That's right Obama! Tighten the F up!

Shit, even old ass Senators know that it's time to tell President Cool to TU. Respec.

Dear tourists: Thanks for the money. Now GO THE FUCK HOME.

Dear throngs of tourists,

In case you haven’t noticed (or in case you were just among the thousands who missed it through no fault of your own… Bahahaha!), the inauguration of President Barack Obama is over. It was Tuesday, in fact. And today it’s Friday. Yet, incredibly, many of you are here. This is not working out for us.

You see, we actually have work to do. We also had work to do on Monday and Tuesday, but we couldn’t get it done because, well, of you. So it’s now Friday, and it feels like a Wednesday productivity-wise, but the second consecutive Saturday we’ve had to work energy-wise, and yet… you see where I’m going with this.

And now, on this busy day for us, you’re still everywhere. Still completely unsure how to use the world’s easiest public transit system, still unable to get our of your own – let alone our – way, seemingly unable to walk in a straight line anywhere, still taking our tables at restaurants and bars, and still running red lights, turning the wrong way down one way streets and nearly killing us in crosswalks, all while talking on your cell phones and trolling for parking spaces that – if they exist – are ours.

I’m starting to realize why God felt the need to wipe out New Orleans. Hint: it had nothing to do with the locals (watch out Disney!).

AND we were exceedingly nice to you. We did not rob, stab, beat, shoot or rape you. We did not kidnap your children for ransom (in many respects because we kinda felt bad enough for them – seriously, 12 hours in below-freezing weather? I mean, THAT’s kidnapping if not straight up child abuse. Jesus.), intentionally give you wrong directions, or lie to you about how miserable much of your experience was going to be.

And this is how you repay us; by STAYING for a few more days. If we weren’t so sleep deprived we’d probably devise a scheme to have Obama have to be re-inaugurated, too, get you back down there and then just light the Mall on fire. So, for both our sakes, go home please. It’s time. Go back to Applebees, and take your Starter jackets and your Big Ten sweatshirts with you. Let us have our city back. We’d threaten to descend upon yours and return the favor but, let’s face it, there’s no fucking way we’d ever spend ANY time there beyond the three-hour layover we’re forced to take on flights to Vegas.

Yours, Dick Whitman

State Department Must Tighten

Come on, slackers. This one was a lob. Tighten!

Bill Clinton on Fear vs Hope

Are you listening, voters? Hillary?

Samuelson to Obama: Tighten Up

Real Clear Politics via Orville:

The Obama Delusion

By Robert Samuelson

WASHINGTON -- It's hard not to be dazzled by Barack Obama. At the 2004 Democratic convention, he visited with Newsweek reporters and editors, including me. I came away deeply impressed by his intelligence, his forceful language and his apparent willingness to take positions that seemed to rise above narrow partisanship. Obama has become the Democratic presidential front-runner, precisely because countless millions have formed a similar opinion. It is, I now think, mistaken.

As a journalist, I harbor serious doubt about each of the likely nominees. But with Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain, I feel that I'm dealing with known quantities. They've been in the public arena for years; their views, values and temperaments have received enormous scrutiny. By contrast, newcomer Obama is largely a stage presence defined mostly by his powerful rhetoric. The trouble, at least for me, is the huge and deceptive gap between his captivating oratory and his actual views.

The subtext of Obama's campaign is that his own life narrative -- to become the first African-American president, a huge milestone in the nation's journey from slavery -- can serve as a metaphor for other political stalemates. Great impasses can be broken with sufficient good will, intelligence and energy. "It's not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white," he says. Along with millions of others, I find this a powerful appeal.

But on inspection, the metaphor is a mirage. Repudiating racism is not a magic cure-all for the nation's ills. It requires independent ideas, and Obama has few. If you examine his agenda, it is completely ordinary, highly partisan, not candid and mostly unresponsive to many pressing national problems.

By Obama's own moral standards, Obama fails. Americans "are tired of hearing promises made and 10-point plans proposed in the heat of a campaign only to have nothing change," he recently said. Shortly thereafter, he outlined an economic plan of at least 12 points that, among other things, would:

-- Provide a $1,000 tax cut for most two-earner families ($500 for singles).

-- Create a $4,000 refundable tuition tax credit for every year of college.

-- Expand the child care tax credit for people earning less than $50,000 and "double spending on quality after-school programs."

-- Enact an "energy plan" that would invest $150 billion in 10 years to create a "green energy sector."

Whatever one thinks of these ideas, they're standard goodie-bag politics: something for everyone. They're so similar to many Clinton proposals that her campaign put out a news release accusing him of plagiarizing. With existing budget deficits and the costs of Obama's "universal health plan," the odds of enacting his full package are slim.

A favorite Obama line is that he will tell "the American people not just what they want to hear, but what we need to know." Well, he hasn't so far.

Consider the retiring baby boomers. A truth-telling Obama might say: "Spending for retirees -- mainly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- is already nearly half the federal budget. Unless we curb these rising costs, we will crush our children with higher taxes. Reflecting longer life expectancies, we should gradually raise the eligibility ages for these programs and trim benefits for wealthier retirees. Both Democrats and Republicans are to blame for inaction. Waiting longer will only worsen the problem."

Instead, Obama pledges not to raise the retirement age and to "protect Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiaries." This isn't "change"; it's sanctification of the status quo. He would also exempt all retirees making less than $50,000 annually from income tax. By his math, that would provide average tax relief of $1,400 to 7 million retirees -- shifting more of the tax burden onto younger workers. Obama's main proposal for Social Security is to raise the payroll tax beyond the present $102,000 ceiling.

Political candidates routinely indulge in exaggeration, pandering, inconsistency and self-serving obscurity. Clinton and McCain do. The reason for holding Obama to a higher standard is that it's his standard and also his campaign's central theme. He has run on the vague promise of "change," but on issue after issue -- immigration, the economy, global warming -- he has offered boilerplate policies that evade the underlying causes of the stalemates. These issues remain contentious because they involve real conflicts or differences of opinion.

The contrast between his broad rhetoric and his narrow agenda is stark, and yet the press corps -- preoccupied with the political "horse race" -- has treated his invocation of "change" as a serious idea rather than a shallow campaign slogan. He seems to have hypnotized much of the media and the public with his eloquence and the symbolism of his life story. The result is a mass delusion that Obama is forthrightly engaging the nation's major problems when, so far, he isn't.