Barack Obama told Diane Sawyer he’d “rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” Well, you’ve got a lot of work to do then, Mr. President. So far you’re looking like nothing more than an asterisk President (as in *First black guy to become US President. His single term marred by ineffectiveness and partisan rancor. Succeeded by Sarah Palin, who, by executive order, deported him to Nigeria for failure to produce his original birth certificate). Of course, this is all just part of Obama’s pre-SOTU posturing.

In other Presidential Posturing news, Obama reportedly will propose a three-year freeze in “non-security” discretionary spending. So, money for mercenary contractors and escalating (maybe even starting; nothing’s better than being a “War President” after all) our military presence around the world is OK, but as for insignificant, trouble-making, do-nothing government agencies – like the EPA, Health and Human Services, and the Department of Interior, among others – well, they’re just gonna have to tighten their belts. If this plan sounds familiar to you, it might be because it was already proposed – by St. John McCain. It was a proposal strongly derided by a certain former Presidential candidate.

“The problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are underfunded.”
[…]
“That is an example of an unfair burden sharing. That’s using a hatchet to cut the federal budget. I want to use a scalpel so that people who need help are getting help and those of us like myself and Senator McCain who don’t need help aren’t getting it. That is how we make sure that everybody is willing to make a few sacrifices.”

“It sounds good,” Obama says of the [spending freeze] proposal. “It is proposed periodically. It doesn’t happen. And in fact an across-the-board spending freeze is a hatchet and we do need a scalpel because there are some programs that don’t work at all. There are some programs that are underfunded and I want to make sure that we are focused on those programs that work.”

Hatchet, bad. Scalpel good. Get it?

Obama will also supposedly talk about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in his State of the Union Address. It’s not clear what he’ll say, but my guess is that he’ll try to pander to “the gays,” by talking a lot, saying very little, and promising even less. I don’t think the gay folks are gonna keep falling for this stuff, Mr. President. Don’t be surprised when you face a primary challenge from Harvey Fierstein, is all I’m sayin’.

You know, I got an e-mail from Dan Plouffe yesterday, asking me to attend (or host) a SOTU “party.” As I’ve pretty much just plain had it with the Obama Administration, I clicked the “unsubscribe” link, which offered an optional spot to tell them why I was opting out. So I told them. I told them how proud I was of this country on election night back in 2008, and how hopeful I was. And I told them how that pride and hope had turned to disappointment, disillusion, and despair (okay, despair might be pushing it a little bit, but I needed another “d” word).

I told them that their rhetoric was empty, and they’d sacrificed “change” (assuming “change” was ever anything more than an empty campaign slogan) in order to pander to a small minority of conservatives. I said that they’d thrown Democrats and Independents who had “hoped” for an end to government bought and paid for by corporate special interests under the bus.

From the un-regulated Wall Street bailout (while regular people are thrown out of their homes), to turning over health care reform to insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry, to escalating the war in Afghanistan, they’ve managed to squander a tremendous amount of goodwill in one short year. All in the name of “bipartisanship.” Except they haven’t been bipartisan, because the only party this Administration seems to care about sucking up to is the Republican Party.

Why am I unsubscribing? Because I’m sick of their empty words, and I’m just plain tired of reading them. And if they think I’m giving them another penny of my money, they’re nuts.

I don’t expect anybody of any importance to actually read what I wrote, but it made me feel better to write it (for a few minutes).

Oh, by the way, did I mention: Syracuse 73, Georgetown 56?