Sure, Being Frighteningly Narcissistic is Change...

I've had enough of the revoltingly torrid love affair the Mainstream Media (MSM) has with the current US President. Seriously, from the infamous Chris Matthews Tingle to the Colbert Speech Comparison Computer, this President is being celebrated for being inept, rude, and just plain embarrassing.

Before I get to the most offensive episode of his Hundred Days, I will give a brief and unattributed overview of the things that irritate me about the ceaseless gushing over President Obama. Firstly: he is not a magnificent orator. He has presentational skill, of a sort, but regardless of what material he is addressing it is the same solemn and yet energetic tone. Every statement he makes is declamatory, as if his mode of speech was permanently locked on "Gravitas". This is not the mark of a great orator. This is the mark of a great presenter, and this leads me to my second proof of his oratorical inadequacy: the teleprompter. Has anyone else noticed that in the absence of a teleprompter to read, or an opportunity to plagiarize great lines (yeah, Audacity of Hope isn't original...at least he left out the God Damn America part) The Great Orator tends to floss with his shoelaces. Bitterly clinging to God and guns? Bowling like the Special Olympics? Quick, stop the presses! Cicero is reborn! I'm sure I'm not the first commenter (See Steyn, Coulter, et al) to have noticed that the current President sounds more than a little like the Hallmark Special Memories line of greeting cards. Real orators are ALWAYS on. A real orator can walk into a room with a cue card bearing only a single word, and speak for an hour. A real orator can scribble his thoughts on a page while traveling to the site of a speech, and leave us in awe for decades. This President's inaugural was a historic moment, and the address didn't even come close to meeting the occasion.

Secondly, his inexperience and frankly boorish behaviour is not excusable as "a new way of doing things". Prime Minister Brown gave President Obama a penholder carved from wood taken from the sister ship to the Resolute (of Presidential Desk fame). Two anti-slaving ships, reunited as necessary implements of policy-making for America's first Black President. Brilliant, touching, totally appropriate. A 25 DVD set, given to a man blind in one eye, in the wrong format for UK DVD players? Well played. Don't forget the official White House plastic pen. Giving the Queen of England an iPod full of hip hop and your own speeches is not a cool new way of doing politics, it's a new kid trying to show off. Also? YOU DO NOT TOUCH THE QUEEN WITHOUT PERMISSION! This isn't some quaint custom, it is law! The Queen is the head of state for more than one country, and is also the Head of a major Christian Sect. Your wife, similar to Jackie O as the press might label her, is not permitted to casually wrap her arm around the Queen.

My point is this: President GW Bush was given flak at every possible opportunity for the smallest nuance of his behaviour. Sometimes he even deserved it. Why isn't the same standard being held to this President? It's like we're reliving the Clinton days! Some things are just not okay regardless of how cool and popular the MSM tells us you are. Being stylish and relatively young and potentially handsome is all well and good, but these things do not a leader make. Get a grip, Mr. President. You aren't organizing a community anymore. In this game, unrepentant terrorists actually kill people, rather than just bore college students to death.