Does our President need a spanking?

There are several way to explain President Obama’s often-odd, against self-interests behavior in office: he’s passive; he doesn’t like detail; or he lacks executive experience. I’ve often resorted to “He’s a Socialist ideologue and what he does makes perfect sense if one interprets it in light of Alinskyite incremental stealth Socialism and Black Liberation Theology,” though admittedly that’s a mouthful to say over the dinner table.

But, in all honesty, when I read something like this, I have to admit I can’t explain the sheer bloody-minded stupidity of it all:

President Obama finally and quietly accepted his β€œtransparency” award from the open government community this week β€” in a closed, undisclosed meeting at the White House on Monday.

The secret presentation happened almost two weeks after the White House inexplicably postponed the ceremony, which was expected to be open to the press pool.

This time, Obama met quietly in the Oval Office with Gary Bass of OMB Watch, Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive, Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and Patrice McDermott of OpenTheGovernment.org, without disclosing the meeting on his public schedule or letting photographers or print reporters into the room.

(Emphases added.)

I mean, didn’t someone on the staff point out the self-defeating and embarrassing irony of this? Accepting an award for transparency in conditions of secrecy that would make Nixon proud?

Seriously, what is going through his head?

Okay, call me nuts, but I have a theory: We all know of the President’s ego. He thinks the world of himself, he was raised in relative ease, and was never really, truly challenged in a knock-down, drag out, gut check kind of way. He’s pretty much glided from promotion to promotion, a living example of the Peter Principle. When he became president, he expected things would go as smoothly as they had in the past, and that glib words from him would be enough to get by.

But it didn’t work out that way. The presidency is unlike any other job, and you don’t succeed at it with just some nice speeches and TV interviews.

And Obama, for the first time in his life, found himself being held responsible — and he didn’t like it!

So now he’s acting petulantly: the press doesn’t fawn (as much) over him anymore? Fine. He’ll bar them from his transparency award ceremony and to heck with how it looks! I mean, did you listen to his tone in parts of his speech on Libya? It was as if he was scolding or chiding the American people for daring to question him.

I still think he’s a Socialist, but now I’m convinced he’s an immature, passive-aggressive Socialist and what we’re seeing is him “acting out.”

It’s come to this, my friends: Our president needs a time out.

via Moe Lane

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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