Obama's Caddyshack Summit (GOP Welcome 1:00 to 1:15)

I can't help but think of Caddyshack as Obama welcomes Republicans to his "health care summit" today. Just like the scene where the Country Club shows its appreciation to the caddies by allowing them to use the pool for fifteen minutes, Obama has graciously invited Republicans to present their ideas for a few hours after locking them out of the process for an entire year. Showing a total disregard for new ideas or a willingness to start over, the president went so far as to post his own bill before the meeting, which one expects he will spend the entire time defending rather than listening openly.

President Obama and his staff have been meeting in back rooms with Democrats for 300+ days, cutting deals left and right, but he doesn't want the American people to focus on that. He wants us to focus on the one day at the end of the process when Republicans were finally given an opportunity to share the stage, no matter how cosmetic. If the president truly wanted a bipartisan health care bill, he would have called this summit 300 days ago at the beginning of the process. But, of course, the president doesn't want that. He's going to ram his overreaching vision through despite the objections of the country and despite its highly partisan nature.

Let's call this photo-op what it is - an empty gesture designed to make Obama look like he's not the arrogant, tone deaf idealogue we've all come to know. The president likes to complain about political theater, yet here he is using Republicans as props in his version of an infomercial for a plan opposed by a majority of Americans.

There appears to be at least one big difference between ObamaCare and Caddyshack though. Obama and the Democrats aren't just leaving a Baby Ruth behind. Their state-run health care is a real stinking pile of you-know-what for the American people.

President Pantywaist Gets Butch Makeover

When the New York Times runs a front page story bragging about what a masculine president Barack Obama is, complete with a photo of him in the midst of a jump shot, it immediately raises my suspicions. After all, this is President Pantywaist we're talking about. I've seen him bowl, attempt to throw out a first pitch at a baseball game, and ride a bicycle. None of these efforts could be described as great displays of testosterone. In fact, Hillary Clinton, pantsuit and all, has often appeared more masculine.

The New York Times, of course, disguises their bragging by pretending to raise the question of whether the president is ignoring some females in his administration by not including them in basketball games and golf outings. Seriously. That's the premise of the article. Would it even make the back page of your corporate newsletter? And yet the Times, the same newspaper that couldn't find any space to mention the Van Jones or Acorn scandals, has room to ask "Is the president too masculine?" on the front page of their Sunday edition.

Which disenfranchised females at the White House does the story quote, you ask? None. Okay. One. Communications Director Anita Dunn, but she defends the president from these accusations. Which is probably why I'm comfortable calling out this story as completely bogus. This is a planted piece of propaganda if I ever saw one. No wonder Emanuel and Axelrod are attacking Fox News. It's the only media outlet they can't manipulate into running PR pieces for their guy.

Don't believe me? Take a look at this dribble masquerading as news that tells us how butch we should think our president is:

"The president, after all, is an unabashed First Guy's Guy. Since being elected, he has demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of college hoops on ESPN, indulged a craving for weekend golf, expressed a preference for adopting a "big rambunctious dog" over a "girlie dog" and hoisted beer in a peacemaking effort.

He presides over a White House rife with fist-bumping young men who call each other "dude" and testosterone-brimming personalities like Rahm Emanuel, the often-profane chief of staff; Lawrence Summers, the brash economic adviser; and Robert Gibbs, the press secretary who habitually speaks in sports metaphors."

Beer. Check. Sports. Check. Rambunctious dog. Check. Why he's one of us! Barack Obama isn't the arugula eating, Whole Foods shopping, Ivy League elitist I thought he was. Don't you usually have to pay to run a commercial like this? Somebody pinch me and tell me which side of the iron curtain I'm living on.

Of course the proof that Emanuel and Axelrod are behind this memo comes in the second paragraph, when Rahm, the 5'6" tall former ballerina, is laughingly described as masculine. Talk about pushing their credibility. What's next? Ronnie Reagan, Jr. on the cover of Sports Illustrated? I certainly didn't realize that fist bumps and saying "dude" were a sign of manliness. I'll be sure to tell my twelve year old neighbor.

But in case you still have doubts, the Times gives away the ruse a couple of paragraphs later:

"In interviews, five women who work in the White House or advised officials there described the culture with more of a collective eye-roll than any real sense of grievance or discomfort."

In other words, it's much ado about nothing. We don't have a grievance, we don't even have a source for a quote. All we've got is women rolling their eyes about sports. Stop the press!

