Weekend Plans? I'll Be Crusading

Like most of y'all, my weekend plans involve some backyard grilling, a little work around the house, oh, and probably some crusades.

Enjoy the crusades, y'all. It is the weekend, after all.

Obama Issues Veto Threat on Keystone Pipeline Bill...Or Does He?

Townhall.com is reporting a "Veto Threat", but I'm not so sure it's a veto threat.

Look at the language used:

"I can confirm that the president would not sign this bill," Earnest said at Tuesday's White House press briefing after being asked about House Keystone legislation fired earlier in the day.

"We indicated that the president would veto similar legislation considered by the previous congress and our position on this hasn't changed," Earnest said. "I would not anticipate that the president would sign this piece of legislation."

Do you see the difference?

Earnest isn't saying that the President would veto the bill, he's saying the President would not sign the bill. There's a big difference. If the President doesn't sign a bill presented to him within ten days, it becomes law if Congress is not adjourned.

Now, maybe I'm being a little too specific about what the White House Press Secretary said, but I think it's worth considering. After all, the WH Press Secretary is someone who is careful with his words, right? Could Obama take the position that he isn't going to sign the bill, but not veto it? That could be a possible middle ground for him. Could this be possible? Am I onto something?

Or am I just over-lawyering the Press Secretary's words?

Obama to Normalize Relations with Cuba

Obama's going around and tidying up some Old Business these days.

Although I'm normally opposed to most of the stupid stuff he does, I'm not really against this.

The Cuba thing is a Cold War relic. I think we're all over it. It's like two people who get in an argument and stop talking to each other. After awhile, they start to forget what they were even mad about, and just go along with the "Not Talking To You" thing because no one wants to admit they can't remember why they originally got mad at each other.

I get that we didn't want Cuba to become a wealthy satellite of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In that context, the embargo made sense, but after 1991 that ceased to be a concern.

We have relations with other communist regimes (Hello China!) and other thuggish regimes who we actually consider friends (Hello Saudi Arabia!). So don't give me the argument that we can't have normal relations with Cuba because they're a repressive or communist state.

Actually, I think we'd have more influence on getting them to stop with the whole Communist thing if we engage in some trade and travel. Let Levi Strauss, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Goldman Sachs, and Koch industries go down there. They'll all be capitalists in no time.

Having said that, Cuba wants us to normalize relations. It's a bigger "get" for them that it is a "give" for us. Accordingly, as Rod Blagojevich so eloquently stated: "I’ve got this thing and it’s f----ing golden, and, uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for f---in’ nothing."

Basically, we should get something in return for granting them status.

However, Obama once again fails to negotiate. He's just doing this thing and giving them something for nothing. Whether he's refusing to negotiate for whatever reason in many contexts, the man just absolutely baffles me in his failure to understand negotiations.

Democracy Never Lasts Long

I am tired of people repeating the phrase that "our immigration system is broken". It's not. What's broken is our enforcement system - it's as simple as that. We have an immigration system that allows over 1 million people to emigrate legally.We have an immigration system that allows for 250,000 guest workers and work visas.

That is not a system that is broken. What's broken are our "leaders".

I'm not even going to begin addressing the substance of the executive order, because I don't acknowledge it's validity. To address the executive order on its substance gives it more respect that it is due.

Quite simply, the President was unhappy that the Legislative Branch was not enacting his policy preference, so the President decided rather than to advocate for his policy preference, he was just going to enact his policy in direct opposition to the will of the Legislative Branch.

What's sad is that so many people support the President's policy, they're willing to just cast aside our well-settled checks and balances to achieve their goal. And there's a whole bunch of other people who are ready to use this new precedent to enact other policies, and push the boundaries just a little bit further.

Interesting Times.

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." - John Adams

The President Is Going to Cut Down a Law or Two Tomorrow

"You know what would be the BEST, most constructive, reaction? For the House to pre-empt the president’s executive action by passing the comprehensive immigration reform that the Senate sent over to it." -Brad Warthen

Sure, I agree. We all like rational stuff. Even if the House doesn't like the current Senate bill, they can always amend it, or just pass their own. What are they waiting for?

