FRANK RICH: OBAMA AS HOLLOW & PHONY AS TIGER WOODS

FRANK RICH:

AS we say farewell to a dreadful year and decade, this much we can agree upon: The person of the year is not Ben Bernanke, no matter how insistently Time magazine tries to hype him into its pantheon.

... If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).

... Though the American left and right don’t agree on much, they are both now coalescing around the suspicion that Obama’s brilliant presidential campaign was as hollow as Tiger’s public image — a marketing scam designed to camouflage either his covert anti-American radicalism (as the right sees it) or spineless timidity (as the left sees it).

The truth may well be neither, but after a decade of being spun silly, Americans can’t be blamed for being cynical about any leader trying to sell anything.

As we say goodbye to the year of Tiger Woods, it is the country, sad to say, that is left mired in a sand trap with no obvious way out.

FOR HIM, THIS IS AN EXCELLENT CONCLUSION - HIS BEST OF THE DECADE.

EVEN A BROKEN CLOCK IS RIGHT TWICE A DAY, ONCE A DECADE.

EXIT QUESTION:

HOW SOON BEFORE THE NUTROOTS CALLS FRANKIE RICH A RACIST, AFTER ALL, HE'S SLAMMING TIGER AND BARACK!

BWAHAHAHA!

ROUND UP HERE.

ASIDE:

I DISAGREE THAT THE DECADE HAS BEEN DREADFUL BECAUSE OF FLIM-FLAM.

I THINK IT'S BEEN DREADFUL BECAUSE OF WW4, AND BECAUSE AMERICA'S SOCIALISTIC CHICKENS CAME HOME TO ROOST:

THE HOUSING BUBBLE WAS INFLATED FROM THE INCEPTION OF THE CRA, THROUGH BUSH. IT BURST BECAUSE OF THE OIL BUBBLE.

IT WASN'T GREED THAT INFLATED THE BUBBLE; IT WAS SOCIALISM VIS A VIS FANNIE MAE:

• THE BANKS WERE ORDERED TO MAKE BAD LOANS,
• AND THEN FANNIE MAE SCOOPED THEM UP;
• REPACKAGED THEM AS DERIVATIVES,
• WHICH WERE THEN SOLD WITH THE IMPLICIT BACKING OF THE US TAXPAYER.

IF THERE WAS ANY FLIM-FLAM IT WAS BY THE LEFT, WHO GOT THE US TAX[PAYER TO HOLD THE BAG.

BTW: HERE'S THE PAST DECADE - DECADUS HORRIBILIS - FOR THE NYTIMES:



(CLICK TO ENLARGE.)

THIS COMPANY HAS PERFORMED HORRIBLY.

IF THEY CAN'T RUN THEIR OWN BUSINESS IN THE AREA OF THEIR GREATEST EXPERTISE, THEN WHY SHOULD ANYBODY LISTEN TO ANYTHING THEY HAVE TO SAY ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE?

WE SHOULDN'T. NON ONE SHOULD.