The Adventures of the Bamster and 9 fingered Rahm, #3.

The Snow Queen & The Dragon Lady

haunt his every sleeping and waking moment.

At the regular afternoon meeting, the Bamster and 9 Fingered Rahm fell into a somber mood, things had not been going as well as hoped and the press office was down to feeding the Bamster clips from ever loyal and adoring commentators like Rachel Maddow and Chris (my leg tingles) Matthews. Rahm had yelled at Press Secretary this morning over some very snippy remarks by Jon Stewart on the previous night’s Daily Show. “Find out what got into him, the rat, how come he’s turning on us.” “But Rahm, if the Bamster floats one his off the talking points non sequitur’s, Stewart can’t help himself.” “Yeah, I know it’s his shtik, but I still don’t like him making us look bad. I should have known he’d be trouble ever since that chop about Herself last Fall when he showed the old Miami pentioner looking at Michelle and saying ‘“Vat a touches.”’ She is still pissed about it.”

The Bamster sat forward in his great chair, head in his hands on the Presidential desk, “Rahm, did you hear, the Snow Queen, Sarah Palin herself, she was on Rachel Ray’s show this morning.”

“Don’t worry about it, just two air head broads what can they do?”

“But Rahm, they cooked, they made this Alaskan stuff.”

“Get a grip, man, so Caribou Barbie can make some kind of goyish Lox, big F****ing deal!!” Rahm said in firm voice.

“But the audience applauded like they loved her.” The Bamster was spooked.

“Chill, man, so she can cook . . . she probably can since she has to feed her kids and that big ox of husband of hers. I don’t think many people are going to be eating her favorite Moose Goulash or whatever she makes.” Rahm explained.

“You’re right, I don’t think I’d like to eat a moose. Nobody would like to eat a moose would they?”

“Sure, Canadians might like Moose, but not our voters. It’s not bad, you know, I had some at a great little deli in Montreal one time, smoked moose on rye.”

“But Rahm, she still scares me,” the Bamster looked at him pleading for reassurance. “She is a killer, I’ve seen the pictures. She’s some kind of wild cracker Princess Xena or something.”

“F*** her, shake it off, big guy, be a mensch. Do I got to call the kitchen have them send up Spam Fry Rice or Ahi Poke or some thing?,” Rahm knew that the Hawaiian snacks of his boyhood always perked up the Bamster.

“That would help, it would,” the Bamster raised his head.

“At least Hillary Clinton will not be on Rachel Ray’s show, I don’t think she can boil a f***ing pot of water.” Rahm laughed. Then he realized his mistake. The only person the Bamster hated and feared more Sarah the Snow Queen was his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, or as he and Rahm called her, Dragon Lady.

“I have this nightmare, Rahm, it’s horrible. There I am trying to run for reelection and the Republicans and the back stabbing Blue Dog Democrats run a special fusion ticket of Hillary for President and Sarah for VP. I can see them together in a VFW Hall in some awful little town in Pennsylvania drinking’ beer and doing shots with the peasants, talking about guns and all that other blue collar white folks stuff.” The Bamster was beginning to sweat as he recounted his recurring frightful vision.

“Cool it, can’t happen, we got Hillary right where we f***ing want her. She can’t go nowhere. I got my guys keeping my eye on her and her little shlep Blumenthal. She can’t make a bleeping move without us knowing first.” Rahm assured his heroic leader.

“Are you sure?” Bamster pleaded.

“F***ing absolutely certain, them mother f***ing mothers can’t lay a glove on us!” Rahm almost shouted. “We're holding our friends close and our enemies even closer,” Rahm quote the Godfather epic, it always bucked up the Bamster’s spirit.

At this point Press Secretary Gibbs burst in, “Sorry, but you guys got to see this, it’s unbelievable.” On the huge plasma TV we see the tarmac at Anchorage International Airport and through a light snow fall we see Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a fur coat and hat on a stop over on her return flight from Moscow. Next to her in a bright red parka is a smiling Sarah Palin handing her a slab of smoked salmon in bright foil and red ribbons. Hillary beams, “Why thank you, Sarah, this is so sweet and you know how I love smoked Alaskan salmon.” She gave a little peck on the cheek to Sarah and Todd.