Maybe they're waiting for the new Congress to be sworn in. Maybe they're waiting for Christmas. Either way, it doesn't matter why Congress is choosing not to act; that's entirely beside the point. If the President doesn't like the lack of immigration reform bills in the Congress, maybe his party should start winning some elections. Or maybe the President could have done something for the two years he had a super-majority in Congress.

But all of this talk about the President's action and the Congress' reaction also misses the point of this being bad precedent.

The President shouldn't do what he's about to do. There's no broad public support for it. It's against the specific will of the majority of the legislative branch. The legal basis is unsound. There's no national crisis at hand that cries out for drastic action. In fact, the President is actually creating a crisis with this defiant move. It's also not a permanent fix, either. It's theater. But it's theater that sets a horrible precedent of cutting down laws by Presidential order.

But you know...I don't put 100% of the blame on the President. I blame us. The entire Democratic party is thrilled at the idea of this executive action, and it is actively encouraging him to do this. A little less than half of the electorate is excusing the means because they like the end result. There's plenty of blame to go around. The President is going to announce that he's going to ignore some laws tomorrow, and it won't really register for much of the citizenry here in our young little republic.

At the end of the day, we have to have laws that mean things. If the law can just be altered (and non-enforcement is altering the law) then what is left? I know I use this clip all the time, but it's relevant once again.

You start cutting down a little bit of the law here, a little bit of the law there, and pretty soon, a cold wind is blowing, and the Devil will turn 'round on you. Where do you hide then?

Election Day: 2014 - You can't vote for me; I'm not on the ballot.

Well, today's the day. Although there aren't really any competitive races in South Carolina, it will be interesting to see what happens around the country. I'll certainly be interested to see how the dynamics of our national politics changes if the entire Congress becomes controlled by the GOP.

I guess the last time we had the Congress controlled by one party and the White House controlled by another was during George W. Bush's presidency. Man, doesn't that seem like a long time ago?

Voting was easy this morning. No delays, no broken machines. I had actually looked at a sample ballot last night, so I knew what to expect. (Yeah, that's kind of a dork move, isn't it?) And once again, I was the youngest person in my polling place again. I'm sure that will change eventually.

Also, there were lots of people running unopposed. What's up with that?

In any event, go vote if you are moderately informed about current events and the news.

"We Must Declare War Upon War"

Said President Obama at the UN, today. That's an actual quote. He actually said that. Really.

My reaction to declaring "war on war".

First of all, that's just a weird construction. War on war? Huh? That sounds like something out of Dr. Strangelove.

As to the substance, it's a naive and silly idea to try and declare war on war because you're never going to win the War on War.

There are always going to be aggressive nations/groups who ultimately decide to use force of arms against others. This will always be the case. To try and "end war" is like trying to "end sadness". It ain't gonna happen.

The problem is that in almost all things, President Obama sees the world as he wants to see it, and not how it actually is.

Obama Really Isn't Into Attacking ISIS

After another American was beheaded in what is basically a taunt to the United States, you might have thought that the President was going to come up with a St. Crispin's Day kind of speech and make the case for why we need to destroy ISIS. I mean, at some point, when your citizens are being beheaded, you have to kind of push-back on that.

Yeah, that didn't happen.

"We know that if we are joined by the international community, we can continue to shrink ISIL's sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its financing, its military capabilities to the point where it is a manageable problem," said Obama. (emphasis mine)

Excuse me?

I don't understand how you can say you're going to make people beheading Americans and conducting mass executions in the name of Islam a "manageable problem". These people have to be completely defeated, not made manageable.

I know that Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq. I know he doesn't want to go back and start a big fight over there. However, we're already in a fight. These people are killing Americans over there, and pretty soon, they're going to be killing Americans over here.

How is it that the President was all good with bombing in Syria and Libya, but he can't bring himself to do the same thing in Iraq?

History will not be kind to this man.

Obama's Big Mistake

Back in high school, I had a friend who was fairly smart. However, instead of working relatively hard and making great grades, he was always looking to circumvent the rules. He spent almost all of his time and energy trying to find loopholes in school rules and regulations.

More often than not, his actions would get him in trouble with teachers and administrators. He constantly pushed back against almost all authority, constantly pushing the envelope of what was allowed. Basically, he spent most of his time and energy fighting the system, rather than trying to work within the confines of the school rules.

