PrintApril 14, 2011
They Snooze, We Lose
I was scheduled for one of those sleep tests -- overnight, away from home, strange bed, stranger people. I was dreading it. What if I can't get to sleep? Will I have to come back and do it all over again?
Not to worry. My test was scheduled for the same day that President Obama went on national television to describe his latest budget proposals. All I have to do is ask the sleep center folks to re-play the president's address, tune in to that sonorous and sleep-inducing baritone, and I'll be resting in the arms of Morpheus.
Actually, those arms of Morpheus are getting a bit crowded. I'd have to wait until Vice President Joe Biden wakes up from his afternoon nap. It seems there's a tonier sleep center in Washington than the one I'm headed to.
It's the East Room of the White House and Joe Biden's right up there in the front row, sawing wood. And the lady behind him in the video -- probably a budget analyst -- seems to be bagging some Z's, too.
Now, one of the things we like about Joe Biden is he's so natural. I remember when he got those excellent plugs for his hair. All natural. And wasn't it natural for him to come up to President Obama at the signing ceremony for the health care takeover last year and whisper into his ear -- in a stage whisper audible to a billion people watching on TV -- "This is a big [expletive deleted] deal." Please consult the Nixon Library for original translation.
What could be more natural than nodding off during the president's labored description of how he intends to keep the entire country from going over Niagara Falls? (Hint: We do go over the falls under his budget plan, but he will be most accommodating in providing barrels.)
To be fair, President Reagan also nodded off. In his case, it was during late afternoon meetings. But he had a good excuse. Have you ever listened to Al Haig? Reagan reacted to stories about his sleeping on the job with good humor. He said he'd given strict instructions to his staff. If anything important happens in the world, they are to come to him and wake him -- even if he's in a Cabinet meeting.
What Joe Biden's all natural performance shows us is that even liberals think the president is boring. Well, socialism is very boring. That's one of the reasons most sensible people don't spend their waking hours reading Karl Marx. Barack Obama himself probably dozed during his days at Columbia when he attended those Socialist Scholars Conferences in Manhattan.
Leftists like Mark Shields are forever trying to tell us that the Dukakises and Mondales can't be dangerous because they're so, well, dull. They like to rearrange their sock drawers. Mike Dukakis took Swedish Land Use Planning to read at the beach, Shields helpfully informed us. That's how voters knew to stay far away from him. We didn't find out about Obama palling with the Marxist scholars until after he was elected. Too bad.
I never want to become a cynic like, H.L. Mencken, but I must admit the writer they called the Sage of Baltimore had a way with words. During the 1920s, when many bright young American writers escaped disillusionment and creditors and ran off to Paris, Mencken stayed put right here. Let them go, he said, I will not budge.
America is so bizarre, he wrote, "so inordinately gross and preposterous, so perfectly brought up to the highest conceivable amperage, so steadily enriched with an almost fabulous daring and originality, that only the man who was born with a petrified diaphragm can fail to laugh himself to sleep every night..."
I could never think that of my beloved country. On the other hand, I have been surveying this administration for two years now with the morbid fascination of a man seeing a boa constrictor swallowing an especially uncooperative pig.
People tell me Joe Biden as Vice President is just a heartbeat away from the Presidency. That's high and tight, as they say. And I'm reminded that at no time in Biden's thirty-six years in the U.S. Senate, did any of his Democratic colleagues in that elite body suggest making him their Majority Leader. They knew him.
So now, it's off to that sleep test. But I don't have to worry about sleeplessness. I think I'll just cry myself to sleep.
