Turkey, NFL, and family drama. It’s the most American of holidays. We brave invasive TSA pat-downs to brave invasive familial interrogations. Families pose a little too forced in maybe a little too bright sweaters for the holiday picture. Siblings smile knowingly at each other in between sips as the odd uncle starts to ramble.

Mothers and daughters watch SpongeBob Squarepants float by in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Fathers and sons chuckle at the Detroit Lions’ secondary and John Madden turducken references. And we all take a long, wistful look at the “Wizard of Oz” during commercials.

In elementary school, we cut hand-shaped turkeys out of autumnal colored carton paper and globbed them to popsicle sticks. We dreaded “cornucopia” on spelling tests. Our teachers recounted how Squanto taught the Plymouth pilgrims to catch eel and plant squash. And we happily gobbled the sugary stories down with candy corn until we had to read Howard Zinn in high school.

Thanksgiving is America’s TV time-out. A four day, highly-caloric respite for the country to lick its collective wounds after another rough-and-tumble year. It’s a long weekend to reflect on not we lost but to give thanks for what we still have.

We need it. Save for gold investors, Mark Cuban, and the perma-tan (John Boehner and the cast of Jersey Shore), it’s been a dreary 2011 for most Americans. (Or 99% of them.) The recession is over only to economists. Unemployment is stuck at 9%, tied with Congress’ approval ratings.

Occupy Wall Street marks an inflection point long overdue. The crystallization of a shattered ideal for millions of Millennials. They are a generation coming to grips that America’s best days may truly lie behind it. An America where politicians serve to get elected, not to govern. A generation that will not be more successful than their parents but will move back in with them.

They were told if they studied hard, if they were prudent, life would be grand. They would have jobs. They would have what their parents had and then some. They now know this was a myth. Served up by rosy cheeked parents and school teachers in rosier times. They know now that this is a privilege, not a gift. And they are very, very upset by this.

But they also know that they are not alone. They were frustrated before Twitter. But social media helped the rage go viral; Skyping, tweeting, and updating its way across the globe. From Tahrir Square to Madrid’s indignados to Zuccotti Park, Occupy protesters discovered they have a voice. They now must figure out what to say.

Today the grievances are as motley as the geography. In Tokyo, they picket nuclear power. In Rome, they hurl bricks because of Silvio Berlusconi. In Frankfurt, they bash in BMW’s over pensions they will never see. In New York, they protest because bankers make too much while the rest make too little.

Two Thanksgivings ago, Tiger Woods was the most beloved athlete on Earth. But since that late Thanksgiving night, he lost control of his SUV, aura, endorsements, driving accuracy, marriage, full-custody of the kids, every golf tournament he’s played, and #1 player in the world ranking. 364.5 days later Tiger is shell of himself who talks more about making macaroni with the kids then Jack Nicklaus’ 18 Majors.

Last Thanksgiving, President Barack Obama could only quip, “it feels pretty good to stop at least one shellacking this November” as he pardoned turkeys Apple and Cider Wednesday. This Thanksgiving, Obama could not joke. He could simply tell families to hang in there. To keep fighting the good fight. The forced pep talk from a black and blued president who needed one most.

It didn’t used to be this way. Time was the President announced Thanksgiving each year. There was no real rhyme or reason to it. Thomas Jefferson never declared a Thanksgiving. The more festive James Madison decided on two Thanksgivings one year. And neither was in autumn. It wasn’t until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln hammered down the last Thursday each November as a national holiday.

And so Thanksgiving was until President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to tinker with it. The year was 1939. The Great Depression turned ten years old. Monopoly was the blockbuster game. Glossy Camel ads glamorized smoking in between Thanksgiving courses.

November that year had five Thursdays. So, FDR figured, why not make a week of it? He reasoned Thanksgiving could be a marketing bonanza to downtrodden merchants and tried to push it up a week.

Republicans were not as appreciative, however. It was confusing, they demurred, and an affront to Lincoln. So for one bizarre Thanksgiving, our parents and grandparents were split. Liberals observed “Democratic Thanksgiving” or “Franksgiving” on November 23. Conservatives enjoyed “Republican Thanksgiving” a week later. And some plumper opportunists celebrated both. Congress finally intervened and declared Lincoln had it right. Thanksgiving would be celebrated on the last Thursday in November. End of discussion.

Abraham Lincoln also started the presidential pardon of a turkey after his quirky son befriended one. But the pardon was in name alone. The turkey would not actually be spared until President George H. W. Bush, spawning decades of awkward presidential photo-ops. Especially for his son.

In July, they came for the candy.

The Fun Size Snickers bars. The mini peanut M&M packets. Those seductive, single-serving afternoon pick-me-ups in glass jars on every secretary’s desk. The bane of employee waist-lines everywhere and now, evidently, corporate’s bottom line as well.

In August, they came for the free checking.

The Fed was cracking down. The nettlesome Dodd-Frank regulations yet another nuisance. Banks couldn’t charge retailers 44 cents every time you swiped a debit card anymore. They had to make do with 21 cents.

And it’s not as though the bank could drill for more oil or code a sparkling new app. So the bank took it out on customers. Down came the glossy “free checking” posters. Up went the monthly service charges. The nickel and dime defense of a $100 billion dollar bank under siege. Across the street, Bank of America raked in $6.2 billion last quarter, but it would still like your $5 for the right—the privilege—to access your own money.

In September, they came for the Wall Street Journal.

As part of the ongoing effort to reduce non-discretionary spending, the memo read, Wall Street Journal subscriptions could no longer be expensed to the bank. Besides, they whispered at the water coolers, gory headlines of the Dow’s swoon and Greece’s contagion were hurting company morale.

In October, I left before they came for me.

I headed West. Down I-70. Past faded Nostalgiaville posters of Wonder Woman, Spiderman, and the other comic book heroes of America’s glory yesteryears. Past weather-beaten Dairy Queens and flickering, neon Vacancy motel signs. Over rickety bridges, across over-grown railroad tracks, through creaking tunnels. The rusted, corrugated innards of an Empire hollowed out by endless wars abroad.

I drove until I reached—well, not quite the Promised Land—but Utah. Land of 3.2% beers, 2-3 wives a Mormon, and a marketing gig at a global tech company.

It’s different here.

Blue-jeaned, flip-flopped geeks call corner shots over pool tables and Mountain Dews. They debate Flash versus HTML for code. Rodgers versus Brady for fantasy football. All the while oblivious to the glum news on the flat-screen TVs. More bleak jobless claims on CNN. The red-inked alphabet soup sliding by on CNBC tickers.

There’s a fifty-foot projector for X-Box, PS3, Wii, or NFL Sunday Ticket. And simply, The Game Room. A vaulted, dimly-lit cavern rimmed with sleek Macs and crumpled Red Bulls for the World of Warcraft addicts.

