"If you're havin' a good time let me hear you say 'YEAH!'"
Words. For Your Consideration...
"Because he is the object of unceasing criticism, Obama is also the object of unceasing attention. Day after day and night after night his is the face we see and the voice we hear. (On Sunday, we could have seen and heard him on five networks.) Like Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, he bestrides the political landscape like a colossus.
Every administration takes its name from the president, but in this administration the president seems to be the only one performing. Cabinet members and party leaders barely rise to the status of supporting players. Even when they’re in the room, as Arne Duncan was when the schoolchildren were exhorted to study hard, they fade into the background.
...Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner stumbled a bit in his first public appearance as the expert on the financial crisis and has barely been heard from again. Robert Gates is certainly secretary of defense, but speculations about Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict center on what Obama will do. Health care is on everyone’s mind, but how many people could name the current secretary of health and human services if their lives depended on it? Ray Lahood is the secretary of transportation, but when it came time to explain the GM bailout to the American people, guess who did it?
...The only political figures who pronounce regularly and firmly on matters of current concern are David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, and everyone knows that their job is to carry Obama’s message.
...what will happen remains unclear. But whatever happens, Obama’s stature — his size relative to the size of all others in the field — will not be diminished. If health care reform is achieved, he will get the credit. If it is not, the blame will be distributed among all those whose exertions he encouraged by appearing to do nothing. And when it is all over, it will still be all Obama, all of the time."
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