Here's how President Obama concluded an interview in the Oval Office today:
"But, look, I just think that what we've been doing over the last six months is getting people back into fighting trim. This is a town where there was just a belief that nothing could get done....I'll use just the workout metaphor, and that is, you know, when you start training again and you're pushing your body a little bit harder, sometimes it hurts. But if you keep on at it, after a while your body adjusts. And I think that's what's happening to politics in Washington. Folks have been sitting on the couch for a while, and now they're starting to feel like, hey, you know what, I can run. And that's why we're getting stuff done."
All hail our new personal trainer! Until he entered the White House, everyone was a mere couch potato.
Funny. I'd thought that, a couple of years ago, when the war in Iraq was going badly, it was Sen. Obama who wanted to give up because, he thought, "nothing could get done." I'd thought it was President Bush, and Sens. McCain and Lieberman, and Gens. Petraeus and Odierno, who had insisted on making great exertions to try to turn the situation around. But I guess they were just sitting on the couch.
I'd also thought that Bush, McCain, and some Democrats had made real efforts a couple of years ago to try to deal responsibly with the difficult issue of immigration. I'd thought that it was Senator Obama who had supported poison-pill amendments that killed the bill, thus ensuring "that nothing could get done." But I guess the immigration reformers were just sitting on the couch.
And I guess history began on Jan. 20th, 2009.
But wait--what about last couple of weeks? Some serious people thought the United States could do some good by weighing in on behalf of the Iranian people against their regime. President Obama apparently believed that nothing much could be done. Wasn't he the one playing the couch potato in the midst of an international crisis?
But I guess the president was too busy to focus on helping demonstrators fighting the regime in Iran. He was busy getting us Americans "back into fighting trim."
