July has been put in a jar and placed on a shelf, the same fate
that might befall the Obama administration presently. The Prophet,
who began his presidency in January with an approval rating of 70
percent, has seen it plummet to 54 percent at the end of the month,
while his disapproval rating, which began at 11 percent, has soared
to 40 percent, not counting members of the Cambridge,
Massachusetts, police department. Nonetheless the Prophet continues
to sermonize about education, energy, and, most parlously, his
health care monstrosity. In fact, he is the most garrulous
president in history, appearing on television more frequently than
the weatherman, albeit with less good news. In Paris, France, no
sooner was a waxwork statue of him unveiled than it began to melt,
causing panicky employees of the Musée Grevin to open umbrellas to
protect the waxen Obama’s dripping face, supposedly from the sun,
more likely from changing public opinion even in France. As for the
Cambridge police department, it found itself embroiled in a
controversy, pitting one of its officers, Sgt. James Crowley,
against an obscure academic from Harvard State University,
Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and President Obama, who ended
the unhappy affair by getting sloshed in the White House Rose
Garden on the evening of July 30 as the press gaped from behind a
cordon 45 feet away.
The farce began on July 16 when Sgt. Crowley encountered
Professor Gates-known to his friends as “Skip,” as in “skip the
pleasantries”-apparently hollering rap lyrics at his home, which he
had just broken into. The officer heard him intone the line “You
don’t know who [not whom] you’re messin’ with” and something about
“Yo mama,” and promptly clamped handcuffs on the lunatic. The
idiotic interlude reminded syndicated columnist Mr. Mark Steyn of
another of the prof’s public embarrassments, to wit: the time he
gave “expert testimony” in a Florida courtroom on behalf of the rap
group 2 Live Crew. In prepared testimony Mr. Gates, an Eng. Lit.
prof, claimed the group’s gibberish to be “like Shakespeare’s ‘My
love is like a red, red rose.’” Only the line is not Shakespeare’s
but that of the poet Robert Burns and the rap group could no more
write that line than read it. Professor Gates’s arrest inspired our
president to comment unfavorably on the Cambridge police (who, he
said, “acted stupidly”) during a press conference, which inflated
the row into a national racial controversy with him at the center.
Hoping to defuse the controversy, Mr. Obama then asked the
policeman and the prof to the White House for a round of beers in
what would be “a teachable moment.” Unfortunately no sooner were
the beers served than the president was photographed slouched back
in his chair, his collar open, and his gestures lethargic.
On a happier note, the White House remains committed to putting
out press releases featuring misspellings and typographical errors
characteristic of our public school system. On July 8, an official
document sent to reporters from the General Services Administration
(GSA) misspelled the president’s first name. The next day the GSA
blundered in announcing its award of an $18 million contract for a
website, spelling “Recovery.gov” as “Recvoery.gov.” Then, in a
joint statement from Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President
Obama, the White House misspelled “welcomed” as “wlecomed,” while
avoiding the tricky problem of the president’s first name by just
not mentioning it. The young administration is also becoming more
proficient at getting its message out. Rebutting ugly rumors that
the First Lady, during her trip to Russia, was flaunting a $5,950
clutch purse by the luxury designer VBH, the press office
identified the purse as being a VBH lesser model and costing a mere
$875.
Congressman Henry Waxman was rushed to Los Angeles’s
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after he fainted in his district
office, possibly when a visitor inadvertently whistled the Star
Spangled Banner, a song that often alarms him. In a related story,
a Chinese girl who at birth was named “Chicken Dung” has changed
her name upon coming of age to Yingzi, which roughly translates
into English as “Britney.” Her father, Mr. Zhu Xiansheng, gave her
the feculent name after a rural doctor treated her for a mysterious
illness that she suffered as a baby by covering her in chicken
dung, or “Ji Shi,” as she was called. “She had a serious illness
when she was one,” the father reported to the press, “and she was
sick for two or three months,” before the chicken dung kicked in.
Possibly a place can be found for this miracle cure in the
cost-cutting section of the Obama health care package, particularly
if chicken dung remains relatively inexpensive and is not produced
by one of the country’s diabolical pharmaceutical corporations.
North Korea’s dashing numero uno, Mr. Kim Jong Il, is reportedly
suffering pancreatic cancer, which might explain his irritable
nuclear program and the recent launch of North Korean missiles.
Miss Katie Couric was thrown into a panic when Indonesians
re-elected President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Ms. Couric has
dreaded pronouncing the name for months, even after CBS News
brought in a speech therapist.
Mr. Walter Cronkite died. He was 92 and it seemed he had been 92
all his life. Death also claimed Mr. Robert McNamara, 93, who as
secretary of defense became identified with what at the time of his
death the media were wont to call the “Vietnam debacle.” Also in
the obituaries was Mr. Henry Allingham, a British veteran of World
War I and at 113 years of age the world’s oldest man, who
attributed his longevity to “cigarettes, whiskey, and wild, wild
women.” The title now has passed to a resident of Great Falls,
Montana: Mr. Walter Breuning, who rather disappointingly attributes
his longevity to “practicing moderation.” Mr. Breuning is 112 years
old, and if he lives long enough he may be passing the title on to
none other than Mr. Bernard Madoff, 71. Mr. Madoff was sentenced to
150 years in prison for financial irregularities, meaning that at
the time of his release he will be 221 years old, an age never
before attained by any human being, male or female. Yet given Mr.
Madoff’s facility with numbers he just might make it.
At The Hague former Liberian President Charles Taylor denied
ever eating human flesh or ordering his soldiers to do so, though
he did stress a nutritious diet for his troops high in fiber and
leafy greens. Back in the States, birdwatchers continue to be
harassed by the authorities even in enlightened Connecticut, where
19 birders were arrested and more than 100 canaries were seized.
Canaries? Can you believe it? Lovely little yellow songbirds, and
the cops in Shelton, Connecticut, accused the birders of running a
bird-fighting operation. It is as though President George W. Bush
were still in the White House. Yet the Crisis contains some good
news too. In the UK, police officers who practice witchcraft have
applied to the Home Office to organize a Pagan Police Association.
They are already free to take off for Pagan holidays, including
Halloween and April Fools’ Day. The number of Pagans in the UK who
are police officers is estimated to be more than 500. Practicing
witchcraft and druidism, they worship nature and Pagan gods and are
almost identical in their beliefs to members of the American
National Wildlife Federation, though perhaps not so vehement in
expressing them.