It caused a lot of bad blood between him and the school officials over what were essentially unnecessary conflicts. He ended up graduating, but refusing to participate in the ceremony. If my friend had spent his time simply studying and working to get along with people, he would have been a top student, and he would have probably been the valedictorian, speaking at his graduation, rather than skipping it.

I see that same characteristic in our current President.

Ever since he lost his super-majority in the Senate, he's gotten absolutely nothing done. He goes on and on all the time about how the mean ol' Republicans won't work with him on anything, but the fact is, he doesn't want to work with them, either. Accordingly, our President now spends all his time trying to figure out how much he can get done without Congress. He's doing everything he can to simply avoid Congress on almost every issue. He's unilaterally changing the ACA, fighting the Halbig case so he doesn't have to ask Congress amend the law, raising the minimum wage via executive order and so on. His famous "pen and phone" line is emblematic of his mentality to simply fight/ignore the Legislative branch of our government.

This isn't how to win friends and influence Congress. (Or enact policy.) Another example is evident today, in the realm of the climate change argument.

Just today, the President has now decided that he's going to try and do some strange end run around the fact that the Senate has to ratify treaties. Apparently, the President wants to cut carbon emissions in an international treaty, but he knows the Senate won't approve it. Therefore, rather than going to the Senators and trying to cut a deal and give them something in exchange, the President is now just going to try and do what he can without the Senate.

In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world’s largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions. The deal is likely to face strong objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill and from poor countries around the world, but negotiators say it may be the only realistic path.

Our President isn't even trying to convince the Senate to go along with this. They've told him "no", but he's undeterred. He's going to try and figure out some way to enter into a treaty without actually entering into a treaty. That will be quite a trick.

If the President spent half the time actually trying to compromise and work with Congress that he spends trying to come up with ways around Congress, he might actually get something done. He needs to understand that you can't always get everything you want when there's divided government. Out of all the campaign promises he's made and broken (and there's a lot) the number one promise he's broken is that he would be a pragmatic "uniter", ending our bitter partisanship. He's absolutely done the opposite. As I referenced in my last post, steamrolling the ACA through Congress is what created the Tea Party.

For all of the soul-searching that leftists do about how our foreign aggression "creates" terrorists, they sure don't seem to realize how political aggression created the Tea Party.

But instead, this current President looks like he's going to be end up like my friend from high school. He's going to struggle against the system, and he's going to engender lots of bad blood, and ultimately, it's all going to be a big waste of time and effort, never really reaching his potential. At the rate he's going, he'll probably end up skipping graduation to go play golf.

Obama Waited 30 Days to Authorize Foley's Rescue

Here's a hypothetical for you: You're the President. You get some intelligence about the location of the whereabouts of a captured American held hostage by ISIL. How long would you wait to order a raid to rescue an American citizen held hostage by ISIL?

Our President waited "almost 30 days."

Anthony Shaffer, a former lieutenant-colonel in US military intelligence who worked on covert operations, said: “I’m told it was almost a 30-day delay from when they said they wanted to go to when he finally gave the green light. They were ready to go in June to grab the guy [Foley] and they weren’t permitted.”

Another US defence source said: "The White House constantly goes back and forth on these things. These people are a bunch of academics who endlessly analyse stuff and ordering up another deep-thinking paper but can't decide what to order for lunch."

This makes me angry. I don't care about Obama playing golf. I don't care about Obama raising money. That's fine. Just make decisions.

I want him to make good decisions and act in the best interest of our country and my fellow citizens. This thirty day delay to authorize a rescue mission just flies all over me.

Intelligence goes bad over time. The longer you wait to act on intelligence, the less likely it is that the hostage will be there. An "almost 30 day delay" is hard to understand. It's now understandable that Foley wasn't there once the mission finally got the green light. It had been about a month since they got the tip.

I don't really even see how this is a "hard" decision. We have soldiers who have signed up to defend America and protect our citizens. That's is their job. This is what they do. They know the risks. If something had gone wrong, it would be horrible, but it's worse to just dither. And this delay absolutely reeks of political calculation.

You get the intelligence, the military plans a mission, you say "go". I don't know how I could delay that long and then still look grieving parents in the eyes.

We're not talking about just a terrorist bad guy. We're talking about an American citizen who was being held captive.

He's dead now.

