His Brackets Didn’t Cut the Mustard, Buttercup

Being president is an ego trip.[ed.!?!] So you would have thought President Obama wouldn’t need to add to his bragging rights. But Mr. Obama’s N.C.A.A. men’s basketball bracket stands — for the moment, anyway — as one of the best out there. NYTimes 3/19/11

On March 16, Big Guy picked his brackets on ESPN. His final four picks were Ohio State, Duke, Kansas and Pittsburgh.  So much for that. Here’s who beat his picks:

Kentucky, Connecticut, Butler and Virginia Commonwealth — the improbable, the implausible, the unthinkable and the downright unimaginable.

It wasn’t that long ago that people were saying the same thing about Big Guy getting elected to the presidency.

Anyway, I think we’ve found the locus of “multitasking meets the point of diminishing returns.”  For Big Guy, it’s clustered somewhere around “national reaction to earthquakes/ tsunamis/ nuclear meltdowns in Japan, South American wine tours, launching a new war in the Middle East and selecting your brackets.”   Even someone as awesomely talented and intelligent as Big Guy has limitations on how much they can effectively handle at once. Something was bound to suffer and, unfortunately, it was his brackets.

So now we know Big Guy’s limitations.

For the record, the oceans didn’t  start to recede either.

I think this unaccustomed failure sub-optimal achievement is beginning to get to Big Guy.

 

Big Guy,  right, at last Friday’s reception celebrating Greece’s independence. The smile: a bit too big, a bit too much gum showing, a bit too mirthless. The eyes: totally uninvolved.

The eyes don’t ‘lies.’

See? Here’s one where he’s feelin’ the love. Happy eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m afraid that  Big Guy’s little people are letting him down. It appears that what we have here is a failure to communicate.

“Days, not weeks” apparently means months not days. The “limited mission” is about to be expanded.

BO’s contention in 2008 that:

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

now means we need the UN’s approval - not Congress’ - in order to make kinetic military action “constitutional.”

Hillary’s 2007 contention that

“If the administration believes that any -- any -- use of force against Iran is necessary, the President must come to Congress to seek that authority.”

apparently applied only to Iran. Although she did acknowledge that “… we would welcome congressional support.”  In the same way, I suppose, that Big Guy welcomed Republicans support for ObamaCare: nice, butt we didn’t really need it.

So now that Big Guy assured us in his Saturday radio address that we’re succeeding in our Libyan mission (no matter how you want to define it) and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hill did such an excellent job of clarifying the situation on “This Week” with Jake Tapper, there’s really no need for BO to interrupt his (and our) schedule tonight after all. And he’s got bigger fish to fry.

It’s not all bad news though: there’s this upbeat report on Big Guy’s N.C.A.A. picks from the Hill:

Despite his bracket's recent downturn Obama remains in the 97th percentile of all brackets submitted on NYTimes.com, though that figure dropped when the Jayhawks failed to make it to the Final Four.

There’s something reassuring about that: 100% wrong, butt you still get an “A” for effort. Is this a great country or what?

On the Lady M front: (She’s fine, just resting up. Thank you for asking.) None of you have yet taken credit for placing last Friday’s phone call to Rushbo. You may be interested to know that Mediaite was all over it:

In an ambiguously racially-tinged (and definitely cringe-worthy) conversation, the caller complained that she was “sick and tired of hearing about our First Lady and her fashion,” comparing the coverage to “The Emperor’s New Clothes” before taking several swipes at her personally– that Obama looked “like a lumberjack” and “a tub of mustard” when she wore yellow, and that “most of the reporters are just a bunch of kiss-butts.” “I’m sure your observations are shared by many,” Limbaugh added helpfully.

Reminder: special edition Golden Flotus to the first MO/YL/D to snark us into oblivion on Rushbo’s show

Pretty fair and balanced, considering the source. So, Laura in Bremerton, WA, all I can say is you are a great spokesman for the First Amendment. And a Great American! I just hope you’re one of us.

Our many shades of buttercup

ooh ooh ooh.....

Why do you build me up (Build me up)
Buttercup baby just to
let me down (Let me down)
And mess me around