The vending machines are stuck in the 1950s: Wrigley gum packs for a quarter. Potato chips for a dime more. Next to buckets of crisp apples and oranges delivered fresh every morning for the health-conscious. Next to endlessly stocked fridges of Coke, Dr. Pepper, and root beer for the rest.

The bank conference rooms are named after states. Starchy, windowless cells before blocky computers sputtering along on Internet Explorer 6. My cubicle bordered Virginia. We listened to the dismal Q3 report in Georgia. The $7 million drop in the marketing budget, in Florida.

The tech conference rooms are named after Adam Sandler movies. The pre-sell out ones, anyway: The Waterboy, Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison. For no reason, really. The founder just loved Adam Sandler. Then he sold out to the tech company for a cool $1.8 billion. He now cruises around town in a yellow Lamborghini and generally does whatever he pleases.

Corporate moved in. The office expanded. They ran out of Adam Sandler flicks so they moved on to Will Ferrell movies. The Thursday product marketing session gathers in Blades of Glory. Hooded coders slurp Mountain Dews in Old School. The all-hands meeting—the one where corporate told us 2012 target growth is 30%-50%—that was in Talladega Nights.

The bank issued stern memos. Do not incite the protestors outside. Do not speak to the press regarding Occupy Wall Street. That’s what the lawyers are for.

The tech company sends chiding emails. Motherly ones. Remember to turn off the 50-foot projector after the Rock Band benders. Don’t hoard the chocolate or it will be replaced with almonds. Tone down the Halloween party shenanigans.

Word has it, it got out of hand last year. Someone narc’d. The local fire warden had to be summoned. Twenty-seven hundred partiers, evacuated. Led by two-dozen blue-painted midgets hired for the day as Smurfs. Global headquarters back in California was not amused.

But corporate could not get mad. So long as the geeks kept stringing together billion dollar quarters, the board reasoned, they could do whatever they pleased.

There are rumors of a no-holds-barred indoor paintball tournament at the next one. Why not?, the coders snicker. The new campus will be ready by then. A sprawling $100 million, 230,000 square foot glass palace. With an indoor rock-climbing wall. Just because.

The boss will shoot me in the face tomorrow.

I will drive to work dressed as a Zombie in an Apple shirt. Dave will don a Microsoft t-shirt. Nate, an Oracle one. We’ll stagger back and forth in the Anger Management conference room stiff-armed and groaning from 11-12. We’ll be pummeled by a firing squad of senior VP’s armed with Nerf guns. And they’ll chuckle, unload a few more volleys, before we all break for lunch.

We say lunch. We mean dessert. Truckload after truckload of raw sugar, corn syrup, phenylalanine, and artificial colors dropped off by the crate-full. A $10,000 cornucopia of Candy Corn, Reeses Pieces Peanut Butter Pumpkins, Almond Joys, and an emphasis on Paydays.

In October, they came with the candy.

They wanted the Mayor to sleep over.

For one night. In the park. Sleeping bag and all. They wanted the park renamed after Troy Davis, a Georgia man put to death in September. And finally, Occupy Atlanta wanted a promise no one would be arrested.

No chance on the name change, Mayor Kasim Reed replied. Or the no arrest guarantee. But the Mayor would pray on the sleep-over decision.

The protesters chalked it up as a victory anyway. Yes, Bank of America still raked in too much money. And sure, many of them still did not have jobs. But, at the very least, they were relevant.

They had done it. That scruffy gaggle of un- and under- employed but, thanks to sympathetic local delis, over-fed youths had seized the media spotlight. They would be on the evening news after the game. The Mayor’s PR team spent an entire afternoon crafting the pros and cons of a camp slumber party because of them.

Occupy Wall Street marks an inflection point long overdue. The crystallization of a shattered ideal for millions of Millennials. They are a generation coming to grips that America’s best days may truly lie behind it. An America where politicians serve to get elected, not to govern. A generation that will not be more successful than their parents but will move back in with them.

They were told if they studied hard, if they were prudent, life would be grand. They would have jobs. They would have what their parents had and then some.

They now know this was a myth. Served up by rosy cheeked parents and school teachers in rosier times. They now know that this is a privilege, not a gift. And they are very, very upset by this.

But they also know that they are not alone. They were frustrated before Twitter. But social media helped the rage go viral; Skyping, tweeting, and updating its way across the globe. From Tahrir Square to Madrid’s indignados to Zuccotti Park, Occupy protesters discovered they have a voice. They now must figure out what to say.

Today the grievances are as motley as the geography. In Tokyo, they picket nuclear power. In Rome, they hurl bricks because of Silvio Berlusconi. In Frankfurt, they bash in BMW’s over pensions they will never see. In New York, they protest because bankers make too much money.

And in Atlanta, they protest because MARTA raised bus fares again. Because shovel ready doesn’t always mean shovel ready. Because President Obama wasn’t the one they were waiting for.

The Mayor had enough.

He had tried to be civil. He had tried to accommodate. Mayor Reed even extended the deadline to November 7. But every time he offered an open hand, the protesters hoisted more signs with clenched fists. They harassed his spokeswoman. They blew weed smoke in officers’ faces. And now they wanted a park hip hop concert.

So Mayor Reed hauled away the park Port-o-Potties. He pulled the plug on the concert. And he issued the ultimatum: vacate Woodruff Park by Monday or face arrest.

Come Monday, most will go home. They will fold up their tents, commiserate at the closest Chick-Fil-A, and upload the protest pictures to Facebook. They will take to Twitter and report back to Zuccotti Park headquarters. That they, too, are working. They, too, are part of the 99%.

Woodruff Park was not their Woodstock or Altamount. They did not storm campus buildings or stop any tanks. But it was something. And for a jaded, apathetic generation, this was everything. The stirring of an organic, grassroots movement fueled by sleepy youths neglected by their politicians, overlooked by companies, and fed up about all of it.

And they will be back. Wiser, better organized, and in more numbers next time. Because Woodruff Park is only the beginning. The first urban battleground in a war that has only just begun. And this will keep Mayor Reed up at night for a very long time.

“F—— kids,” Jimmy grumbled to the TV. “Need to man up and get jobs.”

The road was long. Jimmy’s repair business wasn’t what it used to be. But he was getting by. All he asked for was a Bud or two after work, the Broncos come Sunday, and he would make do.

“Put on SportsCenter. I can’t watch this s—.”

The Occupy movement falls empty in Red State diners like these. The tactics loud enough to garner attention. The message to inchoate to keep it. Instead, the rallies are clipped to swarmy sound-bytes on local news. Solemn anchors narrating the latest arrests in Manhattan or Denver. Between the lines: Starbucks-sipping, hipsters begrudging the success of hard-working Americans.

“At least the Tea Party got s— done. ”

From where Jimmy was sitting, Tea Party sent fresh ideas to Washington. Occupy Wall Street sent bricks through windows. And to many, Zuccotti Park 2011 is Chicago 1968 all over again. Bill O’Reilly insinuated the protesters are “crackheads”. Glenn Beck warned, “They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you… They’ll kill everybody.”