By the way, a British newspaper broke this story. Nice job, American press.

Thoughts on Halbig, the ACA, and Suing the President

Had an interesting post bring up some thoughts over at Brad's blog. This is what got my train of thought rolling:

"I think what he [The President] did was react to criticism and complaints, and try to make the implementation less onerous and painful to those complaining, or likely to complain. To give the law a chance to start working, if only partially. Whether he had the authority to postpone implementation of parts of the law is something I don’t know enough to judge." -Brad

Complaints and criticism of a law do not convey authority to the executive branch to delay enforcement of existing law. I hope that's a fairly non-controversial statement. If you disagree with that proposition, then you'll be happy to know that in a Caskey Administration, I may choose to simply delay enforcement of the capital gains tax, or delay enforcement of the minimum wage laws. How does that sound? Not so great, right?

The executive (on multiple occasions) has unilaterally delayed the enforcement of the employer mandate. That's a fact. No part of the ACA allows this.

I think it's fairly obvious that he did it solely for political purposes, but I would certainly concede that to be my opinion. Nevertheless, the motive for delaying enforcement of the law is irrelevant for our purposes here.

Some more history: The Republicans do not like this law. They have never liked this law. Not one Republican voted for this law. In fact, the law had to be pushed through Congress using arcane rules to avoid a conference committee after the election of Scott Brown, on the platform of opposing the ACA.

Congress basically ignored the will of the people and did an end run around the normal procedures of legislation to produce this law. It's now the law, after surviving a constitutional challenge ending at SCOUTS, on a 5-4 decision.

So here we sit. The supporters of this law are now so dedicated to holding onto it, they are willing to chuck principles aside to keep it.

For instance, people are willing to simply let the executive pick and choose what parts of the law he wants to selectively enforce so as to not subject the public to the full force of the law as written - which would arouse the anger of the public, and be politically negative for Democrats. This is short term political gain, for long term bad precedent. It's bad precedent to allow the executive to selectively enforce any law. If you think selective enforcement of the law is OK, then you really haven't thought it through.

Additionally, the Halbig suit: The relevant statutory language says that only state exchanges get the subsidy. It's clear. That's what the text of the law says. However, if you do that, then the law essentially collapses, as a significant number of states didn't set up exchanges.

Obviously, the people who wrote the law never considered that states might simply refuse to set up exchanges. (To quote Rick Perry: "oops") The non-lawyer defenders of the ACA are now reduced to saying "Hey, man, it was a typo" while their lawyers are saying "Ummmm yeah....this text is ambiguous, so we need to rely on Chevron Deference to the IRS in it's rule-making authority here" (What the Fourth Circuit did.) To me, the first argument is laughable, and the second argument is weak to the point of being almost laughable.

Now, Brad may not have heard about this lawsuit, but people have been talking about it for a long time. Pretty much since the law was passed, and as Nancy Pelosi said "We learned what was in it". This isn't new.

Halbig only became a problem now that lots of states have refused to set up exchanges. But normally, issues like Halbig aren't a problem, because the executive just goes back to Congress and they pass a new law to make some changes. However, the executive doesn't want to do that, because that would mean negotiating with the Republicans, and that's apparently not on the table.

Accordingly, rather than openly acknowledge the problem and concede that the law needs additional legislation, you have the executive defending a tenuous legal position and hoping the Courts will hold their nose and bail him out, since he doesn't want to involve the legislative branch in the legislative process and involve the will of the people again.

Keep in mind, Halbig isn't a constitutional question. It's simple statutory construction. The Supreme Court has pretty consistently ruled that statutory construction pretty much starts and ends with WHAT DOES THE FOX TEXT SAY? We write down laws with words, with a commonly understood meaning for a reason, sports-fans.

It's the job of courts to read statutes as written. If they need fixing rather than reading, that's the job of Congress. I really don't think that SCOTUS is going to bail out the administration on this. I can bore you with some law on this, but just take my word for it that this isn't a controversial issue when you boil it down to the statutory construction. If SCOTUS grants cert, my guess is they'll uphold the statute as written and basically tell the government to go fix it on their own - using the legislative process. That's just my guess. Anything's possible. (By the way If you don't believe judges should be originalist/textualist, then I don't see how you can also want them to be life-tenured & unelected, but that's a whole 'nother debate.)

