Cool

The GDP plummeted in the last quarter to an anemic 2.4 percent, indicating that the economy is sputtering. Unemployment claims rose last month "unexpectedly," and as a consequence, it appears that hiring has sputtered as well. Young people getting out of college are struggling to find real jobs in their chosen field. The President continues to push a big government spending plan that will increase our debt by $1 trillion at year's end. All of that is decidedly not "cool."

But if you read recent coverage in the main stream media, one of the current pro-Obama narratives is that the President is "cool." Who can argue after his Slow Jam on late night TV, right?

Kathleen Parker comments:

That Obama is a cool drink is no one’s revelation. He’s the ice tinkling in the glass. He’s Muhammad Ali to Romney’s, well, Romney. It’s hard to come up with a more quintessential un-cool guy than the presumptive Republican nominee. What can you do? There’s no book for cool, though if there were, Romney would have memorized and distilled it to a PowerPoint presentation.

Then again, who really cares? [emphasis mine] Once you’re beyond a certain age, cool becomes as attractive as a 60-year-old in jeggings. Young folks do get that you’re not actually young or cool, nor do they really want you to be.

Some of us learned this lesson along that garden path called Parenthood. The cool parents might be fun for an overnight — you can get away with more — but it’s nice to have a grown-up at home. Even the youth of America appreciate a grown-up in the White House. And though Obama is unfairly blessed with charm, pizazz and a natural athlete’s grace, he does not benefit necessarily from playing well with comics. The line is extra fine between humorous and silly.

So the MSM, lacking strong arguments that the President is competent, effective, and bi-partisan and increasingly plagued by scandals, have decided that the narrative du jour is that Barack Obama is "cool."

Kids may have been wowed by Obama's coolness in 2008, and they might be swayed by his pandering efforts to reduce student loan interest rates (something that been proposed on both sides of the aisle). But if they have half a brain, those same kids may begin to ask why their cool President can't seem to construct policies that will heal the economy and provide them with much needed jobs so they can begin to pay off their college indebtedness.

Personally, I'd take an uncool, but competent executive and leader any day, and the kids should too. After all, we need adult leadership after four years of feckless governance.

Cool? Who cares.