Barack Obama Sticks To The Big Issues

During the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney viciously attacked one of Barack Obama's senior advisers—Big Bird. The famous political pundit who speaks like a combination of a turkey and a turkey vulture was deeply-wounded by the wholly unwarranted attack. But ever loyal to his staff, Barack Obama rushed to the defense of the avian pundit. Not during the debate, of course, since that would have required quick thinking and a possible quicker response.

Recognizing that Big Bird is PBS debate moderator Jim Lehrer's boss, it became incumbent upon Obama to fire a warning shot across the bow of the good ship Romney—at a safe distance of course. So the day after the debate, and after deep introspective conversations with the Yellow One, our always humorous president mocked Romney's proposal of eliminating federal funding for PBS by intimating that one large bird could not possible be adding to the national deficit. Never mind the $445 million dollar funding going to parent PBS to promote left-wing causes and make fun of conservatives. Attempting to make Romney's satement look foolish, Obama said: “It’s about time. We didn’t know that Big Bird was driving the federal deficit. But that’s what we heard last night. How about that?”

Politicians who attempt to demonstrate tongue-in-cheek humor in public gatherings should first make sure they don't have a split tongue, more appropriate for searching out rats and mice rather than attacking political opponents. Most of the time, Obama uses his forked tongue to speak out of both sides of his mouth. It didn't work against Romney when Obama tried to use both splits on one side of his mouth.

That was not what Romney said at the debate. Instead, he made it clear that PBS is a drain on public funds and ought to be able to survive on their own if their programming had a broad enough appeal to those outside the ghettoes, the barrios, the Upper West Side, San Francisco, and West Los Angeles. But when not sermonizing in the guise of children and goofy fake animals, the left wing agenda is carried forward by Big Bird dressed and made up to look like Jim Lehrer and the other leftists pundits telling us all how we should live, and why capitalism is bad. What can you expect from a station whose main street is controlled by a bear-like monster who lives in a garbage can and demands cookies from passersby?

You see, Romney was making a point—with humor. Humor is something in which Obama has a big hole. Unless the “humor” is drawn from Joe Penner's jokebook or David Axelrod's collection of raucous and brilliant Chicago humor, the jokes absolutely escape Obama. Obama immediately (or some hours later) caught on, but at first saw an ethnic attack on a large avian person who is entirely blameless and so Obama had to become the knight in shining armor.

Naturally, Obama would have you believe it was a joke all along, and that he was merely countering with his own ironic joke. That's like expecting a slug to have self-awareness. The actual point Romney was making was about federally-supported programs in general, and PBS in particular. He followed his remark about “liking Big Bird” with a dictum: “Is the program so critical it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it?

Obama was also worried about Oscar the Grouch (another unpleasant Muppet character). If the public funds are cut off, the unemployment numbers which just went down by .3% would again start to rise. As Kermit says, “it's not easy being green.” Particularly if being green is the only thing you had going for you, and now you have to get into the real labor market. I could suggest that I know a very good Southern-style restaurant which serves great frogs legs, but I'm not sure Kermit is up to that kind of sacrifice. Miss Piggy is safe, since she's a pig, and would never pass muster with PETA, the vegans, or the Islamists.

It's not easy being canary yellow, either. But I've figured out how it can all be saved using a successful, though dubious Obama philosophy: Big Bird is too big to fail. Keep them federal funds a comin'.