NBC's Political Director: When You Think About It, The Story of the Veteran Soldier Who Did Ten Tours of Duty and Was Badly Injured Defending This Nation and Who Now Spends Every Day in Painful Physical Rehabilitation Is Kind of Obama's Story, Isn't it?

Dude, you nailed it!!!

Obama is indeed like this multiply-wounded, multiply-decorated hero. For both men, nothing has "come easy." I mean, when Bill Ayers took a shine to Obama and gave him a high-dollar paper-pushing sinecure at his charity, that was hard. Like getting shot to pieces, and having a roadside bomb blow molten shrapnel into his brain.

And when Bill Ayers plugged him into his own radical network of aging, wealthy hippies and started Obama's political career from his living room, that was tough sledding. Like having to re-learn how to use your limbs and learn to read and speak again.

And when Bill Ayers wrote Obama's book for him... well, that was like winning the Silver Star.

This is egregious. This is girlish fanboism at its most pubescent (and putrescent).

This is NBC's political director -- not a DKos Diarist.

Former White House speechwriter Jon Favreau -- who recently documented the travail of the "grueling" process of writing the State of the Union speech (the president puts in "back to back 2am nights" rewriting someone else's words!!-- oh my gosh, oh my goodness!) -- heartily agreed.

My first thought was rather about the soldier himself, but I suppose different people have different agendas.

Mollie Hemmingway writes about this and notes something special. You can't excuse this Bieberesque infantile homoerotic obsession as just being a factor of Twitter's compressed and slapdash format.

Nope! When Mark Murray (NBC Political Director) had the opportunity to use as many words as are necessary to convey the full and complete character of his thoughts -- that is, when he was writing NBC's "First Read" column -- he said the same thing.

Except, even more embarrassingly.

*** “America has never come easy”: Last night’s speech also ended on an emotional -- and upbeat -- note when Obama recognized Army Ranger Cory Remsburg, who was almost killed in Afghanistan and continues to recuperate from a brain injury. “My fellow Americans, men and women like Cory remind us that America has never come easy,” the president said. “Our freedom, our democracy, has never been easy. Sometimes we stumble, we make mistakes; we get frustrated or discouraged. But for more than 200 years, we have put those things aside and placed our collective shoulder to the wheel of progress.” That story could also apply to Obama himself: Nothing in his seven years on the national political stage (2007-2014) has come easy. The 2008 race for the Democratic nomination. Even that general election. The health-care law. The re-election campaign. And now the president’s current situation in which he finds himself bloodied and bruised after the botched health-care rollout. Perseverance is an important quality for any president. Bill Clinton was usually able to talk his way out of sticky situations. But Obama’s M.O. is to grind it out. That, more than anything else, was the message he wanted to send last night -- both he and the country are grinding it out.

Ah yes. The "glitchy" website and political fallout from incompetence. Just like getting nearly killed by an IED.

In this analogy, wouldn't Obama be more like the IED itself rather than the victim of the IED?

And, just like Cory Rehmsburg, learning to overcome a serious brain injury, Obama is a real "grinder." I mean, he puts in back to back 2am nights once per year, rewriting someone else's words into his own voice.

It's "grueling," I tell you. In a way, isn't the story of Anne Frank really Obama's story, too?

After all, neither could smoke in their own home. Think about it.

Egregious. Just egregious.

Murray is now doubling down on throne-sniffing.

We were not comparing Remsburg’s story directly to Obama, who in a way has lived a charmed life (especially before becoming president),” Murray said. “But we were talking about the story of perseverance – and that does apply to Obama. Stumbling, making mistakes, and getting up from defeat. That is the story that we said could apply to Obama.”

You can see the lines of perseverance,
and the rejuvenating aloe-and-saffron-oil beauty masks,
etched into his weathered face

“Just talking about the story of perseverance,” when asked specifically about his linking Obama being politically “bloodied and bruised” to Remsburg’s real wounds. “And no doubt, the president and his supporters see the story of perseverance as the lesson of the Obama presidency, if it is to be successful.”

Thanks to @rdbrewer4.

The New Class

We like ourselves a whole heck of a lot.

posted by Ace at 05:55 PM

| Access Comments