If the Tea Party is a referendum on government size, Occupy Wall Street marks a Rorschach test on personal responsibility. The Occupy Wall Street protesters are drug-addled mobsters who will not work, who took on student loans they couldn’t afford. “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks,” Republican frontrunner Herman Cain roared, “If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!”

The Tea Party worked within the system. They cheered the loudest at town-halls, flooded the ballots, and swept a shirtless Scott Brown & Co. into office in January 2010.

Occupy Wall Street is still too raw, too visceral in a non-election year. The movement has yet to coalesce around a candidate. Jesse Jackson reported from Zuccotti Park but his motivation, as always, was more cultural relevance than political prominence. Kanye West and Alec Baldwin made cameos, too. As Occupy Wall Street morphs into a populist cause du jour that elicits celebrity photo ops and political lip service but no more.

“Dr. King would want us to challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonising those who work there.” President Obama observed. Fed Chief Ben Bernanke understands their “frustration”. But what can they do, they plead? Congress is gridlocked and filibustered beyond repair. Europe backslides. And companies refuse to hire.

The Tea Party demands less government. Less taxes. Occupy Wall Street wants more government. More taxes on the affluent. To claw back the gaudy paychecks of Wall Street bankers. To give it to workers who make things. Real things.

The Tea Party is a reaction to Obama’s federal overreach. Occupy Wall Street to his lack thereof. They thought Obama had more fight in him. They thought Obama would take it to the banks and to the hedge funds.

Occupy Wall Street believed in President Obama. They thought shovel-ready truly meant shovel-ready. But three years later, the iconic “Hope I Can Believe In” poster was sold to a museum by lobbyists. Unemployment hovers around 9%. Banks are back to record profits with monthly charges for customers to have the right to access their own money.
The wealthy are the solution to Tea Party. Job-creators who are persecuted by Obama for their success. To Occupy movement, they are the 1% scourge. The billionaires and millionaires have stacked Washington and jerry-rigged the courts against them.

Neither side will win. In a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, 26% support the Occupy movement. 22% support the Tea Party. 63% said they did not know enough about Occupy, roughly what the Tea Party garnered in its infancy.

The Tea Party scoops up a Republican candidate flavor of the month. An anti-Mitt. First Michele Bachman, then Rick Perry, and now Hermain Cain. Each enjoyed their time in the Fox News-powered sun before crumbling to false mental retardation claims, racist-named geological formations, and a tax plan that smacks more of a pizza special, respectively.

Zuccotti Park is not America’s Tahrir Square. The protesters will achieve empathy but not jobs. The movement will oust no CEO. They will force no special elections. Occupy Wall Street protesters will muck up an avenue block, drink, tweet, and be merry. Until it snows or Mayor Michael Bloomberg sends in the NYPD to enforce some obscure privately-held public park technicality. The crowd will disperse. They will console themselves with a moral victory, and bankers will make just as much as ever.

Both movements will serve as a lazy parallel. The Great Recession’s tumultuous rebuttal to the Great Depression’s Bonus Army march. Both movements will serve as a cringing reminder of a nation worn out and tuned out to Washington.

And some Sunday, years from now, Jimmy will be back at the sports bar. His repair business will have more clients. He’ll sidle up, order a Bud, and tell whoever is in earshot about that jangled Fall of 2011. When the Broncos started Tim Tebow. When flag wavers squared off against the flag stompers.

Eventually Jimmy will get tired of it. He’ll order another round. And he’ll ask the waitress to switch back to SportsCenter.

3. The Ex-Con Ninja With A Home Shopping Network Knife

The sixth time he tried to capture Osama Bin Laden lasted all of three seconds. Gary’s hang-glider nose-dived and dragged him across jagged rocks. He broke his shoulder and several ribs. Gary tried it again the following year (Attempt #7) a little closer to the water this time. He tore up his shins skidding across the beach and just ditched the glider right there.

To be fair, Gary Faulkner is making progress. The first time he tried to find Osama he bought a boat—even though he had never sailed before—and set out from San Diego harbor without a lifejacket, flares, or food. His plan was to just head West until he hit land and eventually Pakistan. A hurricane had other plans, however, and lashed Faulkner’s boat against the Baja peninsula within days.

Gary Faulkner is our Don Quixote. He’s a 50-year old ex-con with failing kidneys who is probably certifiably insane. Faulkner knows bin Laden has a similar kidney ailment, so he plans to hook himself into Osama’s dialysis machine upon discovery and then escort the villain to Pakistan security forces.

Armed with a sword he bought on the Home Shopping Network and an $8 pawnshop knife, he has tried to capture Osama Bin Laden eleven times. He’s been foiled by everything from the Pacific (Attempts #1 & 2) to earthquakes (Attempt #4) to the laws of gravity (Attempts #6 &7) to custom agents (Attempt #8) to the uber-manly not-asking-for-directions (Attempts #9, 10, and 11), yet Faulkner perseveres. He made global news last June when he was arrested for traversing the Pakistan hinterlands by foot (Attempt #11).

There will be no Attempt #12. But now Falkner hunts for the bounty money. As he tells it, he served up Osama Bin Laden on a “silver platter.”

“I had a major hand [to] play in this wonderful thing, getting him out of the mountains and down to the valleys… Someone had to get him out of there. That’s where I came in,” Falkner told ABC News. “I scared the squirrel out of his hole, he popped his head up and he got capped.”

The White House was unavailable for comment.

2. The Deranged Diver

He knows the corpse must be down there somewhere. The water-logged, bullet-riddled corpse of the world’s most wanted man surely lies anchored somewhere to the Indian Ocean seafloor.

It’s why diver Bill Warren will spend up to $1 million combing the depths for Osama Bin Laden. “There is still a $25 million reward that no one has collected, and the reward says dead or alive,” Warren reasoned. “Well, if—in fact—he is dead, then I could collect the $25 million reward. Why not?”

Maybe because the White House formally stated the reward money has been canceled. Or because the Indian Ocean spans 28,350,000 square miles. Or possibly because of the sharks.

But these are trifling details to Bill Warren. The diver avers he has found every ship-wreck he ever sought. A bagged-up body should be no different. “Well,” he told CNN, “you can get lucky…”

UPDATE: Bill Warren has not found Osama Bin Laden’s body.

1. The President of the United States

Loser of the Summer, Runner Up: The Man Diving For Osama Bin Laden’s Body

He knows the corpse must be down there somewhere. The water-logged, bullet-riddled corpse of the world’s most wanted man surely lies anchored somewhere to the Indian Ocean seafloor.

It’s why diver Bill Warren will spend up to $1 million combing the depths for Osama Bin Laden. “There is still a $25 million reward that no one has collected, and the reward says dead or alive,” Warren reasoned. “Well, if—in fact—he is dead, then I could collect the $25 million reward. Why not?”