Now....why are the Republicans doing this? They want the law enforced as written to highlight how horrible it is and to highlight the bad precedent being set here. Ulysses S. Grant said: "I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution."

That's basically the premise here. You want the ACA? Then take it. Take it good and hard.

Having said that, I think the Congressional suit against the President is stupid. Congress doesn't need to sue the President. Congress is the most powerful branch of government. They are just refusing to flex the muscle. It's called the power of the purse. (Stuff Madison Said, Vol. II)

"But as Mr. Obama’s second term nears an end, some experts say the president’s words were a fantasy."

...says The New York Times in discussing the failure of the Obama Administration to deliver on it's promises of high speed rail.

I think this would apply to a lot of things he said.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit Twitter followers!

Rise and Grind - Obama's Personalized Golf Balls

Happy Monday. Rise and grind.

After the birth of our daughter, I took the rest of the week off from blogging. However, I can't stay on permanent vacation, so I'll be back to at least one post a day here. I'll start out with something simple and light, and we'll work up to some more meaty topics as time goes by.

Apparently, a guy fond one of President Obama's lost golf balls and put a picture up of it. It's cool that President Obama has some personalized golf balls [picture at link], but it isn't that surprising.

All the same, it makes me wonder if other Presidents did the same. I'd love to see a collection. Ike played a lot of golf. I wonder if he personalized his golf balls.

“So far, Russia has failed to take any of the steps that I have mentioned. In fact, Russia’s support for the separatists and violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty has continued.”

So, President Obama is gonna up the sanctions. Get real tough, so to speak. I guess a few travel restrictions didn't really get their attention, huh? I'm sure that this new sanction will be super-duper, tough.

NEW SANCTION: "The new measures will severely restrict access to American debt markets for the targeted companies."

Ooooooh, snap! We won't loan some Russian companies some money.

That's the kind of tough sanction that's sure to cripple the Russian Bear, because nothing says you're serious like refusing to finance your adversary. Hey, you! Quit beating up on that small kid, or I'll...I'll refuse to loan you money.

Yup. I'm sure that this set of sanctions will work. Seriously, you guys.

Why the President Isn't Visiting the Border

In case you were living under a rock the last week or so, you might have noticed that we have a bit of...how shall I put this? We have a weapons-grade disaster on the US/Mexican border.

And people are calling on President Obama to visit the border. I guess this is because they want President Obama to take some sort of action, come up with a plan, or somehow lead. But he's not really interested in going...and I'll tell you why.

He's voting present.

The President chilled in Denver playing pool yesterday. No big deal, it's not like he's got a busy job or anything.

If President Obama goes to the border, his base is going to expect him to declare that the illegal immigrant children aren't going to be deported. They want him to make some sort of executive pronouncement that these children are here to stay, and everyone in America is just going to have to deal with it. That's what the President's base expects.

But he can't really do that because the rest of America wants the President to close the damn border. The rest of America understands that we need to be compassionate to children, but the border has to be closed. And he doesn't want to do that.

So he's stuck between choices of either crossing his base or crossing the rest of America. Neither of those are palatable. So, he's doing neither. He's voting present.

So...the crisis will continue.

Poland Has Lost That Lovin' Feeling

Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski says the country's strong alliance with the U.S. "isn't worth anything" and is "even harmful because it creates a false sense of security."

Didn't the Polish used to be some of our stanchest allies? Apparently, they've lost that lovin' feeling.

I'm pretty sure that President Obama promised to "restore out standing in the world" or something like that. So what's up with getting dissed by the Polish Foreign Minister? I guess stiffing them on the ABM deal and botching the Ukraine thing hasn't helped.

Does this mean the Polish tell jokes about us now? Because that's not acceptable.

Obama Refuses to Apologize for Bergdahl Trade Because It Was Totally Hagel's Decision

The White House has solved it: Apparently, the SecDef did it, in the Situation Room, with the candlestick.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel – not President Obama – executed the administration’s final call to proceed with the prisoner exchange of five ranking Taliban detainees for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, administration officials told Congress today in a classified briefing today.