The poll numbers must look pretty bleak for the White House to start pretending Barack Obama is a cross between Roger Clemens and Larry Flynt. Democrats always face a gender gap, wooing more female voters than males. One can only guess that males are pulling away in droves having watched the president practice wiener diplomacy around the world, apologizing for America for everything, looking indecisive and uncommitted in Afghanistan, and basically giving concessions in return for nothing (see Iran, Russia). Even female voters generally prefer leaders who make them feel secure.

But it's not just conservatives and moderates who recognize Obama is a beta male. The far left is also getting impatient. They want President Obama to be more aggressive in pursuing his statist policies. They want him to ram through government-run health care no matter what, close Gitmo, pull completely out of Iraq and Afghanistan, penalize and redistribute the wealth of Wall Street, and yes, insult and demonize as many Republicans as possible like Rep. Alan Grayson. So classy, the Left.

So far the only thing Obama has provided for his nutroots base are endless campaign speeches and promises. In their opinion, Obama hasn't "manned up." In fact, that was the exact language used by Joe Queenen in an editorial today in the Wall Street Journal:

"Barack Obama, raised by a single mother, born with no discernible financial advantages, clocked Hillary Clinton, clocked John McCain, and got himself elected the first African-American president of the United States. He got himself elected in a country that was still lynching black people when he was a child. Barack Obama... doesn't need anyone telling him to man up. Especially visual op-ed columnists."

Seems like everyone is getting the butch memo from the White House these days, but Queenen is so slick he even works in the race card. As I've written before, the White House is going to make every issue and piece of legislation about Obama the Symbol, because his progressive policies aren't nearly as popular as he is. That's the thing about cults of personality. You have to keep feeding the legend of the personality.

President Orders More Indoctrination, Please!

You would think in a week where several videos surfaced of public school teachers indoctrinating students with probamaganda, now would be the worst time for the president to propose longer school years and more hours per day spent in public classrooms. After all, you don't want to give those "crazies" who compare you to dictators more fodder. But that's exactly what the president did over the weekend. One can only assume he must have liked what he saw in videos like this:

And this one, all over cable news:

The teachers, of course, claim the kids wrote these songs - and only during the last five minutes of class after their academic work was completed. Really? Seems like a pretty big production to me. Can I give them a pop quiz on their multiplication tables? I don't know many nine year olds who use phrases like "diversity" and "the ground shifted." The second video by itself is a tylenol commercial waiting to happen.

President Bush had No Child Left Behind. This president has No Leftist Child Gets Behind a Conservative. To be fair, the videos were the ideas of the teachers and school districts, not the president. But Obama hasn't spoken out against them or expressed concern that students spend more time learning math and civics and less time learning about him. Shocking, isn't it, given the president mentions himself more times in his speeches than the country he represents?

In fact, if you go back to his campaign last fall, Obama has made a concerted effort to recruit those far too young to cast a ballot. The official Barack Obama website encouraged kids 12 and under to organize and campaign for him by throwing "My Barack" parties, staging mock elections, sending cards designed by Obama's staff to their grandparents pleading for their vote, and even coloring his "O" logo to display on their school bags.

If you don't think it can happen in America, think again. It's happening. I would blow it off if it were just one incident taken out of context, but this is becoming a pattern.

In another case of probamaganda, this worksheet was handed out as a school assignment after the president spoke about health care. Here the teacher presented Obama's claims as unquestionable facts, even though they've been disputed by the Associated Press and the nonpartisan CBO. Proof that it's not the president's speeches being shown in classrooms that cause the controversy, it's how teachers use them to push their own biased agendas.

I know when I was a student, especially in grades 6 through 12, you could usually tell if a teacher was liberal or conservative, but they never went so far as to tell you which candidate they supported. We used to ask our teachers sometimes, and they would always say it was a private matter. In America, they would tell us, we have a secret ballot. Politics was considered off-limits in the classroom until we got older, when the room was split in half and both sides of a controversial issue were discussed with the teacher playing neutral moderator.

That's obviously not the case today. Public schools shouldn't tell our children what political party is better any more than they have a right to tell them what religion is the truest. But when just disagreeing with the president's policies can get you labeled as a racist, is anyone surprised they try?

If you want to make kids smarter, stop teaching progressive fluff like the content in these videos. None of this is going to prepare them for life or teach them skills necessary for a career. President Obama misses the point on how to fix our education system. More hours in failing schools with ineffective teachers will add nothing to a student's ability to learn. It will add nothing to our international rank in math and science. Real education reform, just like health care, should be about quality, not quantity. That includes vouchers, but the president is opposed to them, too.

Sadly, as we are beginning to see, President Obama believes that more government is always the answer. And if you don't agree, just give it time. Maybe you can be indoctrinated.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin