Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants

Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants

by Scott Johnson in Obama administration

Michelle Malkin’s entertaing column “Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants” takes off on Obama’s close encounter with Governor Brewer last week. In the column Michelle explores the pettiness of the president and Lady O. She writes that “Chief Touchy-Touchy seems to be personally consumed by our critiques. Yes, mine included.” Here is the personal note that adds a poignant touch to the column:

You know those “petty grievances” of “Washington politics” that Obama has long condemned? Now it can be told: He knows whereof he squawks.

As New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor’s new book, “The Obamas,” reveals, the president and his inner circle spent even more time carping about conservative influence on public opinion. “He wanted the media to be more of a referee; to put unfair Republican charges to rest,” Kantor discovered. “He could brush off the wildest, most baseless attacks themselves, he told (senior adviser and Chicago pal) Valerie Jarrett, along with (campaign finance bundler and treasurer) Marty Nesbitt and (bundler and finance mogul) John Rogers, at lunch in the little dining room next to the Oval Office.”
But what “galled him,” the book observed, “was when they gained mainstream credibility despite distortions of truth.”

Kantor then dutifully served as a pro-Obama referee:

“Rogers had just noticed a new book by the conservative columnist Michelle Malkin called ‘Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies.’ Among many other allegations, Malkin wrote that Michelle Obama — the president’s ‘bitter half’ — was secretly running the country in Lady Macbeth-like fashion. Malkin even took a hatchet to long-dead Fraser Robinson (Mrs. Obama’s father), arguing with no evidence that his job at a water plant made him part of the ‘Chicago political corruptocracy.’ The book debuted at number one on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list and stayed there for weeks.”

The facts? It was a former alderman in Chicago, Leon Depres, who provided evidence that Robinson’s job in the city water department was a reward for loyalty to the Daley political faction.

It was Washington Post writer Liza Mundy who reported that the department was “a renowned repository of patronage jobs.”

The pettiness of the president is certainly not his greatest flaw, though I believe it is related to a few other of his unattractive qualities about which Jonathan Last has written perceptively.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/01/mr-and-mrs-cranky-pants.php