Attack Of The Critics

Summing up Obama's disasterous September:

House Democrats want to see a primary challenge. His team can’t get its story straight on Solyndra. His big announcement of the American Jobs Act fell so flat that he had to do a followup speech this morning that got even less attention. His secretary of state – a figure of highest integrity and deep loyalty to Obama who would never try to get the inside track on him if she thought she could pull it off – is more popular than he is and is being discussed as a replacement candidate for 2012. ABC’s Jake Tapper notes that Obama staffers’ claims of having been misquoted by themselves in Ron Suskind’s critical new book are mostly not credible. (Best response: Treasury Secretary Geithner channeling Pee Wee Herman’s “I don’t have to see it; I lived it.”) The president can’t even belabor that saying about Warren Buffett’s secretary without bringing down the wrath of the nation’s administrative assistants.

And these aren’t even the biggest Obama fiascos of September. For that you’ll have to look to AttackWatch.com, which was ill-conceived to begin with (Nobody ever won an election by acting like a victim); has a stupid name (What decent person would watch an attack? You’re supposed to fight back against an attack); and drew a wave of negative attention. Among the critical raves: “immediately spammed with tweet after tweet heavy on sarcasm regarding the president's stimulus and jobs creation plans”; “stellar ... for all the wrong reasons”; “most people have made a mockery out of the Web site”; “a terrific content-generating resource for right-wing bloggers”; and, from observer ironchefofmunchies, “the laughing stock of the internet.”

The Attack Watch debacle wasn’t just bad for Obama but bad for comedy, producing heaps of subtle-enough-to-level-cities sarcasm like “"#attackwatch I saw someone purposely squeeze the Charmin in the grocery store" and “There's a new Twitter account making President Obama look like a creepy, authoritarian nutjob.” This Attack Watch parody ad beats you senseless with its comedy stylings, and the inevitable Hitler response went up without any subtitles.

Comedy isn't pretty. Especially when it's unintentional, and self-inflicted.