Missing Link

Swat!



Posted: Wednesday, June 17, 2009

by Missing Link

S wift W allet A gainst T rouble

SWAT THEM!

Perhaps the thing people like most about President Obama isn't his policies or his youth or his race or his wife, kids and dog, perhaps it is that he's decisive. Like his fly swatting yesterday, he sees a problem and SWAT, he moves quickly and decisively to finance solutions to it.

The SWAT philosophy is counter to traditional government that says confer and barter. And yet many well-loved leadership axioms apply to Obama's approach: Lead follow or get out of the way; let's do something, even if it's wrong; if it ain't broke, fix it anyway. SWAT that fly and don't convene a committee to talk about it and don't take a poll. SWAT first, ask questions later.

Lobbyists for health care are buzzing around your head? Lots of us out here need health care and can't even afford gasoline for the car. SWAT THEM! Pour money into health care reforms.

Bank lobbyists are buzzing around their wings whining about new regulations? SWAT THEM! Pour money into banks and new government regulators.

Republicans are buzzing around whining about the spending that their party started rolling? SWAT THEM! Pour money into everything they're against because their (masculine parts) are still at the shop for repair.

Simpering Democrats whining about health care? SWAT Them! Pour money into their issues.

Oil company lobbyists hovering close buzzing about more drilling and less regulation of their industry? SWAT THEM! Pour money into alternative energy.

So is SWAT a good way to govern? That's the trillion dollar question. But until the Republicans are able to find a leader who can recast their image as something other than Fox News-Limbaugh-Savage hardball right wing nut jobs, SWAT is going to be the guiding US political philosophy. My only disappointment about the video in which the President swats the fly is that he didn't pull out his wallet to do so.

Just a simple curmudgeon observing life in the USA.  Cranky posts to his blog regularly at http://crankyblog.com.

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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)
» left by David Pekrul
 2 years 330 days ago.
70 fans.
I can't believe that the fly swatting incident actually made the news, even here in Canada. I'll bet you folks in the USA didn't hear the news about the knife toting gorilla in the Calgary Zoo, did you? Seems a zoo attendant dropped his knife in the gorilla pen and a gorilla picked it up. Someone got a picture of it pointing the knife at another gorilla.
Well, back to the intent of this article. My feeling is that throwing money at every problem that comes the way of the nation, any nation, is the wrong approach. Money is not the answer; good policies are.
» left by Missing Link 2 years 330 days ago.
23 fans.
Thanks for your comment and no I didn't see the gorilla with the knife!  Where are you in Canada?  I'm a Canadian by birth!  Toronto, but that was loooong ago.
» left by David Pekrul 2 years 329 days ago.
70 fans.
I was born in New Westminster and raised in Port Coquitlam. Both these towns are in the Vancouver area. I now live in Okotoks, Alberta, which is a small town just south of Calgary.
» left by Missing Link 2 years 329 days ago.
Oh! I have cousins in Vancouver and in Nanaimo. I think there's one in Calagary as well but can't recall if he's still there or not.
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