Maybe because the White House formally stated the reward money has been canceled. Or because the Indian Ocean spans 28,350,000 square miles. Or possibly because of the sharks.

But these are trifling details to Bill Warren. The diver avers he has found every ship-wreck he ever sought. A bagged-up body should be no different. “Well,” he told CNN, “you can get lucky…”

UPDATE: Bill Warren has not found Osama Bin Laden’s body.

HERO OF THE SUMMER: Bobby Kirk

He had to run off the fourth wife. It wasn’t a legal marriage, for starters. Then her kids kept stealing his deer meat. And you do not mess with Bobby Kirk’s deer meat.

Bobby Kirk doesn’t do grocery stores. He believes air conditioning ruined everyone. And he especially doesn’t tweet. Bobby Kirk does brew his own brandy from peaches and corncobs, hunt, and go fishing. Or at least he used to.

“It was too hot to fish,” Bobby Kirk reckoned to the city-slicker reporter and spat out a glob of tobacco juice. He narrowly missed her Minolas and struck a nerve with a fed-up nation.

The frustration went viral. The interview rattled around cyberspace—Twitter, Huffington Post—before CBS caught wind of it. Then The Colbert Report. Then the world. There were even Bobby Kirk T-Shirts and Bobby Kirk baseball caps.
And just like that a pot-bellied farmer from Bogart, Georgia became an overnight celebrity. His is the plain-spoken voice of a country fed up with Congressional gobbledygook. His home-spun Forrest Gumpisms a welcome respite from wonkish newscasts about the debt ceiling and deleveraging.

Because whether the U.S. defaults or the Euro Zone disintegrates, Bobby Kirk will still be Bobby Kirk. He will still dip on the front porch. And he will still pick his home-grown butterbeans and okra for supper. For reckoning. For shooting straight in an age of dithering politicians. And because it really was too hot to fish, Bobby Kirk is the Hero of the Summer.

Someday the fish will bite again. The Bobby Kirk T-Shirts will fade. The networks’ cars will stop carving up his front yard. But Bobby Kirk will forever be a camouflaged, overall-wearing reminder. The man of the moment in a confusing time. He will be a quirky, pop-cultural footnote from a Summer we’d just as soon forget.

Right above that dancing beluga whale.

This is the third of a 3 part series on the Summer of 2011. See the other parts here: Why Obama Is The Big Loser Of The Summer and Is The Summer Of 2011 The Worst Ever?

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing after they’ve tried everything else,” quipped Winston Churchill, who did not live long enough to witness the rise of the Tea Party.

Congress got ’er done eventually. The debt ceiling was raised. The U.S. did not default. But the damage was done. Faith in Washington spent. The S&P downgraded the lone superpower’s sterling credit rating from AAA to AA+ for the first time. Our sense of humor along with it:

- “Yo momma so poor she raised her debt ceiling and the S&P STILL downgraded her.”

- “Caught a just downgraded AA+ 11-inch Maine bass. Gotta cross to Canada across lake for AAA fish.” Economist Nouriel “Dr. Doom” Roubini’s tweet from a Maine fishing trip.

No one but short-sellers laughed. The Dow cratered. And skittish investors flocked to… U.S. treasuries. Never mind that the S&P rated Lehman A-grade the month of its collapse. Never mind that the S&P admitted faulty accounting to the tune of $2 trillion. It was not about the numbers, the S&P countered. It was about the words of vitriol in Washington. The “brinksmanship” of a paralyzed Congress that pushed the financial system back to the precipice. And possibly the Double Dip.

If so, the first dip was Wall Street’s. The gory shoot-out after years of Wild Wild West derivatives and lawless collateralized debt obligation. But the second dip belongs to the sheriffs. The recovery was Too Small To Succeed.

The culprits this time were rapacious lawmakers elected by the people for the corporate interest. The buck didn’t stop there. They simply printed more. They frittered away weeks wringing out debt ceiling bills that were dead on arrival. Held captive by a rabid Tea Party insurgency that played the nation’s credit rating as a bargaining chip that bet it all to spare tax hikes on the wealthy.

And a president who could not say No. A Professor-In-Chief more comfortable behind a lectern than a pulpit. But President Obama’s “eat your peas” bromides meant nothing to a ravenous Tea Party that tasted blood.

President Obama idolizes Abraham Lincoln. Yet he somehow forgot Honest Abe’s best-known truism: “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.” Again and again, Obama tried to give everyone something and gave no one anything they wanted. What came out were diluted, half-measures smacking more of erudite academia than brass-knuckled politics.

President Obama didn’t flex when he had it and “led from behind” when he didn’t. It’s why he hosed down with Stimulus with tax cuts. It’s why the debt ceiling became a virtual hostage crisis. It’s why we are hurrying slowly out of Afghanistan. And it’s why Gaddafi still hunkers down in Tripoli.

Again Obama tours the windswept cornfields of Iowa. Three years ago he was an unheralded junior Senator from Illinois with a knack for eloquent speeches. He rides a sleeker bus this time. He carries a glossier job title. But he hears the same questions in dingy town halls: Where are the jobs?

Only this time Barack Obama cannot blame his predecessor. He cannot whip up crowds into a frenzy with dreamy talk of Change. This time he can only hem and haw: The economy was worse than originally forecast. Republicans won’t be reasonable.

Valid points, both. But little solace to the down-and-out farmer or the laid-off factory worker. Too long for a bumper sticker. And certainly not the stuff of iconic campaign posters.

Because shovel-ready doesn’t always mean shovel-ready. Because he isn’t The One we were waiting for, President Obama is the Loser of the Summer.

This is the third of a 3 part series on the Summer of 2011. See the other parts here: Is The Summer Of 2011 The Worst Ever? and The Heroes And Zeros Of Summer 2011.

The White House press secretary was all set to TP the White House. He vowed to do it if Auburn won the BCS Championship. Robert Gibbs had a deal all worked out with the Secret Service where they would leave a couple rolls in an undisclosed location, and he would unfurl them over the White House roof or maybe a tree out front.

It was all good in the house of Obama Phi. They balled hard in guys only basketball games. Everyone was a “dude” or a “bro”. They did fist-pumps, not handshakes. Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel dropped f-bombs left and right, and Robert Gibbs never met a sports analogy he didn’t like during White House press meetings. Even the staff elder Lawrence Summers would doze off during economy briefings and generally do whatever he pleased. White House interns learned to be careful rounding West Wing corners lest they find Barack and Michelle canoodling.

And they were changing the world while doing it. Obama’s first two years were two of the most prolific in modern presidential history: the Stimulus Package, improved global image, credit card consumer rights, tobacco regulation, healthcare reform, Wall Street regulation, ending the Iraq War, etc.

