President Obama says “The gray is coming quick” as Barack Obama joins the ranks of presidents aging in office. The unending stress of the office causes presidents to age twice as fast from stress. Especially wartime presidents and those who smoked. Some say President Obama has aged a decade since taking office due to those Obama high-stakes decisions, like which golf course to play at. Or could it also be due to Obama being one of the 12 presidents who smoked weed? George Washington was another and even Abraham Lincoln had quotes on hemp use. Most presidents used tobacco, some like FDR were chain smokers and President Kennedy′s cigar habit was well known, as was Bill Clinton′s, too, whose heart disease required a quadruple bypass.
I recall a scene in the beginning of that classic political thriller, ″Seven Days In May″, where the president is getting a check up by his doctor while dealing with the stress of a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Russians. The doctor observed that the president′s blood pressure rose three points with every letter he dictated and pondered why we elect a man to such an office that is so physically demanding. The President responds telling the doctor that when his blood pressure hits 200, to release the news to the press as it would make the military, big business and the labor unions happy.
Those who run for the office in the first place are usually extreme cases of Alpha Males. Presidents are by necessity power-seekers. They want their shot in the big chair. Their overconfidence is usually a means of compensation for some other personal drawback. Teddy Roosevelt spent much of his early life as a sickly asthmatic child. His nephew FDR had to deal with adult polio. Both Richard Nixon and John Kennedy shared having stern, overbearing fathers who favored a sibling. Even George Washington spent much of his early life being belittled by British aristocracy. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were essentially abandoned by their fathers.
But the desire to achieve greatness and overcome such drawbacks does not always translate well for these presidents aging in office twice as fast from unending stress. President Obama, whose “Gray is coming quick”, is also among those president who smoke. Not only tobacco, but Obama is one of 12 presidents who smoked weed. Clearly, Obama is way over his head as commander-in-chief. He has no real executive skills and certainly has no clear idea as to how to help solve the nation′s problems. But then, that may not be why he sought the office in the first place. His true agenda may be much different.
July 17th, 2011 at 7:55 am
Is HE sucking his thumb in the picture above?
July 17th, 2011 at 10:25 am
Obama sure is sucking…, at everything!
July 17th, 2011 at 10:48 am
Oh andy get real. You guys want him to fail and are throwing everything inhumanely possible at him you can. A lot of what is going on now is just the natural trajectory of the Reagan reset and the Bush final kick in the pants to the country and with the republicans saying no to everything resembling any kind of compromise there won’t be any easy or even available political fix. I still haven’t heard any real critique of johnson’s great society and how that dove tails into this. I think what he did and reagan did set most of this up, and so did the civil rights act and globalization and mass immigration, legal and illegal. All of these things have decimated the middle class and essentially third worlded us. Obama simple is getting it final half decade of the brew uphopping out of the pot. He doesn’t have the discretionary power to just magic wand it. And the republicans are figting him on everything, even things they previously supported. Signing on to grover norquest no new taxes pledge, on a single activist, thus giving him complete veto power over an entire party is undemocratic and Antiamerican. So in the end, I conclude, all you guys want to do, in bad faith, is ruin obama’s presidency and reduce or take out all the social compacts between the federal government and its poeple and simply fund a giant war making machine that does little else. reneging on our bonds to our creditors is very AntiAmerican. Its a financial coup. Your like little gaddahfi’s really all rolled up into one party. I say this separate from even addressing the issue of democratic party excesses, the growth of unions, pension reform, too much governmental duplication, weird regulations, bizarre justice system enforcement of selected cases, etc etc etc. Before we can even get there, we have this republican tea partie issue, and I say they are not addressing the problem in a way that will address it, its all a poker game to get obama out. We all are the cancer and obama is one more cancer surgeon called in to access it and come up with a magic plan. But then you vetoe all the chemo, radio, and surgical therapies he offers, and he offers this in consultation with your best ideas as well, and so………..
July 17th, 2011 at 10:56 am
Every president in office gets a bad rap. I am so tired of americans putting down our president. You don’t realize it really is a hard job and if we as americans don’t stop putting down every single president that goes into office then we do deserve to be in the situations we are in!!! And no he is not sucking is thumb, look closer duh!
