Monday, September 24, 2012

Belles lettres in the era of Obama and Clinton

How a reporter who is not in the tank for this administration gets treated by one of Hillary’s factotums (language advisory).

Maybe I ought not to be too tough on the aide. I’ve seen these sorts pass through my own federal agency from time to time, after having served as underling for some big shot in the executive branch or in Congress. One can only imagine the depths of humiliation and self-abasement to which they have sunk in their previous jobs working for people who, almost by definition, suffer from narcissistic personality disorder. Now, take this fellow Phillipe Reines, for example, the aide mentioned in the story linked above. After months, or perhaps even years, of slaving away under Hillary Clinton – a woman not known for her sensitivity to the dignity and self-esteem of her staff members (or anybody else, for that matter) – he has most likely reached the limit of his endurance. Scheduling travel and meetings, having to make numerous last-minute changes, vetting prospective interviewers, intercepting inadvertent telephone calls from silky-voiced females trying to reach Mrs. Clinton’s husband, quite possibly being tasked with washing her stockings in the sink of his hotel room in some distant third-world backwater, or tracking down a bottle of just the right shade of Lady Clairol ("Winter Wheat") the night before a big speech: these are the kinds of things that can break a man’s spirit and leave him looking desperately for someone on whom to practice the atrophied machismo of a rapidly vanishing manhood. There is nothing particularly surprising, after all, about a whipped dog snapping at a stranger. Mr. Reines will probably wind up as an untenured lecturer at a third-rate liberal arts college, or perhaps he may end his days as an associate at a progressive think tank, sipping latte in a dingy cubicle and collecting rejection notices from publishers in connection with his unreadable memoirs. So, let us take pity.

Another reporter, usually very reliably submerged in that very large Obama tank, comes up for air briefly and wonders aloud why Obama is suddenly very shy about meeting with foreign leaders.

Oh, and Joe Biden brings us up to date on what is apparently a secret, massive new troop surge in Afghanistan.

4 comments:

JeffS said...

Don't be to sure about Reines. I mean, it's a plausible scenario, and gives him the benefit of the doubt, surely a kindness beyond kindness.

But he was selected by Billary! (a thoroughly unpleasant person) for the job, no doubt a personal selection. So I imagine that his attitude didn't have all that far downhill to travel.

Marica said...

Paco, you are too kind. This is a 42 year old snot who by his own choice worked with Al Gore.

RebeccaH said...

Let's face it. He's probably just a dyed-in-the-wool @$$hole.

JorgXMcKie said...

Biden, like Obama, never makes a gaffe, so I'm presuming that the almost 600,000 thousand extra troops are actually in one of the 51st through 57th states of the US, which apparently are located somewhere in Afghanistan.