Obama, the tough guy, offers more self-important posing after election losses

If he didn't prove it already to everyone who isn't fully enamored with him, the other day Obama showed that he is the narcissistic supermodel of politics: a major poser. 

Obama said he heard the two-thirds of registered voters who didn't vote, in the most extraordinarily arrogant example of a self-serving political interpretation of the citizenry he's ever given. This was only the day after the sting of a Senate control shift to Republicans, and additions to the House and governors' mansions for the opposition party. 

Funny, I thought I heard those registered voters who didn't vote, too. Though for me, they said nothing. Because that's what not voting is. Saying NOTHING. A non-vote, or "if you choose not to decide" as the Rush song goes, is the freedom to abandon the process. Did Obama also hear the many voting age Americans who don't register? A non-vote is not a clear message to one side or the other of an election, as Obama absurdly pretended it was. Not voting is a sign that people need to wake up and participate. That's it. It's on those people who did not vote to resist their functional apathy next time, and vote. And to do more within the system than only vote. Learn about the items on the ballot, not just assume what they are, for instance. 

What's more, Obama's self-important claim that he heard this silence was an open ended claim. He didn't really explain what he claimed he heard. Well, that's convenient for him, isn't it? I don't buy into it. 

The silence is not Obama's to interpret now any more than it was anyone's to interpret his intentions when he voted present in Illinois state senate. 

If it were Obama's place to interpret the election acts of inaction, then perhaps now that Congress is fully in opposition hands, that branch of our federal government should be free to interpret his empty promises as non-votes in their own way and proceed as they see fit, despite him. After all, talking tough,  Obama has said that he intends to behave similarly -- to disregard Congress -- on immigration "reform." 

Thank the president, once again, for setting the wrong tone. And hope that somehow less stiff and autocratic thinking can prevail, despite Obama, during the next two years.


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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• Rick Scott and Charlie Crist May Be Tools, but People Who Don't Vote Are Bigger Tools

Hi, I'm Charlie Crist, and I am running for US Senate

In a few hours, if the voting gods are merciful to me, Charlie Crist will be making a concession speech in the Florida governor's race.

Here's why I don't like the man, despite believing that, loosely, his time as governor the first time around wasn't so bad. (You cannot lay much blame on Crist for the recession, for instance.)

Crist, in 2010, exited the guv's mansion after one fairly successful term, thinking he could walk into the US Senate that year. He SHOULD have run for a second governor's term at that time, and he likely would have won. INSTEAD, he seemed to have proven (to those who paid attention) what his real colors were. By the end of the 2010 Senate campaign, his behavior showed he was a MERE career politician who would say anything, and take any position, simply to gain that power he lusts for like a 14-year-old hormone-raging boy in a Victoria's Secret store. 

He was a nasty SOB up against the far cooler-headed, more principled and unpretentious Marco Rubio in 2010. And Crist kept coming, and looking worse each time: When Crist lost the Republican primary to Rubio, he turned independent to try and earn his rightful place (in his mind) at the high seat of power he so richly deserved. Then he got really nasty.

Crist lost, and did it attacking the same positions he claimed to hold only months prior. Plus, he called Marco Rubio a dangerous extremist, a radical, part of that dangerous Tea Party, yadda yadda. Rubio: an EXTREMIST?! CRIST proved himself a political merchant only. THEN, after all his shrill maneuvering didn't work in 2010, Crist became a Democrat. And he ran for governor, again. As he should have in 2010, but this time with a new party affiliation. Why they took him, I don't know. 

If he wins the governor's race, I would like to begin selling bumper stickers that say "I'm Governor Charlie Crist, and I am running for Senate."

That's why I don't want Crist: he's only a politician. He's got nothing else to offer. We have enough career politicians.

- J Ruse