July 17th, 2011 at 11:00 am
Probably if I were obama I after the republicans and tea partiers default us, I would just pay the bond interest to our creditors and the military and the salaries of a frozen I.R.S. and F.B.I’. and small units in the treasury and CDC and giant Health agencies, the geomappers, and whats left of nasa, social security if possible and send everyone else home, freeze prosecutions, downsize the prisons where at all possible, and turn over the internal management of the states to themselves and give them some tax credits for continuing in state medicare and medicaid. I think that is all we can do, even if that. We would have to start cutting the military budget immediately too, but be sure its orderly and people are paid. As a taxpayer I am willing to pay more if the rich pay too to fix the problem, but not for new spending. I think we should prepare for this. Likely Congress will do something positive after that as they won’t be holding any trumph cards over the presidency and they will want to get re-elected. Then see what the people say. But it will put us back in a much deeper recession as a lot of government money ends up in paychecks, unemployment, emdical care that goes to pay mortgages, rent, groceries, cars, schools, clothing, all of it. It will be a depression till congress either does something or a decade or two go by.
July 17th, 2011 at 11:14 am
I agree Miranda. I noticed when we started badmouthing Jimmy Carter, we always turn on our presidents since the nixon days. I think part of that is the television news cycle now on steroids with the internet. Generate controversy for more eyeballs and get your advertising revenue up. Television makes the president, then breaks the president. I think the revelations of Rupert Murdoch’s empire’s news gathering tactics tells it all. Its really mostly artificial all the good and bad that is said about the president. We are being played and manipulated by the media and the human gossip cycle. The media is so sanctimonious too. Murdoch may be in some big trouble, and his whole empires news style if he knew what Brooke knew and being as close as they are I wonder. How could he not know or guessed about the hacking tactics used given the scoops? Is he going to play his staff snowed him? I have never known a boss that isn’t interested “in the process” even if sporadically. The boss, always knows. Dick Nixon knew everything.
July 17th, 2011 at 11:20 am
Digging ditches is a hard job. Reading a teleprompter in between jobs is fairly easy.
An you are right – he isn’t sucking his thumb, he’s picking his nose.
July 17th, 2011 at 11:39 am
My bad – that was supposed to say
Digging ditches is a hard job. Reading a teleprompter in between HOLES is fairly easy.
And you are right – he isn’t sucking his thumb, he’s picking his nose.
July 17th, 2011 at 11:55 am
Oh, Brian…
As I have pointed out numerous times, we have plenty of federal revenue to avoid a default. It is simply a matter of priorities. What does Obama value more? America keeping its Triple-A bond rating or funding union jobs building turtle tunnels under Florida highways or egghead professors with shrimp on treadmills?
Obama still has not paid back the $700 Billion in TARP money, which by law was supposed to be used for debt reduction. His fixation with ending oil company subsidies and the corporate jet thing only would bring in an extra $2.3 Billion a year. The Department of Education, which simply should not exist, costs us $95 Billion a year. If he really wanted to raise revenue, he ought to sell oil leases for off-shore drilling, since oil, gas and mining leases account for nearly 25% of all federal revenue.
Face facts, Obama is a dunce!
July 17th, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Yes Miranda,
EVERY President gets attacked by the Media and populace in general. We had 8 years of people accusing GW Bush of being everything from H*t!er to a terrorist. He was blamed for the disaster in New Orleans during Katrina when all of the evidence points to the state and local government screwing up. Oh, but we cannot blame Mayor Ray Nagin for dropping the ball and not organizing a proper evacuation. Or the local levee commission which wasted and stole money for years.
If you want to sit in the Big Chair, then expect to get beat up for everything. It is every American’s right to complain.
July 17th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
oh Andy, I am not necessarily against oil subsidies and corporate jets if they pass two tests. 1. They create real jobs or subsidize them enough to create them. 2. They jump start some new technology and engieering efforts that will pioneer new industries, and thus jobs. But to just give money to offset taxes, no. Yes leases generate a lot of state and fed revenue, but I would posit lets save those oils for a 100 years from now when the rest of the world is running out and go for higher efficencys for use. I think the newer cars with better mileage are already cutting our demand for international oil a noticable amount. There is no reason we cannot go another round of improved mileage and also upgrade our electric grids and green buildings to push the savings even further. Keeping our AAA bond rating gives all americans lower credit card and mortgage interest rates. I do believe the modern economic theorists that feel a successful going concern should borrow extra money to a marginal degree to push its growth horizon, just don’t over do it.
July 17th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Let’s see, Brian…
The oil industry employs some 9 Million Americans and the general aviation industry about 1.1 million. America leads the world still in corporate jet exports. Given that most people employed in these two industries are A) Union, and B) well-paid Middle Class, I would say that the $2.3 Billion to keep them happy is well worth every penny. Unlike Obama’s green-jobs which cost us over $400,000 each and most of the crony companies getting the federal handouts are still doing most of their manufacturing overseas.
