They’ve got a fever for more cowbell ... er, Obama

By Jonah Goldberg

ABC News reports that Barack Obama has returned to Washington, only to step off the plane and “into his next domestic crisis.” He “planned to leave the details of health care reform to Congress, but today the White House says he'll play a much stronger role.” The Associated Press says Obama is “backing away” from his “‘it's-all-on-the-table' approach” and is “prepared to get louder and more involved in the details of a health care overhaul.” “This weekend,” NBC Nightly News explained in its lead story, “the president signaled an aggressive stance to put his personal stamp on the sweeping legislation.”

There's only one problem. These stories were all reported nearly three months ago upon Obama's return from his largely failed European mission. And yet, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Obama's planned address to a joint session of Congress next week “will insert the president into the heated debate in a way he has avoided all summer.” The Washington Post informed readers that the “White House is scrambling to take control of the health-care debate after watching from the sidelines.”

Why the Obama administration is determined to do the time warp again is easier to decipher. Obama's advisers think the answer to every problem is more cowbell, if by “cowbell” you mean “Obama.” It's like Obama guru David Axelrod is the Christopher Walken character from the “Saturday Night Live” skit about Blue Oyster Cult (if you don't know the reference, Google “cowbell”).

Every time someone comes up with an alternative to throwing Obama on TV, Axelrod says, “No, no, no. Guess what? I got a fever, and the only prescription ... is more Obama!”

Obama's address next week will be his third prime-time appeal in three months and the fifth in his 7-month-old presidency.

His July 22 press conference was billed as perhaps Obama's last chance to save health care reform. It tanked (partly because Obama's attack on the Cambridge police dominated the press). Afterward, public support for ObamaCare dropped significantly.

Now, more than a month later, things look even worse. The obvious solution? Even more cowbell. But what is lacking is not cowbell, it's substance the American people can support. Obama will reportedly be “more specific,” but he won't commit himself to any particular piece of legislation. This suggests that the White House still thinks it has a communications problem, and if only it dispels the cloud of “lies” from the opposition, there will be nothing but blue skies ahead.

Funny how the people who run the most sophisticated communications operation in the history of the presidency keep concluding that their difficulties stem from their inability to get their message out and never from what their message is.

Just seven months into Obama's presidency, the White House is turning up the speakers on the cowbell as loud as they will go. And, heck, if you love cowbell, it's going to be a real treat. But in all the ways that matter, it may just end up being more noise.

n Contact the writer:

jonahscolumn@aol.com