The summer vacations are longer, and nothing beats life tenure.
That and temperament, intellectual capacity, and anti-corporate populism (yet to be fully expressed) makes the Washington Post's Jeffrey Rosen think Obama should appoint himself to the Supreme Court and make a deal so that Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2012.
Seriously? I mean, really? What is Rosen saying? Is it that Obama is a failure as president? That we need a cowboy figurehead? He even has a nifty picture of an aloof looking Obama illustrating the article....
Okay, I added the writing. But that about sums up Rosen's column.
And if that wasn't enough to piss at least me off, Rosen starts the article with the following:
He's too detached and cerebral . Too deferential to Congress. Too willing to compromise . And he's too much of a law professor and not enough of a commander in chief, as Sarah Palin recently admonished.
Because whatever plops (and I mean plops) out of Sarah Palin's mouth, must be gold.
It's insulting, incomplete, and compulsive thinking worth an "eh" on the New York Post or Fox News but given star billing by WAPO's editorial board. Something Rosen, a child of psychiatrists, has probably been warned about in the past.
But Rosen has to share this brilliance and assures us that it would be "unusual, but not difficult," for Obama to nominate himself or promise Hillary Clinton he would not oppose her 2012 bid for president in exchange for a promise of a nomination to the bench once a vacancy occurred.
Genius.
Look, I've been critical of Obama, especially on the economic and war fronts, but even I understand he's miles and miles and miles and miles ahead of George Bush...or many of his other precedessors. So what is it, is Obama's too smart for the presidency? Apparently...
Think about it. Though Obama has struggled to find his footing in the White House, his education, temperament and experience make him ideally suited to lead the liberal wing of the court, especially at a time when a narrow conservative majority seems increasingly intent on challenging progressive economic reforms for the first time since the New Deal. Obama is clearly eager to take on the four truly conservative justices -- Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- as his State of the Union smackdown suggests. But as president, he's constrained by that pesky separation of powers. So what better way to engage the fight than to join the bench?
And who wants a smart, judicious president? Rosen is obviously acknowledging Obama's intelligence...but what's the implication of this paragraph:
It's surprising but true that the least successful presidents are often the most judicious, while the most successful justices are the most pragmatic. Obama's willingness to compromise and listen to opposing points of view, in other words, may hamper him in overhauling health care -- public option, anyone? -- but would make him an unusually effective leader on the Supreme Court.
Obama is a "least successful president"? Okay, I'm not happy with some of the stuff that's gone on...in fact, pretty pissed off at Obama's failure to go for the jugular on my timetable. But would I call him a "least successful president" after a year in office wading through the greatest financial crisis since the Depression? No.
But Rosen's brilliance expands:
After a long flirtation with the Tim Geithner, pro-Wall Street, "too big to fail" wing of the Democratic Party, Obama has at last thrown in his lot with the view, espoused first by Brandeis and now by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, that huge corporations should be broken up before they threaten another crash.
Really? I'm not so sure about that. Yeah, Volcker is front and center and Geithner is relegated to chatting up lettuce on a grocery store tour with the first lady.
SAUL LOEB/AFP
Even Lawrence Summers is getting the visual screws put to him by the White House as it re-frames itself as economic populists.
Callie Shell/Aurora for TIME
But I'm not sure that's even real or what Obama truly intends with this visual shift in economic advisers.
But Rosen is convinced. Obama is too smart for the presidency. We need a dummy. And how do we get a smarty pants, a poindexter, on the Supreme Court?
Yes, let's think about it...hmmm, Obama wants to take on the current configuration of the Supreme Court and change the Court's current pro-corporate slant once vacancies occur.
What should he do? It's tough one...gimme some time, I'm thinking....I'm not that quick, I didn't go to Harvard or Oxford or Yale like Rosen...oh, wait a minute...I know!
HE COULD NOMINATE A NEW JUSTICE WHO REFLECTS HIS VALUES AND JUDICIAL PHILOSOPHY.
Ouch. That much thinking hurt.