The Terpitude of Moral Certitude

In Obama's first 100 days the country has sorted itself neatly into two groups. One group thinks anything he does is wrong and they don't need to know what he did to be sure of that. The other group thinks anything he does is right, and they don't need to know what he did, either.

The latter group is a little more open-minded, in that they concede maybe he's made a minor mistake here and there but either a) it wasn't very important or b) Bush, Bush and Reagan did it first and worst. Like deficit spending, which suddenly became a bad thing to do on January 21 even though Cheney said deficits don't matter. (My bank disagrees with him, unfortunately.)

I was at an outdoor supply store the other day and the owner was really mad about how Obama has screwed everything up for gun owners. There haven't been any changes in gun law; everything is exactly the same as it was under W. Not to mention this guy's business has picked up about 40% as people race to buy new hog legs before Obama gets around to taking them all away. But for this guy Obama is wrong whether he's done something you didn't like, or whether he has not done something you wouldn't like if he did do it.

You have to feel good that everybody is steadfastly committed to their principles, unswayed by any actual events. Who says America has lost its moral compass?

A lot of people thought it was awful that Obama shook hands with Hugo Chavez. Nobody has mentioned that Obama insulted the guy. He said "Como estas?" which means "How are you?" -- but "estas" is the familiar form of the verb. He did NOT say "Como esta?" which is what you say to anybody important. You don't even address your waiter in the familiar form; it is mad phat rude to talk that way to the head of a sovereign nation. It's not quite as bad as if Chavez had greeted Obama with "Hey, boy!" but it's rude. Somewhere between not saying "Sir" to an officer, and meeting a woman and calling her "Honey" or "Cutie Pie."

Maybe this hasn't been brought up because of the inherent paradox. I mean, if you think shaking hands was bad then insulting him would be good, right? But it's impossible for him to do anything good. If shaking hands was OK, then insulting would be bad, and that's impossible. Either way, it's easier if it just never happened at all, and everybody seems to be OK with that.

By the way, "Obama" turns out to be a word commonly used in Southern redneck dialect. I realized this the other day out at LSU when I heard somebody say "Mah bruthern law din come so I drank two sikspack obama self." The six packs were in celebration of this guy getting his Master's degree in English. Or maybe it was his law degree. Either way, you'd think his brother in law would have the decency to show up.