One of Jon Stewart’s most outstanding moments during the Bush administration was a 2006 segment—they called it “Rambling Man”—in which he dutifully displayed the 43rd president’s hapless and constant speechifying in response to violent events in Iraq that had spiraled out of his control and the resultant collapse of his popularity. In the interest of fairness and journalistic integrity—two things are no doubt synonymous with the awesome Daily Show—Mr. Stewart has now given the 44th president the very same treatment. The result: escapist hilarity followed by a depressing comedown.  

If Barack Obama’s personal and much-publicized attack on incoming House speaker John Boehner is any indication, we can assume the White House has finally caught up to what is certain to be the ugly result of the upcoming elections. This, dear readers, is what both people like me (self-aware employers of clichés) and the president (as a basketball enthusiast) must recognize as running out the clock.

The president journeyed to someplace known as Parma, Ohio, to tout three new economic initiatives. Since we know for certain that the demonstrable failure of already-implemented policies aren’t to blame for Democratic electoral woes, many in the Washington chattering class have been hectoring him to make a “hard pivot”—i.e. renewed speechifying and feckless stop-gap measures—to economic issues to shore up support for the party.

POLITICO has some salient details:

Touting his own economic plans, Obama alluded to three new proposals to jolt the struggling economy: a $50 billion federal investment to overhaul the nation’s railroads, highways and runways; a big tax break for businesses that conduct research and experimentation; and tax write-offs for companies’ expenditures on hiring, equipment and expansion.

Those measures carry a $180 billion price tag; Obama was careful to avoid calling it an economic stimulus plan, given the current national mood against government spending and the massive national debt. Republicans have nevertheless hammered the president, comparing his plan to the $814 billion emergency spending package he pushed through Congress last year – a measure the GOP leadership has declared a failure.

Whatever one thinks of the proposals in and of themselves (obviously I support them; even if I know from jump street they aren’t nearly enough), we can be certain this nothing more than a political ploy that, once more, is par for the course with these unfortunate presidents whenever they find themselves in rough patches.

This all reminds me of the White House’s fabled acumen during another momentous political event this year: the Massachusetts special election. As always the political establishment was far too late to recognize the potential for epic upset with Scott Brown—erstwhile pornstar who drives a truck!—over the reprehensible Attorney General Martha Coakley. Before he was goaded into hopping aboard Air Force One and flying to the Bay State to give some boring stump speech in support of Ms. Coakley, the president proposed a faux-populist measure timed to equip her with some badly-needed ammo. The so-called bank tax was inescapably timid and guaranteed to go absolutely nowhere. As did Martha Coakley’s candidacy.

The POLITICO article wraps it up this way:

In describing how the nation should work, the president told how his own family worked tirelessly to move up to the middle class. During World War II, he said, his grandfather fought in Europe while his grandmother worked in factories; In return, the government gave them a boost: his grandfather attended college on the GI Bill, and purchased a home through the Federal Housing Authority.

Obama said his mother put herself through college, knowing it would lead to a better life, while first lady Michelle Obama’s father, a Chicago municipal worker, still labored on his job long after multiple sclerosis had crippled him, knowing his family needed his income to advance out of the working class. Those values – hard work, sacrifice, keeping the future in mind – are what made the nation great, he said.

“It was an America where you didn’t buy things you couldn’t afford; where we didn’t just think about today – we thought about tomorrow,” he said. “An America that took pride in the goods it made, not just in the things it consumed. An America where a rising tide really did lift all boats, from the company CEO to the guy on the assembly line.”

To applause, Obama proclaimed: “That’s the America I believe in.”

This sort of pep talk may have been inspiring and politically effective in, like, 2008 but it’s nearly 2011 now. The pattern is unmistakably clear: “When the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down” was to George W. Bush what some variation of “That’s the [insert something unassailable] I believe in” is to Barack Obama.

Say it with me: Running. Out. The. Clock.

For added clarity we can count on Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Sen. Brown’s a sort of main street guy who could be a congressional diamond in the rough if we were to ever get a real Democratic president on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. This is doubly true since after November we likely won’t have tragic hero Russ Feingold to rely upon anymore. (Feingold will be a victim of Obama’s Democratic Party and don’t ever forget it. He shunted aside progressive arguments about the hopelessness of Barack Obama, trusted the president and will pay for it with his career.)

Sen. Brown provides the obvious: “They [voters] don’t even know who John Boehner is,” POLITICO quotes the senator saying. He’s alluding to polls indicating that while a plurality of voters disapprove of Boehner, the vast many of them are so ignorant of him they probably can’t even pronounce his name. “Congressman ‘Boner’ is what my constituents tend to call him,” Mr. Brown went on to add but not really.

In the coming weeks I would advise denizens of the reality-based community to relax and enjoy the sight of tall and handsome ball hog Barry dribble and aimlessly shoot the breeze up and down the court, waiting for the final countdown. It might not seem like much, but it’s a hell of a lot more preferable to wading through establishmentarian nonsense such as this.  

And when he’s finally done we can all go to Denny’s. On me.