Sarah smiles back, “You bet’cha, I made it my self and my husband Todd, he caught it right here in Alaska.”

“Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.” Hillary purred.

“I’m so glad we had a chance to get together Madam Secretary, you know how I’ve always admired you, one American woman to another.”

As the camera pulled back, a radiant Hillary climbed back up the steps into her sky blue and white Air Force plane, Sarah and Todd waved and Hillary clutched the smoked salmon to her breast and smiled warmly.

Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!

Gibbs and Rahm patted the stricken Bamster on his back and got him to take a drink of water.

Rahm shouted, “The bitches.”

- xxx -

The adventures of the Bamster and nine fingered Rahm. #2

Fat & Ugly and the obese no more campaign.

It was time for the morning meeting and Rahm bounded into the Oval Office. The Bamster knew it was his trusty 9 Fingered Rahm when the background music ceased and up came the booming bouncing entrance music from the Second Act of Minkus’s Le Corsair. The door opened and with three leaps Rahm came to a halt in front of the big desk, then tossing his clip board to an aide. Rahm did a Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant and a sault de Basque and then bowed Bolshoi Ballet style right hand over his chest and left arm expended low.

“Felling perky this morning, are we?” The Bamster said after he took a deep breath. He could just tell Rahm was especially full of new brilliant out of the box ideas, hopefully none of them involved invading a small and unsuspecting nation, launching a major new program or putting a tax on Botox. (Boy, did Speaker Nancy Pazzi unload on him when she heard about that. She treatened a ten dollar a pill tax on viagra and other male enhancement drugs and supplements and then made a nasty comment about his own virility, the bitch, Vaca, strega!!!)

“Mr. President, I couldn’t wait to see you this morning, have I got a new plan that will save tons of money and make you ever more popular.” The Bamster groaned silently, he was nervious already. Only Newt Gingrich could come up with as many out of the box and great and out of the box and off the wall ideas as quickly as Rahm the nine fingered.

“Our obesity Czarina, Annabelle Trimm just sent me an action plan that is so blank-it-t-blank good you are going to love it. She calls for taxes on all junk food, unhealthy food and candy. Additionally she has plans of action for schools and colleges, reforms of the fast food industry, special fat taxes for transportation and services. It’s so mo***f***ing great it’s self financing. She and her guys have these great charts for age height and weight, its sure fire.”

“You think so?” The Bamster looked interested.

“Oh yeah, like it’ll guilt trip all the fat ass folks into getting skinny. and you know when they are skinny, they’ll thank us bit time.” Rahm gushed.

“Ok give it too me, I’ll add it to my reading pile.” The Bamster nodded.

“The one really great thing about this is that we have all the school kids in the country drilled in how to taunt and tease the lazy ass fat kids. The lard ass kids will always go to the back of every line and be docked one grade until they get skinny. They will not be able to go to school dances or be in school plays and stuff. And then their parents will have to go to reeducation classes and swear statements that they will keep their blubber bod brats on a vegan diet until they get skinny. There will be songs and posters and all the kids tv shows will bad mouth fat kids.” Rahm the nine fingured glowed with enthusiasm.

“Don’t you think that is sort of laying it on thick?” the Bamster cautioned.

“F*** no, no f***ing way, everybody already hates fat people.” Rahm blurted right out, then he continued, “Also, potato chips, candy bars, doughnuts, french fries and onion rings, burgers, dogs and all that other fat people food gets banned.”

“Ahhh, you know I like a good burger now and then.” Bamster objected.

“Look Boss, don’t sweat it, there will still be soy and vegiburgers just no meat hamburgers.” Rham reassured him.

The next morning Rahm the nine fingered came in for his morning ten minutes with the POTUS. (President of the United States)

“Give me five, Bamster,” Rahm beamed. “Loved that blast the fat project, eh?” Rahm asked.

“Ahhh, you know . . .” the POTUS said softly.

“Hey, Boss what happened to you ears, they look swollen.” Rahm asked.

“Er, you know that age height and weight charts Czarina Trimm cooked up, well,Michelle didn’t like it. She really didn’t like it.”

“Well, you know facts are facts, Bamster.” Rahm countered.

“She seemed to think it somehow said I was calling her fat.” The Bamster explained.

“You were not, well not exactly.” Rahm shurgged, getting the picture.

