How fitting.
President Obama’s soon to be barely remembered line from Tuesday’s State of the Union (#SOTU) is “turn the page.”
Full disclosure – I did not watch the #SOTU address largely because there were so many other available options on cable that same night in which the outcome was not predetermined. Honestly, why watch yet another round of Them v Us?
I did skim the speech on line and was struck by the continual use of the pronoun “I” – only 74 times this speech, so apparently the psychotherapy is really paying off for the president. He’s not quite as obsessed with himself as he used to be.
As a child of the 70s and 80s, “Turn The Page” means Bob Seger’s 1973 song by the same name.
The #SOTU brought back memories of high school baseball in the spring 1982 when a pitcher called me – the catcher – to the mound. I catcher jog up there “Hey, what’s up?”
“I can’t throw a strike today!”
“No sh!t. I think you’re secret’s out though.”
Usually I went to the mound to cut the tension with a wild pitcher by telling a funny joke about the umpire’s lack of personal hygiene or inability to see or how cold it was or about our mutual hatred of the coach- ANYTHING – to break the negativity rolling around in his head. Usually it just meant dropping one of the George Carlin Top Seven.
This pitcher tells me to yell out “SEGER!” to calm him down.
I give him a very pensive “Huh? What the *blank* are you talking about?” (let me in the psycho ward please..)
“My favorite Seger song is ‘Turn The Page’…it calms me down.”
Noting that having a pitcher sing a song between each pitch could take a while, I ask “Which part?”
“I dunno…I just start singing it and then I throw strikes.”
“Whatever, man…just Turn The Page on this guy, will ya?” Catcher jog back giving the “beats the heck out of me” shoulder shrug to the coach.
The pitcher smiled, struck out the next batter, and then got wild again.
So as requested, I lift up the mask and yell out “SEGER!”
He strikes the next guy out. We did this for the next couple of innings until I just made a turning the page motion with my throwing hand.
The refrain goes like this
“Here I am, on the road again/There I am, up on the stage
Here I go, playing the star again/ Here I Go, turn the page”
There President Obama goes again up on the stage playing the star again ready to turn the page.
Yes, the fundamental transformation of our great nation continues apace in ObamaLand. Nary a word was spoken about job killing EPA regulations due out soon that will call for unattainable emission reductions that will be mitigated by fines, penalties, and taxes.
Nothing about regulating – for the first time – the backbone of the global economy – the American internet.
But the economy is growing largely to due to the resilience of the ever shrinking American workforce with a Labor Participation Rate of 62.7 in December which is down from January 2009 when the LBR was 65.7.
The ingenuity and exceptional productivity in the oil and gas industries are producing record levels of More Supply while the world’s economy slows into Less Demand = lower crude oil prices. Actually a 50% reduction since the summer of 2014.
Liberals hate – purple Jesus passion HATE – hydraulic fracturing but crow because Obama’s economic policies seem to working because his poll numbers are over 50% these days.
They love that the lower gas prices made the Federal Credit Card monthly payments go down a tad, while the principal continues – also apace, to where Obama has been able to make community college free by financing it. Yes, he is most certainly the popularly elected leader of the American people who also went out this holiday season and took the “savings” from lower gas prices and hit the malls to finance more depreciating assets – a.k.a – Stuff.
And so we turn the page.
He’s up on the stage, playing the star again.
It’s just not that interesting anymore.
It’s tiresome, boring, pedantic, and predictable.
But hey – at least my widowed father – seventy six years and counting – FINALLY has pregnancy coverage.
The crisis is over – Grandpa ain’t skeered of gettin done knocked up!
All y’all’s got to lighten up a bit…y’all just needin to turn the daggum page.
Cross posted from Chris Saxman.com
