A Shooting Star Dims

“Barack Obama was a rock star on the campaign trail, and his aura went undimmed in his first few months of office. But then he began taking too many curtain calls. The applause subsided, but he kept coming back to center stage to try harder to wow us. He forgot what every star must learn, that you’ve got to know when to get off that center stage. If you don’t have anything new to say, shut up. This applies even to presidents. He’s reaching for applause lines with the same ol’ same ol’. So his poll numbers begin to shrink. He pushes, and pushes, a flawed health care scheme without having anything new to add. … The president likes golf because the greens provide refuge from the public. Just as he wants to get away from us, more of us feel the urge to get away from him. Too many press conferences and speeches without anything new to say bore us, too. While he works on his backswing and short putts, he might think about the tough questions that so far he can’t answer. He can take his time getting back to us.” –columnist Suzanne Fields

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