Finding humorous, ironic or jaw-dropping information about President Barack Obama and what goes on around the White House is like shooting fish in a barrel. Most of the bits of information are buried in other stories, given short shrift by the mainstream media or not reported at all. This page will regularly look at some of those glimpses, which you probably haven’t seen elsewhere.
•••
GET MOUNT RUSHMORE READY
Among the gems contained in left-wing Politico’s recent invitation to “10 leading historians” to pontificate on President “Obama’s rank in the pantheon of American presidents” is this one from Jeremy Mayer of George Mason University, who looks into the future to find “Obama was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Hillary Clinton.” Other historians — no one mentions “debt,” “deficit” or “unemployment” — opine he would have been even more successful except for the “fierce blow back from the Republican right,” that his presidency offered a “pattern of good intentions waylaid by a polarized and uncooperative Congress” and that he “will be remembered as a president who, with the best of intentions, tried and failed to end stark, acrimonious polarization in Washington.” All this three years before his presidency ends. Can you guess on which political side the historians butter their bread?
•••
BEST DRESSED WATER SAFETY DOG
Five years ago last week, President Obama signed into law the $830 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus. Peddled as a way to keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent, it proved ineffective, if not worse, when 2009 became the first of four years in a row when unemployment averaged more than 8 percent. But, according to the Wall Street Journal, what was billed as a raft of shovel-ready jobs to put people to work did include $783,000 for a study of why young people drink malt liquor and smoke marijuana, $219,000 for a study of college “hookups” and $92,000 for costumes for mascots like Bobber the Water Safety Dog for the Army Corps of Engineers.