| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty February 21, 2014 American Foreign Policy Has Gone on an Extended Hiatus One of the all-time "dang, I wish I had written that" essays: Earlier this month while visiting Monticello with a French delegation that included socialist President François Hollande, President Obama was caught in a moment joking about breaking protocol to view the grounds, quipping, "That's the good thing as a President, I can do whatever I want." Forget the enormity of the irony; an American President joking at Thomas Jefferson's home that rules don't apply to him and give Obama the benefit of the doubt that this was just a casual line. It was no different than a line Michael Douglas would say in The American President or Kevin Kline in Dave or Martin Sheen in The West Wing, and that's exactly the point. Obama has become a President of good lines from movies but unable to act like a very real leader. The reason for the uproar over comments like this from this President is because he never wastes an opportunity to show just how right the absurdness of the social media noise machine is. When Obama jokes about being able to do whatever he wants, then turns around and hits an HBO producer up at a State Dinner for advanced copies of television shows to get him through an extended weekend, how are we as a desperate electorate supposed to react? We tolerate the luxuries afforded to our leaders. Just don't be a d*** about it. How is a world currently engulfed in flames of revolution supposed to react?
The problem for a President who makes any excuse to hit up a golf course or admits to watching tons of HBO is there are still events in the world happening outside his windows. People are desperate for American leadership and can't wait for the killer on True Detective to be revealed. Nobody in Kiev is interested in the fallout of the Red Wedding. Nobody in Venezuela cares about the fate of Zoe Barnes… At the height of violence that erupted with both protests this past weekend, where was he? Hosting a Hollywood premiere style party for #GeorgeClooney and cast of his film #TheMonumentsMen, in private at the White House, simply because he could. Right now in Kiev, historical statues and art are being burned in front of the world. He was content to remain silent and watch a movie about it happening instead. The real world does not interest this President. The set design does. That essay is so darn good, there's only a point or two left for me to add. First, particularly on foreign policy, Obama is done. Maybe he gets a trade deal, maybe he doesn't. Sooner or later the last troops leave Afghanistan, and if the place falls apart like Iraq, with al-Qaeda flags flying over cities, well, that's their problem. Pivot to Asia? Pshhhht. We don't even put much effort into our old alliances anymore. The U.K. said they wouldn't stick with us in any conflict in Syria; we don't worry about antagonizing the Canadians over Keystone. The Benghazi killers still walk freely. You can tell what's important to the president by what he spends his time on, and what issues he returns to again and again. Obama really wants an immigration deal and to preserve Obamacare, and that's about it. He doesn't want to touch entitlement reform with a ten-foot pole. He'll talk about global warming, but he knows the votes aren't there for it and it's more useful as a talking point. The deficit has shrunk from the worst ever to the fifth-worst ever, so as far as he's concerned, the budget is fixed. Year of action? Whatever. The House isn't getting any more cooperative before January 2017. While we as Americans may really want to tune out the world, life goes on out there, and on a lot of fronts, it's getting worse. Sooner or later, that translates into trouble on our shores. It may not come in the form of a hijacked airliner next time. Maybe it comes in the form of Chinese and Japanese navies trading fire over a misunderstanding and a resulting economic panic. Maybe it comes in the form of an Iranian nuclear test, but the Iranians will probably just want to drag out negotiations as long as possible to get as far along as possible before revealing they've got the bomb. Maybe Syria's civil war really spreads to Lebanon, Iraq, or even Jordan and Turkey in ways that endangers the governments of those countries. Maybe the nut-job running North Korea gets too provocative for anyone to ignore. Maybe it's a cyber-attack. Right now, the regimes in Venezuela and Ukraine are cracking down on uprisings, and the reaction from Washington alternates between pro forma denunciations and not much of anything. The world noticed. The world is reacting. This is why the president gets the level of grief for golf, the movie screenings, and so on. He's not doing that well at the basics of the job, and the White House wants us to believe everything's running smoothly. Lawmaker: The Tin-Foil Hat Reference Was a Joke! Really! Regarding yesterday's item on Representative Mike Lair and his provision for tin-foil hats in Missouri's education bill, James Harris, a family member and supporter of Lair writes in: Regrettably, his attempt of a joke has spun out of control on social media by some who thought he meant to criticize them, which is not want he meant. Yesterday, my father in law, Rep. Mike Lair inserted a line item into the Education Appropriations bill for tin foil hats as a humorous statement on a fellow lawmaker's bill. Rep. Kurt Bahr sponsored HB1490, which would prohibit schools from adopting any Common Core standards and, further, would require the General Assembly to approve any statewide education standards. Members of the House took it in the spirit it was meant; as something to inject levity into a conversation which has gone past the point of logic and veered well into assumption. It was in that spirit that other members of the House jokingly wrapped his desk in tin foil. This is true; Abram Messer, executive director of Missouri Family Network, Tweeted out this photo: 
