What if Jackie Robinson who broke the color barrier of mahor league baseball, played as lamely as Obama?
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Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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…and if the GOP had ever come up with a candidate that had seemed real and more “in touch”, he probably would have been a one-termer. While I do still maintain that the GOP is fairly united in making sure that he can’t accomplish anything operating as he does, I am disappointed that he doesn’t seem to be trying very hard at all. Maybe you’re right Ted, he just wants to “get by” and show that he can do the same crap that most of the politicians do – kowtow to big business and big influence, and distribute blame for his failings instead of doing what we know he could – especially since he doesn’t have to worry about being re-elected anymore.
Good cartoon; funny, accurate.
I think the reason Obama doesn’t try, is because he has accomplished his mission, and he doesn’t want to piss off his fellow 1%ers. His goal was to join the big money and power club, and he succeeded. He and his family are going to be multi-hundred millionaires from here on out. If he had to tell a few lies and crush a few dreams to get there, oh well.
I think you’re right aaron – but I was worried that Romney would get in, and I voted for Obama. Oh well, so much for hope and change, huh?
There’s a new series on Syfy called “Defiance.” I mention it because there’s one scene that has relevance. One of the aliens, high up the social ladder and wealthy, is talking with his wife. She says something about how, back on their home world, he hated the caste system his people lived under because he was one of the lowest, and his life was filled with degradation and hardship. But now that he’s on Earth, he wants the caste system to continue?
Yes, shouts the character. Because now I can piss on all of them.
I think Mr. Obama enjoys himself a good piss.
It took a while to figure out why this cartoon bothered me so much; after all , Ted’s had cartoons with blatant falsehoods in them that have bothered me less.
In the end, I figured it out, and it’s worth setting down even if no one comes back and takes a look at it. It’s about expectations.
The left is judging Obama by comparing what he’s done to what they THINK they would’ve been able to do in his place. The problem is, their opinions of their own abilities are highly overstated.
They believe Obama is a failure because they think they could’ve done better. Reality is, there isn’t a person on the plant that , given the same circumstances Obama faced, could’ve done more than 1% better- 5% tops.
Realistically speaking, Obama accomplished damn near everything it was possible to accomplish. (And I’m not even going to touch the ludicrous idea that trying for more and ending up with nothing would be somehow preferable that I’ve seen Ted espouse).
What does that have to do with Jackie Robinson? One of the reasons that Jackie was so impressive is that no one expected him to be as good as the white players, and were correspondingly blown away by ow much better he was.
If Jackie Robinson were judged using the same standards with which the left judges Obama, there’s be a bunch of disaffected liberals standing around ragging on him for not batting 1000, like they would’ve done if they’d been in his place.
And they’d be just as wrong about Jackie as they are about Obama.
Couldn’t help thinking of Marx’s observation about history repeating itself, «first as tragedy, then as farce». That suffices, perhaps, to describe the step from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to le Docteur Pangloss, but where is the genius how can tell us how to portray the further descent from le Docteur Pangloss to «Whimsical» ?…
Henri
If we’re doing literary references, I think a far more apt comparison would be “Unsound Variations”, by George R.R. Martin.
For those unfamiliar with the story: A member of the chess club loses what every one else assumes should be a game which was an easy win. Ostracized, he calls them all together years later and tells them he has invented time travel, and has been using it to ruin their lives.
He makes them a simple offer- each of them can take the position they were all so sure was an easy win in the chess game, and if they manage to beat him he’ll fix their life.
They all fail, because they are overconfident in their ability and oversimplify the situation.
Just like the left does with Obama.
Oh, and I never claimed this was the best of all possible worlds.
In the best of all possible worlds, Republicans wouldn’t be an insane, obstructionist party, and would do what was best for the country, not what was best for their own power.
But they are, and they don’t. So we need to deal with the real world, not some fantasy about how much better you’d be able to do.