This feature bugs me

Okay, Mary Katherine Ham, hot conservative news commentator, fine, I get it, I even approve it. Even so, eh. Not so much regarding her particularly, just rather to the cliche or obviousness of it. Lots of hot conservative or sort of conservative commentators and if most are just good to have out there to fill the news space, some of them are even good at the substance (you go, Dana and Megyn).

Regardless. She makes the observation that Obama is "narrating" the presidency, not holding the office.

Eh.

Lots of conservatives, or anyway people whose views disagree with Obama, say something similar from time to time, probably indeed quite frequently.

This is unimpressive, and probably worse, probably gets it backwards. Liberal folks surely made boatloads of similar comments about Bush and every other president they hate or disagree with, if there is a difference. "Do your job" is not a persuasive imperative when the real meaning is "I blame you for the bad and don't give you credit for the good and frankly don't care whether you deserve either." Out of the gate, this kind of observation is suspect.

Moreover, the narration is an essential part of the job. One, it's closely tied to power. Probably it's Reagan's most significant achievement (and this from a man who believes Reagan is top notch all the way around). Moreover, it should go without saying (as, ahem, it did, at least on his part) that it was W's greatest weakness. Howsoever you pick your man, it's an important capacity for your man to have. Two, if we flatter ourselves that there is logic to our political system (are you out there Cass?), then articulating what it's about is requisite. (Anonymous, if you don't believe that, think "mission statement.")

Third, and now we are getting into fundamental world view and power tools, that, I admit, may apply to my side of the aisle in ways I either don't understand or don't focus upon, but this is the essential tool of the promoter of Big Government or socialism, collectivism or fascism, whatever words are acceptable to describe the immutable thing of big guv luv: Ya gotta have someone to blame. People seem to think a web site screw up is a big deal, but it's a feature. Every failure is a feature, and as long as we allow Obama to play the nonsense role he is playing--by golly, he's going to fix it--then he will assuredly continue playing that role, no matter how poor we become because of it. (About the only delight in this sort of system is seeing the surprised looks on the faces of people who get thrown under the bus along the way, and schadenfreude isn't among the most uplifting of human experience.)

To take just one example, I hear he's a pretty good programmer, or would be if he just had five minutes to turn his mind to it.

Sigh. It's clowns all the way down. Unhappily, however much a clown he may be, Obama is nevertheless the only actor in the whole melange who seems, if not quite to be capable, nevertheless to have gotten what he wants. He's got his program, and the smart money says he's going to keep it. Likely it will take years or decades to reconstruct insurance and finance markets, if we ever do. Now, where's my Hayek . . .