Plot Device

It really hasn't been a great week for dictators in general, which should give those of us who love liberty reason to cheer for our brothers across the sea exercising their God-given right to full-throated, democratic, NATO-military-backed freedom from oppression. We of course look forward to the day when Libyans are able to freely exercise their basic human rights in the most traditional ways by electing a legitimate representative government, building a robust, uncensored press and leasing our global, pro-democracy petroleum extraction and refining concerns well-development rights at reasonable rates.

I should be buoyed really, but something doesn't really sit right with me. I think the main problem is Obama. There are the obvious concerns with him being a foreign-born Muslim sleeper agent. That's not really fair as it's mostly just bad luck for him. It's been said about George W. Bush that he was the type of person born on third base but acted like he hit a triple. Obama was born with two strikes against him. And nobody on base. And down by six runs. And two outs in the top of the ninth inning in a road game on dollar beer and Team Logo Chainsaw Giveaway night. And the umpires insisting on using the rules for badminton. Sometimes "post-racial America" just means white people have given up feeling guilty about the whole race thing.

So I cut the guy some slack because he obviously can't win, but I start to see things from the other side when--in the middle of a recession when people don't have jobs and he refuses to cut taxes for rich people--he conveniently goes on vacation. It's hard to find a good time to go on a vacation when you're the world's answer to every problem, fine. More slack. Then the Libya thing hots up and he... stays on vacation. OK, again, I'm sure he's all wired in in case direct intervention is needed. Time away from his desk makes him seem sort of lazy and kind of a traitor, but look, he's been called worse probably just in the past week.

But still, I'm not 100% comfortable. First of all, he's on vacation and I have yet to see him clearing brush, wearing a stupid ten-gallon hat or photographed--even once!--riding a horse. So already his vacationeering has the faintest whiff of effete eau de communisme about it. Nope, no ranch, he's on Martha's Vineyard. It's a "charming" island. Named after a girl and a fruit plant. If we finish this whole debacle with zero pictures of him on a tandem bicycle, I'll be the most shocked I've ever been in my life.

Secondly, what troubles me is that the president goes on vacation, just a few weeks before the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 and, conveniently, just after he evacuates the area, boom, earthquake swarm. I didn't read all the accounts all that closely, but I think I heard the Washington Monument spontaneously detonated and the National Cathedral was sucked through a transdimensional hole in spacetime. And now, Monster Storm of Death heading for the eastern seaboard, like a raging, angry felt eraser bearing down on the scribbly white markerboard of civilization.

Ho, hang on there Pops, we hear what you're saying, but there are such things as coincidences. It wasn't all bad. There was even that nearly simultaneous earthquake down in Peru which gave us all something to laugh at.

To which I say: really? Add in the almost nearly simultaneous dissolution of the long-term relationships of both actress Melissa Gilbert and her adopted gay sister who used to also be famous. And the convenient discovery of the planet made of diamonds. What more evidence do you need? I'm not a conspiracy theorist by nature, but I think this president knows exactly what he's doing. Exactly.

The worst part is the way he rubs it all in our faces by carrying out his plot to physically destroy America by returning to safety at the scene of his most notorious crime. All I can do is shake my head. This is what America has come to: we can't even trust the foreign-born Muslim sleeper agent heads of our government anymore. We haven't had one good foreign-born sleeper agent head of government since Reagan at least. It's almost enough to make you look forward to the day Obama gets around to erecting a super-volcano in the center of the country. Let's just get it over with.