When did the White House become the Frat House?

In a March 11 post at Salon.com Camille Paglia, writing about the White House attacks on radio host Rush Limbaugh, said the White House was appearing like "an oafish bunch of drunken frat boys." I think she's partially right on this one. The whole group does remind me of a cliquey group of know-it-all college students. Probably not frat boys, Obama seems too elitist for that. Perhaps a group of pretentious art students that spend most of the day sneering at the rest of us while smoking cigarettes out in the commons.

One of the first things that made me think of a bunch of snobbish college kids was Obama's gift gaffe with English prime minister Gordon Brown. Brown gave Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet. This gift was particularly well thought out as the desk in the oval office was made from wood from the Gannet's sister ship HMS Resolute. In addition Brown also gave Obama a framed commission for the HMS Resolute and a first edition collection of the biography of Winston Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert. Do you remember what Obama gave Brown in return? 25 DVDs of "classic" American movies such as ET: The Extra-Terrestrial and Citizen Kane. Of course no one bothered to make sure these DVDs were formatted for English players so when Brown sat down to watch Psycho the screen remained blank.

Then there was Hillary Clinton's gift gaffe with Russians. She presented them with a button (that looks a lot like the Staples Easy button) with words, written in Russian, that were supposed to say reset. She said, "We want to reset our [US/Russian] relationship." Unfortunately no one bothered to check the English to Russian translation and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed out to Clinton, on stage, with cameras rolling, that the word on the button actually said "overcharge." "We won't let you do that to us," said Clinton, all the while cackling away.

And the coup de grace? Obama's recent television appearances on Jay Leno's show and "60 Minutes." On Leno Obama trashed the Special Olympiads by comparing them to his lousy bowling. On 60 Minutes Obama was laughing and joking around about the economy, like it's no serious problem (to which host Steve Croft asked Obama, "are you punch drunk?"). In fact both appearances gave me the impression Obama really isn't concerned with the problems facing him. He can find time to bowl and appear on TV talk shows, but what about time to actually do Presidential work (on second thought, maybe it's best he's not "working" to "fix" the economy)? Bush gave up golfing after the war started.

So what about the college student part? Well, it seems like we've given the art students the keys not only to the gallery but also to the dean's office and they're all in there having a grand old time, sneering at the rest of us outside. And what about thanking us for giving them the keys? Well, that's an afterthought. You should just be happy we have the keys, but to make it look good we'll send somebody over to Best Buy and Staples to pick up a few things before we get to hang out with Jay. 

And I thought Bush was the frat boy President!