July 17th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
BTW, while Obama talks about spending cuts, none of them occur for 10-12 years, well after he has added another $20 Trillion to the National Debt. We need IMMEDIATE spending cuts. For this year and next year and only those should count towards any increase in the debt ceiling.
July 17th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
but andy do they really need the 2.3 billion to be happy when we are going to cut medicare and social security and limit veteran benifits? As I said, I a taxpayer, am willing to pay a little more if the rich do so we can target this deficit problem, double time, once and for all. I am about getting it done!!!! It will send a wonderful message to the markets that Americans take their business seriously and are reliable and good payers.
July 17th, 2011 at 1:41 pm
I think we need economic certainty and with that global markets will start calming down knowing we are going to get our act together. The spending cuts should be part of a logical government reduction plan which will take some putting together as we will have to reprioritize ourselves. for example: Is there still a great society program in place? Are the bush taxes permanent? How do we tax so as to push the growth curve for real? How much military involvement should we sustainably fund?
July 17th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
see this is real American Presidential like thinking, not your simple puritan self serving thinking and schilling for the rich and corporate sole interests.
July 17th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Brian,
The federal government owns about 60%-plus of all the land west of the Mississippi, not to mention about 90% of Alaska. Let’s sell some! Let’s sell some drilling and mining leases. We can come up with more than enough cash to take care of those who truly need help.
Which, BTW, is what the reforms in the Paul Ryan 2012 budget call for. Eliminating those pesky millionaires from getting Social Security checks and Medicare. You know, “MEANS TEST” recipients.
The government just simply wastes too much money! The whole ethanol subsidy is one big scam. Not only does it drive food prices up, it actually has a negative net-effect on petroleum usage and even the environmental (clean air) benefits are dubious. Partly because we have less hydrogen byproduct from distilling gasoline to add to diesel fuel and make it cleaner and easier on our lungs.
July 17th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Under the Constitution, Brian, laws, and taxes MUST be UNIFORM. They should apply to everyone equally. Which is why the only type of taxes that would do so is either a straight flat tax on income, both personal and corporate, or a national sales tax. Either would negate much of the power that lobbyists have and we would have better government as a result, not to mention more economic growth and job creation.
July 17th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
As for the Great Society, Brian, I will do a special article this week on that subject just for you. BTW, when I was 4-years old, I actually campaigned for LBJ, running around supermarkets shouting “All the way with LBJ!”
That was the last time I supported a Democrat in a general election!
July 17th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Ok I think your right a flat tax would limit some lobbyists power, but they would probably just refocus on other weak points to attack. A national sales tax is regressive in that it proportionately taxes low earners at a higher rate. Although even a modest one would generate a lot of revenue. I would suggest broadening the tax base, hitting more earners, limiting deductions to just a few, and lowering the brackets. Either way we do need to increase revenue, what about 40%, or if we cut gov. 20%, 20%. That could be our reset point. Still I think the great society programs have a lot of wastage and need a careful culling over as to just what they are really doing. I would also reduce business deductions and lower their rates to simplify everything and increase its predictability year in and year out.
July 17th, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Brian,
Part of the bill that Republicans will be voting on in the House on Tuesday, Cut, Cap and Balance, calls for reducing the size of government and capping it at 18.8% of GDP, which is roughly the historic average since the Great Society. Whether that is a good metric or not is an issue unto itself. We are not fighting a superpower armed with thousands of nukes as we did during the Cold War and still spreading plenty of butter throughout the land.
July 17th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
For about the first 100 years of America, excluding the Civil War, the federal government was barely 3% of the nation’s GDP. Even after WWI through the Depression years, the average was about 10% of GDP.
July 17th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
“t one would generate a lot of revenue. I would suggest broadening the tax base, hitting more earners, limiting deductions to just a few, and lowering the brackets.”
I love how liberals want equality for everyone unless they’re wealthy.
July 17th, 2011 at 3:07 pm
so if your wealthy you don’t want equality for everyone?
July 17th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
I would take away the senators, writing them a pay raise themselves, so that the other people without jobs, can still get unemployment checks. If the Democrats and Republicans, can’t get it straight, then their won’t be any progress. The Congress has to agree with the President or Mr Obama will veto everything that comes across his desk. We are the people who voted for them, and they should look at themselves as are employees. The Senators and Congressmen, work for the people not themselves, get it through your head, quit bickering over the Budget, and get it right.
Jon Cady Vietnam Vet, Omaha Ne