Axelrod's lament

By Ann Kane

Here we go again. Another puff piece on the president's poor performance has graced the pages of the New York Times. Each time the president's numbers begin to sink in the polls, he sends his spinmeister, David Axelrod, to an interview with mainstream media. Predictably, the interviewer gets around to Axelrod's personal life.

"I have dealt with a lot of ‘real stuff' in my life," he said, referring to his daughter's long struggle with epilepsy, his father's suicide and his wife's bout with breast cancer. "The disapprobation of some folks in Washington doesn't seem very meaningful."

Who among us hasn't dealt with difficulties, even tragedies? Yet, most of us eventually stop blaming the past and others, and get on with becoming adults.

As a child, when I tried to garner sympathy from my dad for a plea which had no substance, I'd pout and cry. Without saying a word, he would rub his thumb together with his index finger. The gesture symbolized the playing of a tiny violin with the kind of tune which plucks at the heartstrings of the listener. My dad didn't buy my sob story.

Besides singing a never ending dirge on his mournful existence, Axelrod also feels responsible for not having "succeeded in reversing a 30-year trend of skepticism and cynicism about government." Whoa, what arrogance. Narcissists abound.

"For me, the question is, why haven't we broken through more than we have?" Mr. Axelrod said. "Why haven't we broken through?"

The inability of the Administration to effect a sweeping socialist overhaul of our nation's economic, political, and educational systems in a short span of time has Axelrod worried. He questions why this push to socialism is not met with open arms.

Maybe America doesn't like what the Administration is selling. Maybe she desires to remain a constitutional republic, and she's rightly resisting the bullying tactics from the president and his advisers.

The president's main ad man reciting the same tired script is a Johnny-one-note who wields too much influence in the governing of America. Remember, America, when we elect a president, we elect his family, his friends, and his cronies.