But then it happened. The man of Change changed. He took last November’s midterm “shellacking” hard. Republicans took back the House on his watch. Obama looked around the Oval Office and saw too many yes men telling him what he wanted to hear instead of what he needed to. There was too much drama with over-sized egos defending overlapping turf. Wall Street kept griping he wasn’t friendly enough, never mind record company profitability this past 4th quarter.

And the silver tongue tarnished. Obama lost the national debate—not to the Republican party but to three TV personalities: Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin. The former governor of Alaska turned TLC reality star could ruin the White House’s day with a mere Facebook status update.

So Obama went corporate. Grow up, he thought. No more political Animal House. He recruited high-priced CEOs, like GE’s Jeffrey Immelt, to tighten the ship. He stocked up on the sharpest minds from Wall Street to keep an eye on the kids. He shipped the dour David Axelrod out of Dodge back to Chicago and brought in media savant David Plouffe.

Obama swallowed his pride and walked the block over to the Chamber of Commerce. He joked maybe if he had brought a fruitcake the first time relations would be more neighborly. It was awkward. The lobbyists sort of laughed. But mostly they wanted to see if this new, business-friendlier president would stick around.

It’s been said you can chart presidencies by the Chief of Staff. Rahm Emmanuel, then, was a cantankerous, polarizing, though very effective Chapter 1. Peter Rouse was a shy, pleasant, and brief Chapter 2. Chapter 3 starring Bill Daley should be a more PG-13 Chapter 1.

Bill Daley is “an adult” with a resume to match: U.S. Secretary of Commerce, chairman of Al Gore’s presidential campaign, JP Morgan Case chairman, etc. He is a hard-knuckled, Chicago throwback ready for a second tour. Bill Daley makes the trains run on time, like Rahm Emmanuel, but he sprinkles a few more “pretty pleases” on top. And most importantly to the Obama administration, he does not tolerate leaks.

Neither does David Plouffe. Plouffe is a quiet guy. Stoic to a fault. Bill Daley and David Plouffe keep to themselves mostly. The doors to their offices are usually closed. Plouffe pipes up every so often in meetings to ask Obama: how will this play with a white mom in Ohio? Daley reminds Obama to jam in the sparkling new “Win the Future” mantra wherever he can.

The President of the United States had to get something off his chest. It was during Winter Vacation last December in Hawaii. Sometime after a shaved ice, sometime after putting the girls to bed. He pulled close friend and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett aside and confided his biggest regret as president: He had been spending too much time in Washington.

He missed being out and about. The man who cut his teeth organizing on the Southside of Chicago was weary of months in cloistered West Wing meeting rooms. He had enough of hearing what the people wanted in glossy PowerPoint decks rather than in person.

Obama realizes he had to. The global financial system teetered on the brink back in January 2009. He spent every waking moment speed-dialing Europe, hobnobbing Senators, doing everything he could to get the Stimulus Package through. But he missed the town halls. Even the gutter-ball bowling alley photo ops.

Obama knows his work is not finished. Unemployment hovers in the 9%’s, the Middle East simmers, and a government shutdown (however improbable) still looms. But he finally has some breathing room. He tied down many of the loose ends of his predecessor’s legacy and can now mint his own. He challenged the country to have another Sputnik moment in last month’s State of the Union speech. To shake Washington from its bipartisan slumber and awaken a nation to out-innovate China.

The next day he was out touting Wisconsin solar farms to help the U.S. “win the future”. He toasted Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs in California last week. He’s on the road again and loving it. He is looser at the podium, feistier with reporters. He is remembering why he wanted to be president in the first place.

We know Obama now. He is on to the third act on the grandest of stages.

Obama’s first act was the 2008 presidential campaign. “Change we can believe in” became an anthem for a jaded America disillusioned by years of wars and unemployment. His was a fresh face after decades of Bush-Clinton political dynasties.
Obama’s second act (Inauguration Day-First Midterm) ended to mixed reviews. To liberals, the change was too slow. He achieved healthcare reform, yes, but he compromised too much with a Republican party he did not need to compromise with. All too often, they saw fleeting moments of oratorical brilliance only to be followed by months of grind-it-out Congressional log-jam and wonkish, watered-down thousand pagers no one could really explain.

To conservatives, the change was too great. Obama flirted with socialism as he expanded government in an unprecedented spending spree. He was a black Jimmy Carter who kowtowed to foreign leaders and forgot America’s greatness.

Obama’s third act (First Midterm-2012 Election) will be marked not by what he will offer the country but by what he will take away. Gobbledlygook budget talk like: five-year freezes on non-security discretionary spending. It sounds ugly and it will taste worse. Obama is putting the nation on a diet. Austerity not change is the buzz-word of his third and possibly final act. It will be a gritty two years. The president’s job between today and November 2012 is to coax the unemployment rate into the low 8%’s/high 7%s and not wreck the deficit in the meantime.

The President of the United States was about to cry. He paused. 10 seconds. He clenched the podium. 20 seconds. He cleared his throat. Still nothing.

Gabby opened her eyes but that wasn’t what had Obama speechless. Christina Taylor Green did. She was nine years old. Born on September 11, 2001. Three months after his youngest daughter Sasha. She wanted to be a politician when she grew up. Christina Taylor Green was innocence personified, senselessly mowed down in a madman’s rampage.

It wasn’t the first time Obama served as Eulogizer in Chief. There was Fort Hood. The West Virginia mine tragedy. But Tucson was the rawest. The nation watched the cerebral president nearly lose it for the first time. We watched, some cried, as the president stood slack-jawed at the podium, trying to hold it together.

Bill Clinton’s presidency crystallized in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombings. He found himself and then he found the chord to comfort a nation frazzled by corn-fed, white American rage.

16 years later, Tucson forced an amped-up nation to take a step back. The massacre became a referendum on turbo-charged media and politics. A stunned nation soul-searched. We remembered just because pundits said something louder didn’t make it more right. Sarah Palin’s jingoistic rhetoric wasn’t simply jingoistic rhetoric anymore. And her approval ratings plunged to an all-time low within a week of the shootings. Glenn Beck’s ratings are in free-fall. He lost 39 percent of his viewership in the past year and his ratings skidded to record lows last month.

President Obama is soaring. His approval ratings flirt with the 50s again—well above those of President Reagan and President Clinton after their own first midterm growing pains. Obama’s Renaissance is not because he finally got tough. If anything he softened, compromising on President Bush’s tax cut late last year.

Obama’s recent bump is courtesy of the Bill Clinton, move-to-the-center playbook. It is not as though Republicans didn’t see this coming. They learned from President Clinton’s “triangulation” in the mid 1990s. But conservatives are penned in. They are burdened by their own midterm success after winning the House. They are tugged back and forth between the wants of the base and the whims of the Tea Party.

