Our left-wing lug nut

By Burt Prelutsky

I have to hope for the sake of our country’s future that when people voted for Obama they really had no idea what a disaster he would be, even though I kept warning them that he was a left-wing lug nut. It seemed to me that his legion of fans had been hypnotized or sprinkled with fairy dust. They blindly accepted that words like “hope” and “change” were complete sentences that actually added up to a national policy.

We, who assumed that a grown-up whose friends and mentors were people like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Saul Alinsky, the folks at ACORN and the most corrupt of Chicago politicians, believed he was more likely to belong in a square cell than in the Oval Office.

For my part, I felt a lot like Kevin McCarthy in the movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” trying to warn my fellow earthlings that the pod people were among us and definitely up to no good.

It’s not just the big things the man does, things such as the kazillion dollar bailouts, the trichinosis-infested budget and the threat of the Fairness Doctrine being enacted, that make my blood run cold. It’s not even the allegedly eloquent orator requiring a teleprompter in order to say, “Hello.” What I’m referring to is the commander in chief’s earmarking $900 million for Hamas and, worse yet, proposing we make veterans financially responsible for their own service-related medical treatments. (That comes under the heading of adding insult to injury.) And let us not forget Obama’s sending the bust of Winston Churchill back to the English embassy and then, compounding that infantile act of boorishness, treating the prime minister of our staunchest ally like a guttersnipe.

A leading British commentator’s warning to America: “Welcome to Obamaland: I Have Seen Your Future and It Doesn’t Work”

Funny, I seem to recall Obama’s partisans insisting that he would personally make the United States popular the world over. Well, so far, he has certainly reached out to Cuba, Venezuela and Iran, and I suppose if he actually closes Gitmo, Islamics will dance in the street of Tehran just before dropping the bomb on Israel.

Regarding the recent brouhaha, I’m afraid I’m one of the few people who wasn’t up in arms over the AIG bonuses. To me, they were just an obvious distraction by the administration, just like the unwarranted attacks on Rush Limbaugh or Clinton’s bombing of the pharmaceutical factory. I’m not saying I was happy about the bonuses, but a contract is a contract, and I prefer to see a bunch of scumbags collect their undeserved millions than to see the day that contracts in America are no longer worth the paper they’re written on.

I keep hearing people on the radio and TV going ballistic over the fact that employees at a failed company were collecting as much as 4 million taxpayer dollars for being rotten at their jobs, and I’m sick and tired of it. How is it that nobody is demanding that 435 self-righteous congressmen and 100 arrogant senators give back their salaries? They’re the folks who not only oversaw a failing economy, but, thanks to pushing sub-prime home loans on people who didn’t have a pot to pi– in, did the most to cause the financial calamity in the first place.

On top of all that, I’ve heard that Obama and his legislative cronies plan to give AIG at least another 30 billion before they’re done. So how about, instead of having to watch politicians grandstanding over the measly $165 million in bonuses and Charlie Schumer’s threatening to get the money back by having the IRS bludgeon these folks to death, the schmucks in Washington just write the company a check for $29,835,000,000 the next time around?

I understand that, according to some recent polls, Obama and the Democrats, in spite of a pandering media, are losing some of their allure after a relatively brief honeymoon. Which can’t help but remind me of a line attributed to Oscar Wilde, that Niagara Falls is only the second biggest disappointment in the life of an American bride.

Someone recently suggested that in less than three months, Obama went from being a messiah to being a mess. However, here in Hollywood, he is still sheer magic. They utter his name with the same reverence as when Christians refer to Jesus or Bill Maher refers to himself.

But, then, Hollywood is a peculiar place where celebrities who treat their own assistants and household help like underpaid coolies are constantly demanding that Washington should do more for the poor and the oppressed. Hollywood is where actors think God was created in their image, while actresses are so full of plastic and collagen that even their own dogs can’t pick them out of a crowd.

I’m sure that Sean Penn thinks he should be ambassador to Cuba, and if only he owed back taxes, I’m certain this administration would give him the gig.

Even as I dream of the day when conservatives take back the reins of government, I worry that in the meantime the liberals will find a way to place a luxury tax on our dreams.

Finally, in case any of you were wondering, it will be 117,936,218 seconds until Obama’s term ends. But, who’s counting?

 

Burt Prelutsky

Burt Prelutsky has been a humor columnist for the L.A. Times, a movie critic for Los Angeles magazine and a freelance writer for TV Guide, Modern Maturity, the New York Times and Sports Illustrated. His latest book is entitled ""Barack Obama, You're Fired! (And Don't Bother Asking for a Recommendation)." Read more of Burt Prelutsky's articles here.