Harris continues: Mike had been a history teacher and always has used humor to get people to focus and get to the root of an issue. Mike has attempted to deal with this issue using logic and research, filing HB1157 (which would protect data gathered from Common Core, ensuring student data would be secure) and HB1158 (which would prevent DESE from mandating curriculum or textbooks at the local level, ensuring local school boards' power is not infringed upon) to address the two main concerns with Common Core in a logical, pragmatic manner. Attached is a list of key votes and bills Mike has sponsored. Mike supports vouchers, Right to Work, numerous tax cut measures, sponsored 2nd Amendment measures and every tort/civil liability effort. He is consistently ranked as one of the most conservative members. I understand that you were not in Missouri and did not speak with Mike, so I believe calling him arrogant is inappropriate. Mike is conservative and merely trying to get people to laugh so they could get back to the discussion. There's a very simple way to ensure that no one thinks you've compared Common Core opponents to tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists: Don't insert language for "two rolls of high-density aluminum to create headgear designed to deflect drone and/or black helicopter mind reading and control technology" to an amendment restricting Common Core in your education funding proposal. Everything Is Awesome, Particularly The Lego Movie The first thing you should know about The Lego Movie: A recent viewing thrilled and delighted a nearly four-year-old, a six-year-old, and a late-thirty-something morning-newsletter-writer/dad. Really, I haven't enjoyed a movie with my sons this much since Toy Story 3. The film is turning into a fascinating Rorschach test for the politically-minded. Hunter Schwartz of Buzzfeed thinks the villain is intended to resemble Mitt Romney. Mollie Hemingway says it may be "the most subversively pro-liberty film ever." John Podhoretz thinks liberal fans are deluding themselves, and that it's an elaborate toy marketing effort: "The 'subversive' message of The Lego Movie is really just part of the overall marketing strategy shared by the studio, the distributor, and Lego — the perfect way to ensure that a corporate product gets itself treated kindly by liberal critics as it attempts to break free of the limitations of its kiddie audience." Let's get one thing out of the way: Naming the villain "President Business" and later "Lord Business" does not, ipso facto, make the movie anti-business. "President Business" also runs the cops and everything else in the city. He erects walls keeping regions divided (border control). He broadcasts to everyone in every region whenever he wants (national addresses). He monitors everything through an Orwellian system of cameras (NSA-style domestic surveillance). He runs "Taco Tuesdays", in which every "rule-following citizen" is promised a free taco (insert your preferred welfare metaphor here). He could just as easily be called "President Government." Sure, President Business also runs Octan Corporation, which produces music, television shows, dairy products, and coffee, but none of those products are particularly oppressive (although the Starbucks-esque coffee costs $37 per cup). That jab at people's willingness to pay a lot for coffee is one of the many ways The Lego Movie succeeds in "breaking free of the limitations of its kiddie audience." First and foremost, The Lego Movie's creators resolved to mock the heck out of the Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces template perfected in the first Star Wars by George Lucas and copied by almost every other "epic quest" movie since. The characters and narrative structure of ancient legends became universal for a reason, but Hollywood spent the past few decades beating these concepts into very tired clichés. Oh, look, it's another young common man, with a secret heritage, who hears the call to adventure! Now he's going to cross the threshold into parts of the world he doesn't know! Oh, look, he finds an older mentor, a love interest, and bumbling sidekicks! Oh, look, the villain is bent on conquest! Say, by any chance is this building to a climactic battle in a lair at a great height? Sometimes it feels as if The Lego Movie creators asked Morgan Freeman to mock the wise-elder-mentor characters he's played in his past few movies. In this short "behind the scenes video, Freeman's little Lego character says of himself, "That man could read the phone book and make it sound interesting. '555-3492.' Mmmm. Just listen to that rich molasses." So our protagonist isn't just a common man and unlikely hero; he is, for most of the movie, a well-meaning but hapless schmoe completely unsuited for the heroic task at hand. It's obvious from the first scene that the prophecy about his heroic destiny is entirely made up. Upon his arrival, Batman appears to be the ultra-competent, ruthless, relentless superhero we're familiar with, but as the movie progresses, he's clearly an egomaniac with a deluded sense of his own abilities. The movie ends on a twist revelation that I dare not spoil. But let's just say that having set up a conflict between imagination and creativity on one side and order and structure on the other, the movie suddenly offers a lesson that… order isn't always a bad thing! ADDENDUM: All the snow in January meant a rough month for auto sales — particularly electric autos: 918 Chevy Volts, 41 Cadillac ELRs, and 1,252 Nissan Leafs. From Our Sponsor:
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