Jay Cost on campaigning while pretending to be governing

This President, who was recently ranked as the eighth most intelligent President of all time (just behind of John Adams, co-author of the Declaration of Independence, and four spots ahead of George Washington, who successfully repelled an invasion by the greatest military power the world had ever seen to that point), seems unaware of the concept of irony. There is no other way to explain why he would say this after having become the first President to engage in a permanent electoral campaign:

We shouldn't be campaigning all the time. There is a time to campaign and there is a time to govern. What we've tried to do over the last 20 months is to govern. On health care or financial reform, right now we have a big debate about how to get small businesses more credit because they generate the jobs. When you feel as if every single initiative that we're doing is subject to Washington politics instead of is this good for the country, that can be frustrating.

The fact that he uttered these words on The View, a show politicians only frequent when they are desperately trolling for votes, makes it all the more remarkable.

President Obama's vanity is fast becoming a problem for the Democratic Party.

"The soft-spoken arrogance and vanity of this administration is somtimes stunning"

From American Thinker

"Now that Obama is in full charge of things this is what we can look forward to. On April 14 he told us.

"...the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80% of the total health care bill out there....It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. That's why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance." (Italics ours.)

Who? Someone like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health advisor to Obama, and Zeke's brother Rahm, who loves to hurl thunderbolts from Mount Olympus and bully freshman congressmen. They and their ilk will give us "guidance" about who is worthwhile, who is ready to die, who shall live a week or two longer. Zeke is a Harvard academic who is arrogant enough to believe that he can change human nature and decide the most intimate and complex of human issues -- those of life and death. The man, a bona fide MD, clearly prefers writing bushels of words about what's good or bad for society to caring for people and being responsible for suffering patients. The soft-spoken arrogance and vanity of this administration is sometimes stunning."

Dr. Emanuel thinks health care must be distributed according to the group to which an individual belongs. Valued groups include young and healthy persons, and favored racial and gender groups. Those of less value, of course, are those with medical problems and the elderly."

(snip)

"Benjamin Franklin -- At the age of 70 he helped to draft and signed the Declaration of Independence. For the next 14 years, until his death in 1790, he at one time or another served as the Ambassador to France, negotiated a peace treaty with England, had a romantic affair with a Mme Brillon, invented bifocals, signed the U.S. Constitution, and became the president of the Society for promoting the abolition of Slavery.

Casey Stengel -- Stengel's genius contributed to that great run of 10 Yankee pennants in 12 years from 1949-1960. After losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1960 World Series Stengel was involuntarily retired from the Yankees, because he was believed to be too old to manage. Stengel's view was that he had been fired for turning 70, and that he would "never make that mistake again." Stengel was talked out of retirement after one season to manage the New York Mets, which he did for four more years. And though they ended up last in their league those years Stengel never stopped adding to the poetry and lore of baseball, "Can't anybody play this here game?"

Ronald Reagan -- Ran for and was elected President of the United States at the age of 69 and again at 73.

(the list goes on)