Balloon Boy, Obama, Deflating

Has anybody noticed how competent Biden is starting to look? He seems to be growing in stature even as Obama fizzles.

How many would have voted for the Democrats last November if Biden had led the ticket? It's like the price of a barrel of oil rising. The barrel is not getting any bigger; it’s the currency that’s failing. So too, Biden is not necessarily perceived as being smarter. It’s just that Obama is deflating - like the dollar.

The funny thing is; he doesn't seem to know it. He looks in the mirror each morning and marvels, "I'm still the man!" He pounds the side of his head with the palm of his hand and blinks his eyes hard. "Yeah, I'm still POTUS," he sighs, smiling broadly with all his implants showing.

He either doesn't realize that balloon boy's future is tied to the balloon’s capacity to remain inflated, or he doesn’t care. If he doesn’t know, it’s those around him in the Oval Office who are refusing to tell him - allowing him to happily traipse around Wonderland, making a fool of himself - all the while deflating his balloon further. If he doesn’t care, it’s quite a bit more grotesque. It’s indifference that hurts a nation most.

We must ask ourselves, “Have we elected a stupid man president, or an indifferent man?” Either one will land us on the ash heap of history. But when we think about it down the road - after all that was meant to happen, has happened - it might be easier for us to accept that Obama was merely stupid. ‘Indifference’ has a much more sinister ring to it …and we really would have to paint ourselves with the same brush. Wouldn’t we?

I mean, we’re not really into blame-shifting yet; or are we? God, I’d hate to think that we could have sunk that low. Once we reach that particular slide, it’s pretty much over. That’s exactly the reason most of the countries in the Middle East are so screwed up. When anything goes wrong over there, they’ll always blame Israel first. And then they’ll never do anything further about it. Dilapidated Cuba, same thing: They’ve been blaming the U.S. trade embargo for years. Meanwhile, they’ve always had the opportunity to trade with every other country in the world. Hey, CASTRO! Do you think the problem might be COMMUNISM?

Theoretically, we could shut down all dialogue and blame Bush forever. Under the ‘blame Bush’ umbrella, we could then drive our country ever deeper into the ground. We could spark food shortages, fuel shortages, blackouts, social unrest, violence and mayhem of all sorts. And we could blame Bush for all of it. We could tell our kids that Bush was responsible for Grandma’s house going up in flames last winter. It was because of that damned religion thing she was practicing (Bush’s religion) – that damned Christmas tree of hers. It had nothing to do with the frayed wires we happened to notice as she was setting it up. It had nothing to do with the town not being able to afford hiring more fire fighters or maintain their equipment. No, it was all Bush’s fault; every thing is Bush’s fault; everything will always be Bush’s fault.

And as blame gets heaped higher and higher, Bush will begin to reach a pinnacle of sorts. They won’t be able to avoid naming a street or town after him – or a transfer station (like they do in NJ). He’ll be just as alpine as Obama’s listing balloon. And when the two of them come face to face, they will see they are brothers; that one reached celebrity on a mountain of blame while the other reached it on a bag of hot air.

Meanwhile, things down below will get seriously worse, until we ourselves start accepting some responsibility for what happens and get off our duffs and work to make a difference.