Chief was off on Wednesday to the St. Louis area. Recall that after all of 3 weeks as president, he announced he was already tired of Washington? Well, he’s demonstrated his cure for that initial chief executive fatigue by flying all over the place, hitting 12 states and half a dozen countries in the last 3 months, and burning up tons of jet fuel and befouling the stratosphere in the process.

Rahm Emanuel should remind his boss that the election was over six months ago and this is the time to try governing instead of campaigning. He might remind him too that he owes the planet tons of carbon credits for his needless meandering.

One junket was excusable, at least to the romantics out there. That was when he took his bride to Chicago on Air Force One on St. Valentine’s Day. It can’t really be classified as a campaign stop since he simply wanted to have a nice, enchanting little dinner with the beautiful Michelle at their favorite, cozy little rendezvous. You can’t fault a guy for that. Everyone knows there are no decent restaurants in the D.C. area.

In Missouri, Obama touted the achievements of his first 100 days at his fourth town hall type affair since he took over on January 20th, saying in characteristically lofty diction, “We’ve begun the work of remaking America.” He added that, “We have begun to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off,” just like that famous ant with the rubber tree.

He also said he is “pleased with the progress we’ve made, but I’m not satisfied. I’m confident in the future, but I’m not content with the present:” http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aEOXy3xJPVoU&refer=worldwide.

That turned out to be such a good line that his trusty teleprompter prompted him to re-use it on prime time.

It was all very reassuring, as contrasted with his gloom and doom ravings of a few months ago when he got so carried away with negativism that Bubba Clinton had to tell him to stifle it. Needless to say, he didn’t dwell on his flubs, fluffs, and screw-ups of his first 100 days.

Although Obama is still enjoying good favorability numbers, they aren’t off the charts and are very comparable to his predecessors’. AOL/Politics Daily poll gives him . . .

(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com/.)