“Easy for you to say, you didn’t have to sleep on the sofa last night.”

“Tell her she’s too touchy.” Rahm suggested weakly.

“Rahm, no, no I’m not and you are not either. She said this program dies right now or she is going to go Nancy Reagan and fire you and everybody in the West Wing except the Marines and the gardeners.” The Bamster was not kidding.

“She wouldn’t, she couldn’t.”

“Look Rahm, I’m only the POTUS, she’s the First Lady. This morning she had an old time usher and chambermaid tell us about Nancy Reagan and how she locked the Gipper up in the family quarters and she and Mike Deaver and fired everybody.”

“She wouldn’t have dared, and it couldn’t happen now.”

The Bamster put the ice pack back on his ear and using his best James Earl Jones baritone voice, “Rahm, I don’t think you want to see if she could. The project dies, poof, never heard from again.”

“OK boss I guess I see where you are on this.”

“And another thing, the girls went bananas when I told them no more happy meals or cheetos or snickers bars. They got really mean.”

“All right, the idea needs a little f***ing polish.” Rahm said.

“No, Rahm, the idea is dead, it never happened and will not happen.”

“OK man, I capish.’ It is bye bye, poof, never heard of it.”Rahm said.

“Also, Czarina Trimm, call ESPN and get her a job, you know on the quiet. With her cleavage it shouldn’t be hard for them to add her to the staff.”

“OK Boss, consider it done.” With this Rahm went back to his office. There were at least thirty other untested action plans the various Czars had cooked up. A few were bound to good, maybe.

Future episodes:

The Bamster encounters the Gipper's Ghost. They talk about marrying girls from Chicago.

Also, the care and feeding of wingnuts.

The Bamster goes one on one with the Snow Queen. A secret basketball game of President Obama and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. At midnight in the gym at the Washington Marine Barracks, he takes on Sarah the Barracuda. Rahm assures him, "Hey boss, don't sweat it, she's only a girl."

The day all the teleprompters died.

Rahm expains how the Democratic Party Meshpucha really works. Also he tries to teach the Bamster the difference between a Macher and a Shlemiel. The Bamster tries to teach Rahm Hawaiian wisdom.

The Adventures of the Bamster & 9 fingered Rahm, #1

Not all beer & skittles at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It was one of those morning when the Bamster was getting numb, it was barely eleven o’clock and he was feeling a bit green around the edges. From his arrival in the Oval Office at 7:30 until now it had been slow boring drudgery. The day had begun fine and clear, sunny and not a single middle of the night phone call to tell him of natural disaster, an assassination, a riot or other outrage, or an unexpected bad day on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Then he had breakfast with his girls, they were chatty and a ate their scrambled eggs with winks and giggles and good cheer. HIs breakfast was just what he liked, half a papaya he had squeezed a lime over and dusted with fresh black pepper, a poached egg and two pieces of dry toast with a tart and yet slightly sweet orange marmalade sent over by the Danish Ambassador. He liked Denmark, nice little country that didn’t make trouble or demands for money. He had a list of the nice little countries: Coasta Rica, Chile, New Zealand, Portugal, and Bulgaria. They didn’t invade their neighbors, make political or economic demands, lock up and torture political prisoners or put up posters of him looking like the Joker in the last Batman movie. Unfortunately, it was a short list.

After breakfast with a spring in his step the Bamster our super hero and President walked to the Oval Office dressed in one of his favorite gray suits, he liked gray suits. He went downstairs and then out on the colonnade for a walk to the Oval office. The Marine Guards open the doors and gave him a sharp salute, he like the Marines, friendly athletic young men who never asked for anything and were always happy when he visited their gym to shoot a few hoops and loosen up. They watched ESPN and didn’t make trouble. He made a few calls from the list Rahm had sent over then went into his National Security Briefing. His stomach always gave a growl and often got worse as the half hour tour of the world went on. Russia was making trouble, the Russians were always like the big guy at the end of the bar who was just drunk enough to threaten trouble and just waiting to be dis’d. Then their were the Chinese, always amiable and helpful and looking out for number one with their world wide deals and counter deals. They were the perfect “fren’emies” and you had to keep your eye on them. Of course there were various thug dictators up to no good on every continent, African despots who fed their opponents to the crocodiles, Hugo Chavez who was always mouthing off like a school yard bully, and then there was the Middle East. Over there it never ended or got better without getting worse at the same time. In Iran the Revolutionary Guards were now raping coeds arrested brought in for Treason before they were hanged or shot. It seems Islamic law forbid the execution of virgins, so these savages raped them before they killed them. They also said awful things about him. Still he made nice nice and had low level talks with them that never went anywhere.

