Now that American small business owners have become innocent targets of vandalism directed toward BP…

http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-bp-rage-ms,0,5893229.story

…I breathlessly await cries of liberal outrage directed toward Barak Obama, admonishing him to watch his blame-BP-not-me rhetoric, lest he provoke violence in the unwashed masses.

Last week, millions of Americans watched, with great anticipation, the series finale of LOST. I wasn’t one of them. One season ( the second) convinced me that the title referred to the show’s writers.

What I found more interesting than the series itself are the myriad reactions to its finale: Depending on the speaker, it explained nothing or everything, and even those who believe it offered a resolution differ widely on their interpretation. Apparently, the writers achieved the ultimate in post-modern fiction: It means whatever you want it to mean—including nothing at all.

Regardless of whether you believe the writers were lost, cynically serving up a commercial emperor with no clothes, or improvising a writerly jazz of philosophical improv that wandered aimlessly through six seasons, throwing out questions, repeating motifs, hinting at ultimate meaning, yet existing for no reason other than to ask questions, it really doesn’t matter. This was television, after all. It’s not as though it could change the landscape of America or the world.

Would that the same could be said of its real-life reflection, the Obama campaign and presidency.

It is LOST’s intentional ambiguity that reminds me of Obama. Like the show’s writers, Obama convinced millions to follow along as he spun a charismatic tale which fed their hopes, while withholding enough real information about himself to remained a blank canvas on which his followers could project whatever they liked.

Millions did just that: He blew rhetorical smoke laced with the buzz words and catchphrases of the post-modern university, and the press swooned in the haze of scholastic nostalgia.

The flower children of yesteryear and their naive young adult offspring joined in a generational reenactment of a 60s love fest: Hope, change and peace, man. The socialist utopia that the elder generation failed deliver was again within their grasp, and its psychedelic colors now included a lovely shade of ecological green.

And the middle? That jello of American politics saw a post-partisan, post-racial outsider who would Get Things Done. What things didn’t matter so much, so long as they were done and done without all that nasty political noise.

They all saw what they wanted to believe, and they voted for it.

How many wish they could retract that vote, we may not know for some time to come. Yes, November cometh, and that right soon, but while many are beginning to question the wisdom of their last vote for president, poll after poll reveals that they are not particularly disposed toward Republicans. They may not like the direction of the Obama tide, but it doesn’t mean that they trust the life preserver tossed out by a party which spent like drunken sailors when they held the purse strings, either.

That presents a crucial problem of generating enough enthusiasm to assure high conservative turnout. The left will have its own problems on that score, but they do have the win on health care and the promise of more of the same to dangle in front of voters.

Clinton and Obama promised Democratic lawmakers that once health care passed, voters would reconcile themselves to it and Democratic fortunes would rise. They were wrong and right. According to Rasmussen, a fairly large majority of voters would like to see it repealed, but at the same time, its popularity has risen among Democratic voters. Democrats have something to fight for, while Republicans offer something to fight against. Historically, being against something without a positive plan has not augured well.

On the other hand, the emperor’s state of undress has finally become apparent to many. Even the press has begun to notice that its love is unrequited, that the administration loves only the reflection in its own magic mirror and prefers to control that carefully crafted image through its web site, friendly bloggers and social media. Like most jilted lovers, the press isn’t quite ready to believe in the callousness of its beloved yet: They whine about access to family outings in Hawaii while steadfastly ignoring the polar bears of a shaky economy, high unemployment and failing foreign policy that stalk the President’s tropical paradise.

For the press, it is but a crack in their reality; for many voters, the illusion shattered completely with the passage of the health care bill. Whether that will translate to a Republican sweep in November is questionable, but if the polar bears continue to multiply, perhaps it will result in the cancellation of the Obama show in 2012.

“There’s clearly a tactic of slowing down progress on behalf of the American people,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday of GOP maneuvers in the Senate.—CNN

Funny you should put it that way, Mr. Gibbs: Why, yes, Republicans are attempting to slow down (so-called) progress on behalf of the American people. Someone has to act on our behalf, as the Democrats and the President have decided we should sit down, shut up and be grateful for their devastating largess.

Just as feared: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that there is a 60 percent chance that Dems will split the big spending items (read “public option”) out and pass that with Dem-only support. Yes, the really are that arrogant.

“In my choice of words, I unfortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically,” Obama said, walking back his sharpest criticism.

But, the president said: “I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Prof. Gates out of his home and to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Prof. Gates probably overreacted as well.”—“Obama walks back police criticism,” Burns & Lee, Politico.com

The god of glib toe-tickled his tonsils on Wednesday night. Teleprompter deprivation can have that effect, especially when a man given to elitism and liberal prejudices unwisely pontificates in ignorance.

Still, he might have saved the situation with two quick words: “I apologize.”

At least, he might have had he been an entirely different person, but Barack Obama apparently suffers from chronic Fonzie disease. The disease has three symptoms:

1. The inability to find the word “sorry” under “S” in his vast vocabulary;
2. spreading the blame; and
3. changing the subject.

All three were on display in his most recent comments. Of course, just because he doesn’t know how to say he’s sorry doesn’t mean he isn’t: He’s sorry 28 million people heard him vocalize his prejudices. He’s sorry for the media focus on his gaffe. He’s sorry he didn’t ram Obamacare through Congress months ago: It might have saved him the press conference and subsequent demonstration of his own pre-existing condition.

Is that why he supports this travesty of a health care bill? Who knows? Perhaps buried among the restrictions, stipulations and bureaucratic legalese is a clause that pays for a dose of humility.

Anyone who has listened to Joe Biden must be wondering if Dems have their own Dan Quayle, but of course, we know that’s just not possible because Democrats are smart. They may say stupid, ignorant or insulting things sometimes, but we all know that they’re really intelligent. Just ask them, they’ll tell you.

As that’s an undisputed fact backed up by the media, we must assume that Joe Biden can’t possibly be suffering from Quaylitis; therefore, I had to come up with another theory to explain his case of political foot-in-mouth disease. I think I’ve found it in this quote from Politico:

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