RenewAmerica columnist Selwyn Duke is much like the Elephant Man — his head is so big because it’s full of dreams. Dreams in which he’s smarter than you; so smart that when he tells you about the ducks and the cupcakes, it will change the way you think about politics and snakes and internal torque wrenches.
Being a cerebral sort
You can tell he’s cerebral from his headshot…
…still, it’s nice of him to point it out to those of us who might not immediately recognize the “Big Thinker” pose from the Olan Mills stylebook.
when I ponder President Obama’s seduction of America, I think of the story of the snake and the duck.
This story is perhaps better known as the Scorpion and the Frog, but Selwyn’s brain is so big he can think up new animals on the spur of the moment and randomly plug them into fables. For instance, The Boy Who Cried Wolf becomes, in Selwyn’s hands, The Banana Slug Who Screamed Wildebeest. You have to admit, this kind of refinement does make the moral of the story a lot more potent.
To be brief, the snake wants the duck to take him to the other side of a creek, but the duck is reluctant. He says, “But when we get there, you’ll bite me.” The snake is very persuasive, however, and convinces the duck he wouldn’t do such a thing. He just wants help and would have the utmost appreciation. Well, I think you know what happened upon concluding their little crossing. Bam! The snake bit the foolish bird, who then started stammering, “Bu-bu-bu-but you said . . . .” The snake just replied, “Hey, you knew what I was when you picked me up.” I suppose the duck just wanted to give the serpent a chance.
That certainly is what many want us to give Barack Obama.
The moral: Never let the President of the United States ride on your back.
I could be snide and just say that I’ll give the president every bit the chance the left gave George Bush. With him they certainly did hiss, and spew venom, attacking him viciously and relentlessly for eight years starting with the oath of office. The man could do nothing right in their eyes, even when spending like any liberal Democrat, even when supporting amnesty for illegals, even when lavishing tax money on Africa, even when signing the prescription drug benefit.
Um, Selwyn? I don’t want to be accused of trying to punch above my cerebral weight class, but those were all things Bush was attacked for from the right. What you’ve got here is pretty much the entire list of Bush Administration policies the left actually supported.
But I won’t take that leaf out of the left’s book. I’m not a child and don’t play tit-for-tat.
“I’m a highly evolved life form with a prefrontal cortex no human skull can contain!”
Selwyn (age 13) with Mom and Dad, visiting the Kentucky Caverns.
If Obama is right about something, I’ll acknowledge it and just chalk it up to the inevitable twice-per-diem correctness of a broken clock. What I also won’t do, however, is “give Obama a chance.” I’ll explain why with a couple of analogies.
This should be good.
Imagine there is a businessman who manages a small fast-food restaurant in Illinois. His record is one of virtually always embracing the wrong policies and making bad decisions. Nevertheless, he is offered a position overseeing operations on a statewide level, wherein he once again pursues the same bad policies and makes the same bad decisions. Will you now propose making him the CEO of the company?
Well, if his name is George W. Bush, that’s what we always did in the past.
Or, let’s say there is a lawyer with a small practice, oh, as it happens, also in Illinois. He continually commits misfeasance but nevertheless is appointed state attorney general. He then continues to commit misfeasance. Will you next consider making him Attorney General of the United States? If not, why not? Sure, he never demonstrated competence in law before, but, come on, U.S. Attorney General is a different position. Give ‘im a chance.
It worked for Alberto Gonzalez.
Maybe even ducks get the point.
I think the ducks = us. Which means we’d better start keeping up with his densely-reasoned thoughts, or Selwyn’s going to eat us with orange sauce.
Contrary to the Republican campaign mantra about Obama having no experience, quite the opposite was true. He had tremendous experience doing the wrong thing, more than enough to paint a picture of what kind of animal he might be.
This week, he’s a higher primate.
The picture may seem like a resplendent deity to followers or a repugnant demon to foes, but it existed. And if you didn’t see it, it wasn’t because Obama hadn’t done enough but because you didn’t know enough.
“Stupid duck brains. Why do I even waste my time with you people?!”
In reality, Obama has had chance after chance after chance after chance, in the Illinois and U.S. senates and as a community agita . . . uh, I mean, organizer.
Historically, that joke works better if you wink.
Anyway, Selwyn goes on to pad out his column with a bunch of damning things you might not know about Obama, such as Black people seem to like him, but the National Right to Life Committee doesn’t, plus the usual lies and distortions (Obama supports sex education in kindergarten, etc.).
An editor may not know my feelings on blueberry cupcakes or Allen wrenches, but, if he scours my work, he will find enough relevant information to know whether or not I’m suited to his publication.
Sadly, The Journal of Torque Tools and Muffins still turned down Selwyn’s unsolicited poetry.
Likewise, those of us with ears to hear and eyes to see know what Obama is. We’re not ducks.
Because ducks are blind and deaf. Wait…I thought we were ducks. So we’re the snake now? Or the blueberry cupcakes…
Of course, to some, the give-’im-a-chance plea is a ploy, a political artifice used by snakes to silence critics. But these folks really aren’t all that interesting. The ducks are more so, as what often drives them is man’s lamentable propensity for rationalization.
Okay, I think I’ve got it: We — the ones who want to give Obama a chance — are the snakes, but Selwyn’s readers are the ducks. Except we don’t really want to give Obama a chance, we’re just saying that so that RenewAmerica’s audience will give us piggyback rides, and then we can inject them with a paralyzing venom and we all drown.
Whatever the ducks’ motivation, what they essentially suggest is comical. To wit: “A doctor who committed malpractice when operating on your toe, hand, leg and stomach should be allowed to operate on your brain because, by gum, he hasn’t had a chance to work above the neck yet.”
This is why I specifically told my HMO that I no longer wanted waterfowl selecting my primary care physician.
Well, what can I say?
Something about mallards, I’m guessing.
The issue is not that Obama isn’t being given a chance; it’s that he has been given too many. But this is a persistent problem in our nation; in fact, we live in a second-chance society. Children are given too many chances to misbehave. Miscreants are given too many chances to commit crime. And, worst of all, the ducks are given too many chances to vote.
And the end result is that America just may have run out of chances.
And now that ducks have the franchise, let’s just hope we don’t also run out of fish eggs and submerged pond weed, or we’re likely to see a severe backlash at the polls.
I’m speechless (like most ducks).
Left by slywy on February 20th, 2009