Thoroughly depressed he said good by to the National Security team and stretched before his Economics guys came in. While these guys didn’t tighten his stomach or give him much heartburn, they confused the Hell out him. Everyday the nerdy and the suave economists painted a picture that was hopeless but not serious, some days serious but not hopeless. They had numbers for everything and he tried to look alert and knowing. It wasn’t easy, some mornings they could have been talking Lithuanian for all the sense it made. He always felt he knew less after half an hour of numbers and more numbers than he had when he walked into the room.

Feeling mildly numbed by an hour of depressing news, he would walk back to the oval office and his ten minutes with his trusty Chief of Staff. This always revved him up, Rahm the nine fingered was full of news, moves and counter moves, great up beat ideas. He would also toss in some salacious gossip about this or that Senator or Congressman and a lobbyist or staffer. He also shared bad things, lots of bad things about the guys he disliked.

So, perked up, the Bamster gamely was ready for his pre lunch chores. He signed a pile of proclamations for National Flower Day, National Camp Fire Day, the centennials of the first this that and the other thing. Then he signed letters congratulating people for living a long time, winning the national slow pitch championship and a flowery note to be read at the Gala final appearance of an older opera diva.

The Vice President’s Office called and he invited himself to the special luncheon today for all his Czars. That’s all he needed, the Bamster thought. He buzzed Rahm’s office and told him to find a funeral or festival or something to get the VP out of town next week.

At 12:15 he walked into the State Dinning Room and there we all the Czars he had appointed. There were tall ones and short ones, Czars in their white Jackets and Czarinas in their tiaras. Old and young, fat and thin, cheerful Czars and gloomy Czars. His eye caught sight of the Czarina for women’s sports -- she looked tanned and fit and she showed a lot of cleavage. Most of the other Czarina’s looked like nerdy tenured professors of English Lit and organic Chemistry from good but not great universities.

At the podium was the Vice President, “Lets give him a big hand folks,” he said in that expansive cheerful way he had. Then he returned to the awful joke he had started, “You see folks, the three Congressmen walk into a bar and the Republican says to the two Democrats . . .” The Bamster sat and put on his best political fake smile. It was that kind of day.

- xxx -

So hip that he doesn't need a Sinatra hat.

Over the past year I have become addicted to Anthony Bourdain’s show on the Travel Channel. In case you are not familiar with it, Bourdain is a chef from New York of French heritage who travels the world and the USA. He is the ultimate hipster chef, so hip and so cool he doesn’t need to wear the narrow brimmed Sinatra hat lesser hipsters wear all the time to let you know they are hip. He was the long time head chef at New York’s Les Halles, about as authentic a French Bistro as exists this side of the Atlantic.

Bourdain is always quirky, often cranky, more so since he quit smoking. He has many sudden violent prejudices that surface at the oddest times. Right now his bete noirs are Gwenith Paltrow, a lovely actress who says she morally cannot eat anything with four legs and Rachel Ray who Bourdain savages for not being a real chef -- something that the perky charming one time cheerleader from up state New York takes pains to point out on almost every interview. Like many pretty actresses Paltrow can be stupied when babbling without a script. Her vapid views on the barbarous unhip reality of the USA are a favorite spiel of hers. Bourdain had a long feud with Emeril Lagasse, but he has made peace with the restauranteur. A good thing since Emeril is one of the few really famous Portuguese Americans, right behind march king John Philip Souza and ahead of Teresa Heinz Kerry.

On most of his travel adventures Bourdain appears jet lagged and when not mildly hung over. What is fascinating is his admiration and praise for truly exalted haut cuisine of almost every major school while also loving and recommending authentic highly ethnic and local street food and late night and early morning items that are usually eat with your hands standing up or sitting on a stool with a cold beer in the other paw. Bourdain is worshipful at the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and the great temples of high skill creative gastronomy -- French places with a lot of Michelin stars and great very serious Basque and Spanish restaurants that shoot for the stars.

