Obama Talks About Using a 'Stand-in, a Front-Man' for a Third Term
By C. Douglas
Golden December 15, 2020 at 7:52am
If
you didn’t vote for Joe Biden for president, and the former vice president
actually takes office on Jan. 20, you’re probably worrying yourself over the
prospect that it’ll turn into a de facto third term for Barack Obama.
Well,
if you listen to Barack Obama, you needn’t worry: It’s definitely going
to turn into a third term for him.
Granted,
when he appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” late last month, Obama
didn’t say it in as many words. He couldn’t, because portraying Joe Biden as
the Dmitry Medvedev to his
Vladimir Putin might seem a bit … off to Americans. In fact, the way he phrased
it meant that it mostly flew under the radar for a few weeks.
However,
in an interview he did with late-night TV’s most obsequious Democrat booster,
we were treated to some grade-A unintentional honesty.
Asked
if he missed his old job when he looked at the headlines from the Trump
administration, Obama mentioned that there were plenty of people who wanted him
to have a third term. Alas, there was that pesky 22nd Amendment in the way, limiting him to
two terms.
But
wait! There’s a catch.
“If
I could make an arrangement where I had a stand-in, a frontman or frontwoman,
and they had an earpiece in, and I was just in my basement in my sweats,
looking through the stuff, then deliver the lines, but somebody else was doing
all the talking — I’d be fine with that,” Obama said.
“Because I found the work fascinating. Even on
my worst days, I found puzzling out these big, complicated, difficult issues —
especially if you’re working with some great people — to be professionally,
really satisfying. But I do not miss having to wear a tie every day.”
There
seems to be a genuine loathing among us conservatives when talk-show hosts or
other entertainment figures bring Democrat politicians on for interviews and
treat them with uncritical adoration. I’ll never get this, because if you
want to hear Barack Obama say the quiet part out loud, the best chance you have
is when you’ve got Stephen Colbert sitting across from him with puppy-dog eyes,
feeding Obama softball questions at the same time he’s feeding his ego.
The
exact situation Obama is describing would be difficult to pull off — although
given his former second-in-command’s reliance on the teleprompter, Obama
feeding Biden lines while the 44th president was in the basement in his sweats
isn’t as far out of the question as you might imagine.
In
a more general sense, however, the idea that a potential Biden presidency could
be shaping up to be a third-term for Obama is something even the media is doing
a grimace emoji over.
Biden
has been crystal clear on two public policy goals: Signing back on to the Iran
nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement. Both were signature moments
(literally) of the Obama administration. Neither actually accomplished what it
was intended to do: The Iran deal did nothing to deter Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon in
the long run and the Paris accord will do
little to reduce climate change.
When
it comes to specific personnel, Biden wants to nominate Anthony Blinken — who
played a role in plenty of Obama-era foreign policy disasters, including
military intervention in Libya — as his secretary of state, according
to The Associated Press. John Kerry,
who ran the State Department during the second Obama administration, is in line
to be Biden’s special presidential envoy for climate.
Do you
think Joe Biden would be a puppet president?
Jen Psaki, a State
Department spokeswoman under Obama, is Biden’s choice for the White House press
secretary. Obama’s secretary of agriculture was former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.
Biden’s secretary of agriculture, if all goes as planned, according to CNN, will be … former Iowa
Gov. Tom Vilsack. Obama surgeon general Vivek H. Murthy is set to become Biden
surgeon general Vivek H. Murthy, CNN reported.
Ron
Klain was Biden’s chief of staff when he was vice president. Biden wants him to
be his chief of staff again, this time for a more attractive office. Susan
Rice, former national security advisor under Obama, is Biden’s choice to head
up the White House Domestic Policy Council, the AP reported.
NPR noted that as of
Saturday, of 16 Biden cabinet picks, 12 were Obama appointees. The best thing
that could be said at this point is that Ben Rhodes, Obama’s
unctuous deputy national security advisor and foreign policy bro, hasn’t yet
been offered a job by Biden, although you get the feeling that might be just
because no one’s reminded Biden yet.
One
can express some happiness, I suppose, that Biden hasn’t gone the other way and
chosen Rep. Ilhan Omar for a
potential secretary of state. However, there are other competent liberal
careerists that could fill out a cabinet who weren’t part of the 44th
president’s team. A potential Biden administration is being filled with talent
curated and nurtured by former President Obama. And, rest assured, they’re
going to be answering his phone calls if they come — or rather, when they
come.
Just
before Obama got a bit too candid about that de facto third-term, Colbert and
the former president had another curious back-and-forth. At about the 5:40 mark
in the video above, Colbert mentioned that Michelle Obama had requested he stop
calling her the former first lady or “madam first lady.” It’s just “Michelle”
from now on.
“Mr.
President, is there anything you’d like to say to me?” Colbert asked, implying
maybe it was time for “Mr. Obama” or “Barack.”
“Nope,” Obama responded.
There
was an awkward pause. Colbert licked his pen.
“You
know what, I take that back,” Obama said. “You don’t have to call me Mr.
President. You can just call me president.”
Yes,
I get it. It was a joke. So was the third-term quip. Obama the comedian
probably should have read the room a bit better.
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