The Phony Campaign

2012-04-01 Update

[phony baloney]

[Administrative note: an unannounced service change at my ISP, "Reliable" Web Hosting, prevented me from posting this yesterday. Apologies for the belated April Fool reference below.]

President Obama maintains a huge phony lead over his likely November opponents.

Query String Hit Count Change Since
2012-03-25
"Barack Obama" phony 131,000,000 -6,000,000
"Mitt Romney" phony 1,100,000 -60,000
"Gary Johnson" phony 1,030,000 -30,000

In the meantime, on this fine first day of April, I am trying hard to distinguish the real news from the April Fools Day hoaxes. This seems to get harder every year, and I don't think it's me.

Like for example, this.

  • One of Pun Salad's occasional features over the past few years was looking at "Barackrobatics": our President's habitual rhetorical tics meant to obfuscate, tergiversate, adulate, denigrate, and prevaricate. This Danish TV host notes yet another instantiation:

    Note to the President: if you use the same silly metaphors all the time, people will doubt your sincerity. They might think that you're a bit… well, phony.

  • Trivia note: when I coined the word "Barackrobatics" I had high hopes for it becoming an Internet meme. But Googling it reveals that it's never made it out in the wild. Web fame and fortune (especially fortune) continue to elude Pun Salad.

  • On Monday, Jake Tapper noted President Obama whispering sweet promises into the ear of…
    At the tail end of his 90 minute meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev Monday, President Obama said that he would have "more flexibility" to deal with controversial issues such as missile defense, but incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to give him "space."
    Unbeknownst to the President, he was also talking within the range of a working microphone. He sounded like a philandering husband pleading with an impatient mistress for just a bit more time before he breaks the bad news to his wife.

    "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."

  • On Friday, up in Maine, our President played shrink, and concluded that the problem is that we're all just insane:
    "We won't win the race for new jobs and new businesses and middle-class security if we cling to this same old, worn-out, tired 'you're on your own' economics that the other side is peddling," Obama said.

    "It was tried in the decades before the Great Depression. It didn't work then. It was tried in the last decade. It didn't work," he said. "You know, the idea you would keep on doing the same thing over and over again, even though it's been proven not to work. That's a sign of madness."

    This is the guy who reportedly said "I don't get it" when shown dismal employment numbers after his "investments" in infrastructure and renewable boondoggles fizzled. But did not let that alter his plans for more of the same.

    But we're the crazy ones.


Last Modified 2014-12-01 2:57 PM EDT