Yet he also loves straight forward authentic local places that know what they are and make no apologies for it. These include unexpected establishments like San Francisco’s House of Prime Rib which continues to serve traditional American birthday and aniversary dishes from the the 1940’s with no apologies. He liked it because it is what it is and what is always was. Huge slabs of blood rare prime rib are served with creamed spinach, yorkshire pudding, au jus, creamed horse radish and a reliable cabernet and classic gin martinis. The same goes for really wierd joints in Chicago, the venerable Katz’s deli in New York, the Polonia Cafe in Detroit, big spartan rural Texas steakhouses and family run Mexican cafes in small southwestern towns.

OK, what doesn’t Bourdain like. First of all, he hates all chain and mega corporation restaurants and fast food outlets. He particularly find Chili’s odious because they seem to be debasing honest American, Tex Mex and Mexican dishes into cute not too spicy or salty platters for suburbanites. I am sure he hates plenty of other chains, but that is given to the point he doesn’t even have to sneer at Denny’s or Home Town Buffet among many many others.

He champions the off the wall eccentric even weird local joints when they are serious about what they cook and serve. Clam shacks in New England, Chicago hot dog stands, gumbo cafes and oyster houses in Louisiana, the plain diners where locals eat in Hawaii, and a grubby looking working class hamburger joint in San Francisco that serves a real American burger on sliced sour down bread. He also likes diners in the South that serve up the traditional regional dishes breakfast lunch and dinner, dishes with names like Hoppin’ John, Country Captain, Burnswick Stew and ham bisquits. Same for BBQ stands that serve up the regional styles -- pulled pork in the Carolinas, ribs in Memphis and St Louis and slow cooked dry rubbed brisket that never is touched with any BBQ sauce in Texas.

Bourdain also enjoys the lesser cuts of meat and innards that were the food of the poor for so long that they learned to make them wonderful. This would include beef tripe soups, ox tail braises, tongue sandwiches or tacos, kidneys fried in bacon, brains scrambled quickly, head cheese and Philadelphia scrapple, pigs feet in a dozen different ways and even more exotic items.

In another ways, while he very open and tolerant to almost every cuisine round the world, Bourdain’s slamming Gwenith Paltrow is actually a social and political not a gastronomic tantrum. Bourdain has few or no reservations about eating vegan and lacto vegetarian cooking, so long as it is authentic and local. He has often praised what Hindu and Buddhist cooks have set before him from street stalls or in homes or formal restaurants. What fried him about Ms. Paltrow was how she could travel around Spain with Mario Batali and friends and never ever let Jamon Serrano pass her lips. I suspect he classifies her eccentric semi-vegetarianism as a willful sort of secular fundamentalism, not as a real authentic local and traditional inheritance. While I don’t know for sure, I assume Bourdain is Franco American “Jack Catholic.” He seems to think like one and have little or no patience for lesser religious and secular sects.

My favorite Bourdain episode is his hour touring the Açores, where the meals he was eating literally brought me to tears. I could smell and recall the taste of the dishes on the table that my Grandmother and her sisters cooked when I was young. Other singular and enduring episodes are his hour touring Rajistran, where some Indian friends have assured me he “Caught the spirit and feel of the place” and his visits to Texas and to Mexico.

The same for his drive across the southwest from LA to Texas and his bombing around San Francisco in a brand new Ford recreation of the Black Mustang hatch back that Steve McQueen drove in Bullett. Another wonderful hour was his tour of the surviving old time places in New York City. This was a wonderful salute to those institutions strong and authentic and full of life enough to survive over the decades. Things that he especially liked were late night street food in Mexico and from the street stalls in Singapore, in Berlin a huge and vast delicatessen that seemed to offer the whole world for lunch and a Basque restaurant that was meticulous in every detail and yet full of authentic local live.

- xxx -

Clunkers come in and new cars fly off the lot.

Today got off to an increasingly common start as I read the news and saw another one of Obama whiz kid Ivy League Frat Boys brilliant ideas misfire. This is becoming a hallmark of this administration. The Clunker program worked like a charm, but not how it was planned. The White House Whiz kids are great on high concepts but often as not they muck up the mere details.