The president will coast above the fray as the Republican 2012 hopefuls purge their own ranks later this year over abortion, gun control, even evolution. Whichever front runner emerges is fatally flawed. If Mitt Romney’s Mormonism does not lose the base, his Massachusetts healthcare reform surely will. Ron Paul is too libertarian to be electable. Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife is speaking to reporters.

Cam Newton and Auburn did their part, but Robert Gibbs backed out. He couldn’t teepee the White House. It didn’t seem tasteful. Not after Arizona. A few short weeks later, Gibbs boxed up his office and was headed back to Chicago. President Obama thanked him with an anecdote from the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Obama was nervous. Not about the speech. He wandered the convention hall reassuring staffers: “I’m LeBron, Baby. I Can Play On This Level. I Got Some Game.” But he wasn’t sure which tie to wear. He didn’t like his. No one liked David Axelrod’s. But Obama kind of liked Gibbs’. So minutes before the most important speech of Obama’s life—the speech that would make Barack Obama, Barack Obama—Robert Gibbs slipped the tie off his neck and traded with his bro.

Now, six and a half years later, Obama was finally returning the tie. But this time it was framed.

Gibbs hung it up in the Chicago office where he will spearhead Obama’s 2012 purported billion dollar reelection campaign. If Act Three goes by the script, Obama and Gibbs will have to wait. But they’ll laugh it up again in early 2017. They’ll tease each other over their March Madness brackets. And they’ll crack jokes about David Axelrod as a Krispy Kreme model. Just like in the good ol’ days.

We always forget something about the “Jersey Shore”.

Ronnie, J-Wow, Pauly-D — they had to apply for the show. This means MTV had to turn down legions of over-tanned, under-read guidos and guidettes. Surely, there was some girl too Snooki for even Snooki. A bro more vain than even The Situation. The real question, then, is: what are they doing right now? Do they watch Snooki’s censored flips in the club, or Ronnie obliterating another loudmouth on the Boardwalk and shrug: that’s it? What are they planning for this upcoming Friday night?

Our parents always forget something about the “Jersey Shore”, too.

To them, the transcendent success of the show foretells the apocalyptic end of Western Civilization. To outraged Italian American groups, the show is the worst thing to happen to their cultural pride since someone told Jay Leno he was funny. National Italian American Federation President Joseph V. Del Raso sneered the cast has “more in common with the adolescent residents of Animal House than with Italian Americans.” Joy Behar lamented, “It makes it hard for young Italian Americans to be taken seriously in the work force.”

The Situation heartily disagreed on the Today show, “We represent ourselves. We’re not saying we’re a definition of Jersey, or a definition of New York, or a definition of Italians. I just happen to be Italian. I happen to have some spiky hair and a six-pack, and I am proud to have that. And if you don’t like me, I don’t care. I still got 5 million viewers Thursday nights at 10 p.m.”

But this isn’t new. America’s persistent race problem has best been seen through the prism of TV comedy for decades. Going back to the 1970s, it has taken a laugh track and predictable plot twists streamed into TV rooms across the country for Americans to have frank conversations about race.

“The Jeffersons” (1975-1985) remains the longest-running show with a predominantly African American cast in the history of American TV. “The Jeffersons” was not an overtly political show, but it was right there in its opening theme song, “Movin’ On Up”, following the adventures of a middle class black family climbing the rungs of the 1970′s America socio-economic ladder. But “The Jeffersons” was too early for us Millenials. (Ditto the tragic Rodney King beating in 1991.)

We reminisce “The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air” about a trouble-making teenager (Will Smith) “from West Philadelphia born and raised” who is sent to live with his affluent African American relatives in a Bel Air mansion. (Interestingly, Will Smith agreed to the show because he owed the IRS $2.8 million in unpaid taxes.) While the Fresh Prince resides in a mostly white Bel-Air kingdom, we remember the show less for racial anecdotes and more for Will Smith pre-Summer Blockbuster Will Smith and Carlton’s goofy dance.

Youngsters and tweens today gobble up “Dora the Explorer” episodes—the first cartoon starring a Hispanic character in American TV history. For those of us born in the 1980s, however, the most candid conversation millions of us (especially white) Millennials heard in our formative years came—not from our parents or teachers—but HBO comedy specials. Freed from the shackles of the FCC and political correctness, minority entertainers have levered the most legitimate critiques of America’s (not-so-latent) racial tensions. Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle pummeled America’s racial double-standard by punchline; Jay-Z by rhyme.

Yes, Chris Rock repeats himself (and repeats himself). Comedians joke Chris Rock only needs to bring 20 minutes of material for an hour set. But before Chris Rock sold out (See: “Grown Ups”), he consistently made the most spot-on political and race observations of any comedian today:

On American Segregation: “Every town has the same two malls: the one white people go to and the one white people used to go to.”

On Early 2000s Current Events: “You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese… Need I say more?”

On Gay Marriage: “Gay people got a right to be as miserable as everybody else.”

On Black Vs. White Job Opportunities: “A black boy that makes C’s in college can’t even run a Burger King. A white boy that makes C’s in college can make it to the White House”

And then there’s Dave Chappelle. Chappelle was our generation’s Richard Pryor. His “Chappelle Show” was one of the highest rated comedies of all time. Yet the pressure, $50 million a year Comedy Central contract, and the massive expectations got to Chappelle. He was performing a Season 3 skit, heard a chubby white guy in the audience laugh a little harder than he should have, and Dave snapped. Chappelle left the studio, fled to Africa, and has lived on a 65-acre farm in Ohio ever since.

As filmmaker Sydney Pollack observed, “Talent is liquefied trouble.” And it’s unfortunate. Dave Chappelle brilliance lay in his racial powers of perception. He knew exactly what whites thought of blacks, and vice versa. He caricatured white news anchors to white agents to perfection. Chappelle’s famed “Racial Draft” was arguably one of his most prescient and funniest skits of all:

Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. An intoxicated Snooki doing back-flips in the club was not that dream. But he might have seen the show’s unintended merit.

To paraphrase Ronnie, critics need to stop drinking the Haterade. The “Jersey Shore” doesn’t perpetuate stereotypes about Italian-Americans. It explodes them. You have never met a girl like Snooki. None of your friends is like The Situation. As exacerbating as your co-worker or classmate may be, she is not Angelina.

Racism and stereotyping are bad. Discriminating against someone for skin color or nationality—factors they can’t even choose—is vile. Yet to keep the issue in the dark is also wrong. The politically correct tactic to muffle the race conversation does more harm than good, allowing false perceptions to take root in the name of censorship and bowdlerization. The real strength of a nation’s culture is measured not by how restrictive it is, but by how free. It is right that makes might, not the other way ‘round.

I am white. I do like mayonnaise. And I do own a shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch. But that’s OK. Because the accidental genius of the “Jersey Shore” is it loosens us up to have the race conversation. It’s just ironic that it took a motley crew of rabble-rousing, tanned guidos and guidettes pillaging and plundering Boardwalks up and down the East Coast for us to have it.

