Wow! Look at the Emperor's New Clothes!

By Ron Fitzwater

The first twenty-some days of the Obama Presidency have not exactly been what he would have hoped, but not as bad as some of us feared.

As predicted by me, his judgment, or lack there of, has been on display as cabinet nominee after cabinet nominee have fallen by the wayside because, for some reason, all these folks suffer from tax-amnesia. Yes, one of the tax-dodgers got through, but lucky for us, he's only running the U.S. Treasury and since the country is broke, how much harm can he do? Of course to get him in the post, the President had to bend his rigid and unbendable standards. So, I guess that really makes them more suggestions than standards.

Lucky for the President, the other nominees with tax-amnesia had the good grace to remove themselves from the process as the President had decided to use his judgment again and call their non-payment of various types of taxes "honest mistakes" and then stepped back.

Come on, even my Democrat and Liberal friends have to agree that if you nominate someone who turns out to have dirty hands, you have to be the one to remove them. Otherwise, you look as if you condone the illegal activity. Especially when the only reason these folks are fixing the issues is because they got caught, not because they felt guilty about it. Not a good message to send to the country since its basically what we have heard for the last eight years.

Then there was his having to face the families of terrorist victims to explain why he was shutting down Gitmo. That had to be a tough day.

But still, in spite of all of that and more, the President bravely decided to face the White House Press Corps (WHPC) on live television Monday night. At first I thought he was nuts. With all of the issues blowing up around him from his disgraced cabinet nominees to all the pork to be found in the stimulus bill, not to mention all the foreign affairs problems.

But I was wrong.

I thought these seasoned hard-nosed reporters would finally get down to business and hit the man with some meat. What they did was continue on as they did during the campaign and coddle, stroke and pitch soft-ball questions to him that were no more than set-ups for talking points. His first response to a question was a rambling trek that droned on for over five minutes and went everywhere but near an answer; his second went eight minutes longer.

Time after time, a reporter would tee it up for him and he would take off.

Even the reporter from FOX News, Major Garrett, was in on the fix and asked the President to comment on a supposed statement made by Vice-President Biden about an unknown topic. Wow! It's like drinking a Slurpee too fast and getting brain-freeze. The President looked at him like he was the dumbest man in the room, and I don't blame him, he may have been.

Twice reporters did try to get some real meat out of him on something. A reporter whose name I didn't catch but worked for CBS visibly irritated the President when he suggested that some of the job packages were more pork than stimulus. Looking down his nose at the guy he appeared more a lecturer than leader. Then he shut-down poor old Helen Thomas, who aside from being nearly 100 years old is known for hitting hard and nailing a point. He barely gave an answer to her question on "So-called terrorists organizations" in the Pakistan/Afghanistan region and then simply ignored and talked over her follow-up questions. That's no way to treat your elders, Mr. President. Show a little respect for a long-time Liberal correspondent.

The President's first press conference was, without a doubt, a stunning success for him as he was able to talk on endlessly and never really say anything. It was a masterful job, and his handlers should be very proud.

As for the WHPC, I am just simply disappointed in an institution that I thought was a bit more than they turned out to be. They are so enamored by the President that they forgot they have a responsibility to the rest of us to dig through the spin for nuggets of truth.

What we witnessed Monday night was nothing more than a modern day version of the children's story The Emperor's New Clothes and they all ooood and ahhhhd while he strolled along naked of substance.

Like the old saying sort-of goes, 'if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull-stuff."

Boy, I can't wait till the State of the Union. It ought to be a hoot.