The $4,500 Federal voucher for your old gas guzzling clunker program was wildly successful, but not exactly in the way it was intended. The money is going whoosh into the car dealers as people nationwide line up to take a $4,500 gift from Obama’s evergreen federal munificence for their old clunker and apply it toward a new car. This is actually his first program that gives working, middle and upper income folks a nice slice of boodle. Think about it, can you imagine the outrage and shouting if Dub’ya had proposed such a profligate give away of public money to the same people. Of course the Obama idea was to leverage middle class money as a way of subsidizing UAW workers without seeming to just hand over the bucks.

The purpose of this program was three fold: First, it would allow people to clear away the inventory of new cars collecting dust on dealer’s lots. And it has done that amazingly well. Second, it would replace cars with lousy milage with new and higher milage cars. That has worked too. The new cars and trucks average ten more miles per gallon than the clunkers they replace. Finally, it would give the long suffering American car manufacturers a shot in the arm, reopening shuttered plants and putting thousands of American back to work and speeding delivery of the spiffy new models out to the dealers. That didn’t really happen. As we are coming to expect, when the Obama Administration comes up with the brilliant idea, it never works quite the way they expected. In fact the huge surge in buying new cars flowed right around the American manufacturers, except for Ford.

Sign of trouble # 1. After the early numbers came in, the famously transparent and open Obama Administration unexpectedly clamped down and is refusing to release the data on who the program is working. Wonder why?

Sign of trouble #2, smelling something was amiss, the press began asking questions about the project and how it was going. With the White House suddenly clamming up, the news people got data from the manufacturers themselves. Guess what, of the top five models people are buying only the Ford Focus had an American brand name. Ironically, it is actually assembled in in Mexico while the next top four cars are from Japanese companies but all of them are made in the USA. Go figure. But the Japanese see American workers who are very productive and relatively cheap. Nice that somebody does.

Sign of trouble #3. The White House has yet to admit this project went off in unintended ways and has yet to figure out how to pin the blame on Dub’ya or Rush Limbaugh or whoever is the villain for the day at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Obama spin machine should come up with something. They are masters of their favorite game: pin the tail on the elephant.

So what happened?

The Bamster and his guys are going to score big time “Domo Arigato” and “Muchas Gracias amigos” for coming up with this package. Even a “thanks a lot man” from non union American autoworkers. That was not the plan.

This was thought to be a bonanza for the United Auto Workers and the salvation of the State of Michigan, the three billion dollar clunker project missed its pet targets big time. The big winners are overseas firms who are now big time US manufacturers and Ford who makes cars and trucks here in Canada and Latin America and ship them into the USA. Ford has built and has the most modern auto factory in the world. It has its own docks for shipping in parts and shipping out cars plus its major sub contractors have their plants clustered alongside the Ford assembly lines. It is an awesome facility. Brazil is a major industrial power now, and very proud of the huge facility.

Whoops. I am going to love it as the White House fumbles and bumbles an explanation on how this happen. International trade agreements forbid a subsidy that is not equally available for domestic and imported products. However, that was a given. The preferences of the public were seriously misread. After all the billions that the Fed’s have poured into the wreckage of GM and Chrysler it appears the American public has no desire to lay its money or the free government money on the line for their products. Obama promised to personally stand behind the new GM and Chrysler products. The public was not impressed and largely ignored these Presidentially approved vehicles.

In the end Ford, Toyota and Honda have done very very well out of this deal. Car makers that employ UAW members didn’t sell many cars, so like a lot of Obama’s over hyped and under thought out projects this one rewarded the firms that didn’t need help and delivered very very little to the folks the Obama whiz kids figured would scarf up.

It’s only money and like all Obama projects, this one was brilliant in concept even if it misfired. Hey, I could be wrong but this program like the others that always seem to go off the tracks is becoming a Obama hallmark. We understand that the whiz kids at the White House don’t have a lot of street smarts, but they have long been taught to leave the trivial details to middle management types. So the half baked crusade and the program gone wrong is their stock in trade. We are getting used to it just as we got used to the interesting but small and cheap programs Bill Clinton launched monthly and the bland acceptance of ear mark pork by Dub’ya when Congress sent bloated spending bills over for his signature. Every Administration falls into its comfortable rut. We know now what we can expect from Obama.