Obama Makes Black People Smarter

It’s a good thing President Black Obama is…black on slow news days.  Talk about a reliable “go-to” subject.  I mean, now that it’s obvious that two-thirds of Americans polled are going to support him no matter what he does, reporting on what he does is, frankly boring.  So, why not ask what his being black means to America if you’re a columnist up against a deadline?  We never get tired of that.

Thanks to the New York Times, we now know that “researchers” have shown that just having a black president makes black people test better.  Which seems to bode well for new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s job:

Educators and policy makers, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, have said in recent days that they hope President Obama’s example as a model student could inspire millions of American students, especially blacks, to higher academic performance.

Now researchers have documented what they call an Obama effect, showing that a performance gap between African-Americans and whites on a 20-question test administered before Mr. Obama’s nomination all but disappeared when the exam was administered after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election.

Whew!  I know I feel smarter!  Andrew Sullivan claims news of the “Obama effect” blew his mind, and for some reason made him relate the heartwarming tale of his African American teacher neighbor’s concerns about her students’ use of the dreaded “n-word,” which they never use in reference to the new president.  On second thought, maybe the “Obama Effect didn’t take with me, ‘cuz I don’t see what the flock one thing has to do with the other, but that could just be me.  At least, now we know what happened to Andy’s mind, though.

Deroy Murdock sees a connection.  Writing for RealClearPolitics, Murdock puts forth the theory that Obama’s “erudition” will eliminate the “ghetto culture” and cause young black men to pull their pants up and stop belittling people like him and his siblings for “acting white,” just because the Murdock kids got good grades.  Some scars stick, I guess.  Though, I never knew you couldn’t get good grades if your butt was cold.  And, those kids who picked on the Murdock family probably call Obama the “n-word” all the time, being immune to the “Obama effect,” like they obviously are, since they must be about 35 -40 years old by now.

CNN informs us that some people think that America will demand that Obama be twice as good as a white president would have to be, while others do not.  They also clue us in to the fact that “twice as good” as his predecessor ain’t saying much, making the whole premise moot.  But, what the hell do I know, I’m one of those “Obama effect” immune “n-words” who used to pick on Republican kids.

In other “news,” did you know that the day before the inauguration,  Matthew J. Clark put a statue of Barack Obama on a donkey and dragged it through the streets of Des Moines, Iowa all the way to the capitol building, while onlookers waved palm fronds and Secret Service-style SUV’s followed?  Betcha didn’t.  But, he did.  The “performance art” exhibit is called, “Simulacrum of Hope: Simulation of the Triumphant Entry of the Christ.”  Here’s Matthew on Matthew:

Matthew J. Clark is an unidisciplinary artist and sculptor who is neither living nor working in New York, New York. He hasn’t a MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and knows absolutely nothing about painting. His technical proficiency at 3-dimensional art could speak for itself if he would let it. In a self-fulfilling exercise of ostracization and alienation, he works tirelessly designing, constructing, and re-designing and re-constructing concept-driven sculptures and installations that he understands most people misunderstand. His work examines emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, metaphysical, psychological, physiological, sociological, and societal realities, hyperrealities, and dream-like states of consciousness, along with semiotics. Matt insisted that he end this bio with the declaration, “Words have no meaning.” He can’t stop.

He is not represented by the Marian Goodman Gallery which has offices in New York and Paris. I think I have pneumonia.

Does the “Obama effect” apply to white people in reverse?  Probably not, whatever’s troubling Matt is probably a pre-existing condition.  And, speaking of lingering troubles, the Cabbage Patch Weeble, Rod Blagojevich, has hired a public relations firm to handle his upcoming “Screw Your Impeachment Trial” media blitz.  In true Blago ham-fisted style, the firm he chose is notorious for its clientele, primarily, Drew Peterson, the latest Peterson to be accused of killing his inconvenient wife.

In case you just can’t get enough Obama, and I’d be shocked if you could, there’s always Pocket Obama.  Yes, you too could have a pocket full o’ Obie quotes to consult anytime your hopium levels plunge.  And, if that’s not enough, you can generate your own inaugural speech here, secure in the knowledge that you couldn’t possibly do worse.

