You have the worst american president in our lifetime, or maybe since Grant, or maybe ever. What do you expect?

The country is deeply self-destructive, with nearly 50% still supporting him.

Obama is certainly shaping up to be the worst; as crucial as that is, that's not the issue with the SNL skit, as outrageously hilarious as it was. I'm not saying we should leave it at scathing reviews of Dreams From My Father (which should have tipped people off). Our only hope for Obama not totally wrecking the country are the constitutional bonds described in Federalist 51 and his own realization that his ambition requires him to behave in a certain way that reaffirms America's best traditions.

"Our only hope for Obama not totally wrecking the country...."

Wow, there really is almost no difference between the tea partiers and the bloggers here. That's troubling.

(And the next time someone feigns offense at being called a "teabagger" I'll remember this "outrageously hilarious" skit, with the lame sexual humor that would have - at least if a Republican prez were its target - appalled any self-respecting conservative, even in the recent past.)

Scanlon, that's not really a rebuttal...as far as I know, the word "teabagger" isn't a logical response to the assertion that Obama is the "worst President in our lifetime."

I think the Left has lost the ability to debate (or think, even).

Even the NYT knows the US has an appalling problem with the national debt. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/business/23rates.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

The article does not mention Obama nor the current Congress, as if goverment spending just happens, which, I suppose, to a certain extent it does. However:

"With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

I do agree with Craig that the skit was in very bad tatse, but wonder what he expects from SNL? For me the only really funny aspect of that skit is that Obama is the object of their derision instead of some Republican or other conservative. As those jolly young folks feel the coming pinch of progressive consequences maybe they are waking up to the reality of the allocation of scarce resources and management thereof as a matter of personal concern. Their dreams of hope and change are fading into a buyer's remorse over the pricetag of the plenty of nothing they bought. Really, government cannot do what Obama & Co. says it can do without reducing us to a socialist-style worker's paradise.

The side-bar is useful as it discusses the use of money from both Social Security and federal pension plans to finance the debt. That's good, because we owe ourselves the money. That's bad, because that's our retirement fund and we may not be good for the money. The other part of the debt, just as that skit notes, are foreign countries who have bought our securities and who also have to be wondering if that was such a wise move.

That skit was ugly, no doubt about it. However, it made a good point its own ugly way.

Craig, your read of things is oh so convenient. I don't watch SNL. I think the show has degraded and continues to degrade our culture generally. I dislike the conservative argument that South Park and such are good for conservatism. I think its generally a bad idea, even something sinful, to watch either show. Sometimes I nonetheless do (and South Park is much funnier), but my general jugment that it is degrading remains. Indeed, you and I degrade ourselves talking about it. How pathetic it is that SNL at one time was such a key landmark of our culture, and that it to some degree remains such, so that the boring predictable imitation of Sarah Palin by big-shot-whats-her-name was regarded as a big deal, and the mere criticism of Obama in the usual SNL way is regarded now as politically significant. And it really may be a significant sign of his dwindling popularity.

(Incidentally, the comedic gold to be mined in Obama is in his speaking style--you know, lots of blather about the "process" this and the "let me be clear" that, blah, blah, lie, lie, all delivered in the most straight-faced progressive boy scout way. But instead, in this skit SNL the laughs hinge on what they're most comfortable with--degraded sexual jokes, plays on the wierdness of such jokes coming from foreigners--i.e, the schitck here with the premier of China wanting Obama to do a sex act on him is just Borat ad naseum.)

It simply is a degraded waste of my time to sit here and write all this out. Indeed I'm only doing so to say hello to the great Kate, whom I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting in person this weekend at a polticial science conference.

How many other conservatives go to a link like the SNL skit, and say, yeah, a degraded waste of time to say much about this? How many smell the shit and steer clear? Or to satisfy you should we all line up and dutifully say, yeah, this is low? As if you'd believe us if we did.

And you know darn well that more Democrats than not just wallowed in this kind of political dung when it was being daily flung at Bush.

And BTW, here's the really degrading thing. According to a story that no press MSM or Big-time Conservative Media seems to have tried to investigate further, our President Obama actually SAID the "teabagger" word to a Democratic Congressman to refer to the tea-partiers. No denials from the White House of this have been forthcoming. I truly hope it is a false story, but I guess I'll never know.

Bah.

Kate, again, a real pleasure to meet you.

Hello, to the great yourself, Carl. I was delighted to meet you and to hear you discuss Tocqueville so ably. When my young friends said, "Then there is this panel we would like to go hear in the afternoon. It sounds good. Would you mind?" and I saw who was on it, I laughed and remembered anew the goodness of God's providence.

Wasn't an implied point of the original post that we are all degraded when the president is degraded? Does it matter his party? "Contempt has consequences" and that aspect of the SNL skit is ugly, too.

Carl, sorry I missed you at W&L Lincoln conference.

Kate, glad you were able to come. Yeah, Ken did mean to imply that--but rec'd no credit from Craig for doing so.

Ken, you were there? Oh, well. Wasn't that a treat? Especially the Clarence Thomas talk.

"Wasn't an implied point of the original post that we are all degraded when the president is degraded? Does it matter his party? "Contempt has consequences" and that aspect of the SNL skit is ugly, too."

Maybe so, Kate, but the idea being pushed is that Bush was degraded by the disrespectful liberal media, and the mindless haters, whereas, we're to believe, Obama has degraded, and is degrading, himself and the office of the POTUS. Bush deserved no contempt, whereas Obama does, yada, yada, yada...

No, in this instance I think SNL did the plenty of disrespectful liberal media damage to both the presidency and Obama. Did you laugh when Bush was (excuse me) the butt of the joke? I do not recall your complaining about rude things said about Bush. Yada, yada, yada?

Set your life more easy take the business loans and everything you need.