I thought about giving my dad a water buffalo. Or a pig. But neither smacked of the holidays. A camel was tempting but, at $800, out of my price range. And so I settled on a flock of geese.

I don’t think my dad particularly liked the gift. Especially compared to the iPad from his girlfriend. But, I figured, it would be more creative than the World War II books I usually got him. And besides, my family kind of owed the Animal Kingdom.

After the incident.

The boy—who will not be named—had just heard the Mother Goose nursery rhyme on his parents’ farm. Now it just so happened, the father had a prized goose of his own. One he loved and doted on more than all the rest. So, the boy reasoned, there must be a connection.

The father was away in London on business. The grandmother was baby-sitting. She was quite puzzled, then, when she gazed out the back window and saw her chubby, impressionable grandson scoop up the goose and carry it up the slide.

It all made sense to the boy. In the fairy tale, Mother Goose flies up into the heavens, spreading joy to rural England. He didn’t see why this should be any different. So he sat down on the goose and—a puff of feathers later—shattered the goose’s neck in two places, killing it instantly. He rode the dead goose down the slide a screeching inch a second to the grandmother’s hysterics. She messaged the father simply, “K— killed the goose.” Relations were strained ever since.

I don’t think the gift appeased the Animal Kingdom. And my dad didn’t even get the geese. But he couldn’t really get mad, my friend pointed out, it was for a noble cause.

The geese were donated on my dad’s behalf to a needy Chinese family. And they should be welcome relief, as the goose is a surprisingly resourceful animal. She can lay up to 75 eggs a year, providing a valuable source of protein. Geese are also more rugged than you would think. They require minimal shelter and can weather hot, cold, and torrential climates. They are also adept at pulling up weeds and make for effective watchdogs, squawking away unwanted guests.

Dan West had had enough. The farmer couldn’t tell another destitute Spanish villager that was all the eggs she could have. That there wouldn’t be any left for the others. The Spanish Civil War ended, Franco won, and West came back home to Indiana to get to work.

He founded Heifers for Relief so impoverished families would hopefully never have to depend on relief workers like him ever again. His basic philosophy was the proverb “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; you have fed him for a lifetime.”

But West had his own original slogan, too: “Give not a cup, but a cow.” He gave each family a cow, a few lessons in animal husbandry, and one request. They must donate female offspring to another family, and so on. Within two years, Heifers for Relief shipped 17 very confused cows to Puerto Rico.

Sixty-six years later, Heifers for Relief has gone global with a presence in 125 countries. It donates not just cows but sheep, rabbits, honeybees, pigs, goats, water buffalo, tree seeds, and the geese. Forbes Magazine named the organization one of its top ten charities.

“You’re a slave-trader,” the guy in 12B said. “You know that, right?”

I didn’t.

“I saw you order the geese on that Nazi site. You’re a slave-trader.”

“I’m a what and you’re who?”

I was the latest Heifer.org customer. He was a nosy PETA activist. And we were both thirty-two thousand feet up somewhere over Pennsylvania. It was going to get worse before it got better, too. I had ordered the chicken club for lunch.

But, as the guy in 12B and PETA would tell it, I funded animal torture. I was one of many criminals who paid to displace animals to dustbowls and war-torn regions all in the name of Christmas. Heifers for Relief was merely a front, institutionalizing animal slavery under the guise of charity.

“But what about the Chinese family?”

The guy in 12B gave me a you-just-don’t-understand sigh, put his headphones back on, and resumed watching the in-flight Drew Barrymore movie “Going The Distance.”

PETA is also strangely silent over the plight of the families in need. Or that the vegan lifestyle is not an option but a luxury elsewhere across the globe. The website simply states, “Donating animals is no gift for the animals who are ‘gifted’”. “Let them eat mangoes,” one contributor scoffed.

At least Ricky Gervais had a sense of humor about it.

The British comedian and creator of The Office called it the worst gift he ever received. A “friend” donated a goat in his name to an African family for the holidays. Everybody loses, Gervais ranted, the friend is:

50 quid down, I’ve got nothing, the African family’s going, “Not another mouth to feed.” It’s ridiculous. There’s nothing in it for the goat. The goat wakes up in barren land going, “Where am I? A week ago I was gamboling through the Cotswolds in glades and then someone just kidnapped me, put me on a boat, took me to Africa.” It’s like Roots in reverse. I bet he didn’t want to go to Africa. I think the goat had no choice.

PETA activists cheered Ricky Gervais as a hero for his Heifers for Relief riff. Never mind that Ricky Gervais was joking. Never mind that Ricky Gervais is not a vegetarian.

Suppose there are two lifeboats. One is filled to the brim with 500 geese. The other one seats a curmudgeonly 80 year old man. You can only save one. Which lifeboat do you pick?

You’re supposed to pick the geese lifeboat, because they can collectively “better benefit society” as weed-eaters and watch-dogs. But now what happens if you chip away to 400 geese? 300, 200, and so on. Where do you carve a fine line into the slippery slope of species-ism?

This is a pillar of animal rights argument today. And the architect behind it is the philosopher Peter Singer. Singer argues you can only judge an act as ethical by “the greatest good of the greatest number”. Because once you acknowledge the geese have more “inherent value” than the old man, you cannot deny them rights.

It’s Utilitarian in its argument, clever in its rhetoric. The problem is the folks at PETA took the meaning but lost the message. The problem is PETA interjects itself into issues in a quest to stay more relevant than right.

It starts at the top with Ingrid Newkirk and trickles down to the guy in 12B. The British co-founder of PETA opposes animal testing even if it magically leads to the cure for AIDs. Newkirk incensed many in 2003 when she sent Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat a letter protesting the death of a donkey in a Jerusalem bombing, never mind the human casualties. Newkirk and her associates have pilloried Heifer for Relief for globalizing animal cruelty and hostage-taking.

Newkirk confesses she is a “complete press slut”. She likens herself to Malcolm X and the Black Panther Movement and has endorsed everything short of arson to make the evening news. The problem is social movements like these need a sensible front-man. Malcolm X was too radical to be streamed into Main Street living rooms. The nonviolent Martin Luther King Jr., therefore, was appealing as a PG-13 compromise. Newkirk’s PR moves and rhetoric capture the public’s attention but don’t keep it.

Dan West’s Heifers for Relief offers that middle-ground with a bow on top. It provides a family-friendly, tax-deductible gift for the holidays. It catalogs the capability of honeybees to water buffalo and brings it to a Christmas tree or birthday cake near you. So if you don’t know what to give next Christmas or birthday, try a flock of geese. Or a goat. Your dad or loved one may not understand at first but a family halfway across the globe certainly will.

And to the Chinese family, wherever you are. If you have a pudgy and perhaps naïve young son, remind him to not take the Mandarin translation of Mother Goose too literally.