And, the wheels are off the bus.  The people under it say, “hi.”

Wired Up And Ready To Go

Keith Olbermann, he of the perpetually twisted panties knickers panties, is up to his old tricks of demonizing George Bush in order to fellate the true object of his man love, Barack Obama, again.  Not only does the thought sicken anyone old enough to understand the birds and bees, regardless of sexual orientation, in this case, Olbermann’s efforts could have real consequences.

Now let me start things off by saying, I have no love for George Bush.  His “real Americans would want us to run out and find somebody to bomb the shit out of” rah-rah that lead us into a war he now wants credit for winning (suck my plastic weenie) makes him lower than whale shit in my book.  But, he’s so yesterday, and today, there’s a new sheriff in town who bears watching with a keen eye.  Unfortunately, Olbermann didn’t get the memo.

The memo Olbermann got, to lay the onus for warrantless spying completely at Bush’s feet, seemingly to insulate Obama, came most likely from the MS (Microsoft) part of MSNBC, given that Obama is the Silicon Valley, high-tech, Netroots poster boy whose combined efforts are largely responsible for his being elected, not only through their constant fluffing, but their considerable funding, and is all the more insidious because of it.  The guy who came into office by collecting, manipulating and exploiting digital information, and who has incorporated his campaign machine into the federal government, and who voted to extend carte blanche to prying government eyes is the guy I want to watch now.  It also makes me wonder if all that Netroots sound and fury re: FISA was part of some sort of Astroturfed misdirection choreography.

Olbermann’s latest ravings relate to allegations made by whistle-blower Russell Tice, who claims the Bush administration spied on everybody, not just bad guys, even the media.  Wired tells us that Tice made back-to-back appearances on Countdown, Wednesday and Thursday, to pretty much repeat what he’s been saying all along.  I’ll have to take them at their word, I can’t watch MSNBC or anything that features Olbermann, Matthews, Maddow, Shuster, etc., et al, their voices, likenesses, or hint of a shadow of their essence without risking an aneurysm.

NSA whistleblower Russell Tice was back on Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC program Thursday evening to expand on his Wednesday revelations that the National Security Agency spied on individual U.S. journalists, entire U.S. news agencies as well as “tens of thousands” of other Americans.

Tice said on Wednesday that the NSA had vacuumed in all domestic communications of Americans, including, faxes, phone calls and network traffic.

Today Tice said that the spy agency also combined information from phone wiretaps with data that was mined from credit card and other financial records. He said information of tens of thousands of U.S. citizens is now in digital databases warehoused at the NSA.

In another article, Wired claims that on Thursday, the Obama administration officially sided with Bush on warrantless wiretapping:

The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.

Keith didn’t mention that.  He also didn’t mention that Tice was fired from the National Security Agency in 2005, after a “psychological evaluation,” and has been making allegations since 2001.  In January, 2006, CBS News did a profile based on an ABC News story:

President Bush has admitted that he gave orders that allowed the NSA to eavesdrop on a small number of Americans without the usual requisite warrants.

But [longtime National Security Agency insider Russell] Tice disagrees. He says the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used.

“That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted, or you know, placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were sucked into that vacuum,” Tice said.

More info on Tice and the NSA can be found here.  Now, it’s far more than probable that the “psychological evaluation” that lead to Tice’s firing was retaliatory since Tice’s finger-pointing came long before the NSA’s brain-digging, but, that’s not the point.  The point is, Olbermann’s brief Obama mention and brush-off of the fact that his office had no comment, seems telling, or is “warantless wiretapping” only wrong when Republicans do it?  Shouldn’t the media be pressing Obama 2.0 to go on record when they’re siding with Bush?   Why the sudden push to hold Bush’s feet to the fire on Obama’s watch?  Especially when Obama has already shown he can’t be trusted and bears watching?

Two days after introducing what he heralded as the most sweeping ethics rules in American history — ones that would “close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely” — President Barack Obama today waived those rules for his nominee for Deputy Secretary of Defense, William Lynn.

This interview with ABC’s Brian Ross is most likely in conjunction with the above mentioned ABC story from 2006, however, it was uploaded to You Tube in September, 2008.

*Thanks to commenter Coupe de Groucho for the heads up.