“They indicated [it was] Secretary Hagel [who made the final call],” House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon, R-California, told reporters following the briefing Monday evening. “It was the president of the United States that came out [in the Rose Garden] with the Bergdahls and took all the credit and now that there’s been a little pushback he’s moving away from it and it’s Secretary Hagel?”

Oh really? That's so strange. The guy in the Rose Garden kept saying that he did it, and that he made no apologies. I guess that's because Obama meant that any apologies should be made by Hagel. Darn that Secretary of Defense, overruling the President!

The decision tree for the White House looks like this:

Does the action reflect well on the President?

NO: It was someone in a lower position, and they acted without any direct authority from the President, who just found out about this bad thing, and he's angrier than anyone.

YES: The President was directly involved at all times, doing all of the right things.

Bergdahl: Anyone Like This Deal?

By now, it's pretty obvious that Bergdahl wasn't a hero. He certainly didn't serve with "honor and distinction" as National Security Director Susan Rice has said.

In fact, the Army kind of already investigated the thing and arrived at a slightly different conclusion.

An Army fact-finding investigation conducted in the months after Bergdahl's 2009 disappearance concluded that he left his outpost deliberately and on his own free will, according to a U.S. military official briefed on the report. The official spoke to CNN on Tuesday on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.

At this point, I'm pretty convinced he deserted. I'm less convinced that he cooperated, but I'm not ruling that out.

So, is anyone ok with the fact that the President traded five really bad guys for a deserter? 

As Usual, Obama is "Madder than hell" About the VA Scandal

So what?

Apparently, he's "madder than hell" about this scandal. Whatever happened to "no drama Obama" by the way? I haven't seen that guy in a long time.

Ever notice how Obama is always mad as a hornet about some scandal that eventually disappears down the memory hole? When the IRS targeting of tea party groups came to light, he was angry about that, too. Until he decided not to be. The failed rollout of his signature domestic policy? Yeah, he was angry about that also. You know, the convenient thing about being angry or "mad as hell" is that you don't have to say that you're sorry. Being mad shifts the blame to someone else - the people you are mad at. It's obviously not your fault - it's the fault of your anger's target.

Scandal Crisis Management from Obama.

Step 1: When confronted with a scandal, show outrage. Demand accountability and punishment.

Step 2: Initiate investigation. During the investigation, no comments are made about the scandal, so as not to prejudice the ongoing investigation.

Step 3: After awhile, respond to all questions about the scandal as "old news".

Crisis solved. Seriously though, has he ever gotten to the bottom of anything that he's madder than hell about? The buck stops nowhere.

If you didn't know any better, it's almost like Obama isn't really participating in his administration, but he's just a detached observer, who comes in after the fact and gets upset that everything is being messed up. Charles Krauthammer made this same point.

“He acts as if––it was the same with the IRS, eavesdropping on the AP, and all the other scandals, the Obamacare launch––he stumbled upon the presidency and discovered all this horrible stuff is happening. He’s in charge of these departments. At some point, you’ve gotta ask, ‘Where has he been, and where is the competence, the elementary competence, he promised when he ran in 2008?’”

OUT: I have competence in governing.
IN: I'm mad as hell about incompetence I had nothing to do with and just found out about in the newspaper.

Hey World! Shape Up! You're Disappointing Obama!

In a recent poll of current US Presidents, the world's approval rating has drastically slipped given recent events. In fact, the poll results revealed that the current President expressed "disappointment" when asked about the rest of the world.

"The profile [of President Obama] that I published in the New Yorker was somebody that eerily, eerily seemed to be claiming himself--it was a sense of not giving up, but of deep frustration--that was the profile that I published in the New Yorker. Somebody frustrated and disappointed," said Remnick, who has proven to be deeply sympathetic to this president.

"And that's what's frustrating to me sometimes about Obama is that the world seems to disappoint him," he continued to laughter from others on the TV set. "Republicans disappoint him, Bashar al-Assad disappoints him, Putin as well. And the fighting spirit sometimes is lacking in the performative aspects of the presidency."

I can't say that I really feel bad for the President. You know, the world disappoints me constantly. The world disappoints everyone constantly. Part of becoming a grownup is realizing that it has always been ever so and then moving on with life anyway.

Huh...seems like he's frustrated with everyone who doesn't do exactly what he wants. What did he expect - that the whole world would just adore him and do whatever he said?

Grow up, Mr. President.