1) 11:54 AM, September 20

“I’m exhausted of defending you,” the woman told President Barack Obama. And with that Obama lost America. Not on the House floor. Or in a prime-time Oval Office address to the nation. But at a town-hall meeting in a dingy Washington D.C. auditorium.

Obama laughed at first at the gall of the statement. He bought some time with his trademark “Well…” opener. He hemmed and hawed before rattling off his litany of presidential achievements: student loans, health insurance companies can’t drop you, and on and on.

But all this meant nothing to Velma Hart. They were mere fancy words from a well-spoken man. She was a veteran, a laid-off mother of two. Neither student loans nor health care reform would put food on her kitchen table. She was headed back to “the hot dogs-and-beans era”. She just wanted the president to admit it.

He wouldn’t. Obama could only empathize, instead. He said he knew it was tough “treading water”. But that “we’re going in the right direction”. And then he took the next question.

News pundits called Velma Hart 2010’s Joe the Plumber. A plain-speaking regular, American whose pain was so raw, so visceral, that she left even Obama speechless. She was the frustrated clarion call of an American Middle Class tired of waiting. She said what every frustrated liberal was thinking: You aren’t the One we were waiting for. Why don’t you fight, Obama? Why don’t you get mad?

One of the great mysteries of the two-year old Obama Presidency has been the president’s failure to communicate. Obama The Candidate inspired a nation and the world. His speech on race in the wake of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright imbroglio was the first frank conversation our nation had heard in decades. There was a nary a dry eye when he said “enough” to Republicans’ games under the clear Denver sky at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Obama The President still speaks well. Magnificently, even. But the content is muddled. True, “stimulus Package” and “public option” don’t roll off the tongue as easily. And it’s easier to attack by speech than to defend.

But Obama lost something when he assumed office. He changed. He lost the vim and vigor that inspired Americans in the first place. He teased liberals with the old swagger every so often. Obama shushed Republicans with a simple “I won” in the early weeks of his presidency. Or when he rammed healthcare reform through this March. But those were rare outbursts in an otherwise cerebral presidency.

It’s as though Obama thought he could stop campaigning when he became president. As though the David Axelrod-David Plouffe 2008 Election Dream Team could just cool their heels till 2012. And the White House lost the national debate—not to the Republican party but three TV personalities: Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin. The former governor of Alaska turned TLC reality star muddied the healthcare debate by making up “death panels” in a Facebook status update.

Less than 1/10 Americans know they received a tax cut under President Obama, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll. 1/3 thought their taxes rose. 1/5 Americans (and climbing) believe Obama is a Muslim. Ironically, it takes a obscenity-laced website Whatthef—hasobamadonesofar.com to best trumpet the 44th President’s accomplishments.

“Democrats don’t know how to celebrate,” quipped Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd. Indeed, President Obama’s achievements to date may be the most productive first two years of a presidency in modern American history: healthcare reform, the Stimulus Package, improved global image, credit card consumer rights, tobacco regulation, Wall Street regulation, and winding down the Iraq War.

But each time the volume was dialed down. The achievements were met not with fervent applause but relieved sighs. The bills were usually the water-downed, wonkish thousand pagers after months of Washington grind-it-out gridlock. Obama solemnly “turned the page” on the Iraq War, the third longest war in American history this August. Finally, an America public grumbled, weary after years of economic malaise and war. An America public that really only cared about jobs.

2) 10:47 AM, November 26

The President of the United States just took an elbow to the face. Rey Decerega of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute was the culprit. He turned to take the shot and whacked the defender/44th President in the upper lip. He would need 12 stitches.

Obama’s presidential injury still fares well against his predecessors. The oafish President Gerald Ford fell down the Air Force One steps repeatedly. President George W. Bush passed out choking on a pretzel and “grazed his cheek” watching an NFL playoff game. He must have inherited his food woes from his father. President George H. W. Bush once vomited in the lap of the Japanese prime minister at dinner.

“What a month,” Obama could only be thinking as he dabbed at his lip with gauze walking to the Escalade outside the gym. He had taken a self-dubbed “shellacking” in the Midterm elections to kick off this November. Bipartisan bickering had slowed Washington to a halt over extending Bush’s tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Even the usually non-political NEW START deal with Russia was held up by a single Arizona Senator with a grudge.

Obama could really only blame himself. He should have taken care of the tax cuts and START months earlier. But he dithered. He drove White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel crazy pacing back and forth in the Oval Office. The President spent months dwelling over the NEW START treaty. Just sign it, Emmanuel would urge, its boilerplate stuff. But Obama had been obsessed with nuclear proliferation since his Columbia college days. He wanted to make it a legacy piece. And the weeks dragged on.

Emmanuel tried to lecture Obama in the class of hard-knocks politics every day. His 7:45 AM White House screaming sessions were the stuff of legend. But it grew old. Emmanuel was too polarizing for Obama. Obama, too idealistic for Emmanuel. And eventually, Rahm Emmanuel couldn’t take it anymore. He had enough of the Professor-In-Chief, switched his cell-phone area code back to 312, and bolted for the hard-knuckled Chicago mayoral race.

It’s been said you can chart a presidency in chapters by the Chief of Staff. Chapter 1 of the Obama Presidency, then, was a brusque, no-holds-barred, very prolific 20 months. Chapter 2 will be tamer, have more schmoozing, and star new Chief of Staff Pete Rouse. Rouse is a soft-spoken political consultant who keeps a low profile. It is Rouse and Vice President Joe Biden who will wheel and deal with the reinvigorated Republican party. Biden was a leading voice in the Bush tax cut compromise. He has also been regularly spotted at the Congressional gym for the treadmill, Congressional sauna gossip.

3)4:16 PM, December 10

President Clinton and President Obama had the run of the place. They cruised the deserted West Wing hallway. Most of the White House aides were at Christmas parties. The past and present leaders of the free world had spent an hour and a half chatting and had an idea. President Obama reached for the press room door. Locked.

“Do you know how to open up the briefing room?” President Obama asked a stunned staffer nearby.

“Yeah,” President Clinton said, “can you help us unlock it?”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs poked his head out from behind the door, “What are you guys up to?”

“We’re looking for some reporters,” Obama said.

Gibbs was suspicious, but he gave them five minutes. The 42nd and 44th Presidents took nearly hour.

The irony was palpable in the press room. Two Democrat presidents defending the Bush tax-cuts. The symbolism, even starker. The Democrats’ kingmaker stood by President Obama when the party wanted to leave him. Democrats were incensed at Obama’s “cave-in” to Republicans over the Bush tax-cuts. There was even talk of a Democratic presidential primary for Obama in 2012.

Obama had spent the last week trying to win back the base. Yes, he broke a campaign promise in extending tax-cuts to the wealthiest Americans. But he had to, he argued. He wasn’t about to let middle class families pay more taxes in times like these. Washington doesn’t do symbolic wins, Obama tried to tell Democrats. Washington does extending unemployment benefits. I know the deal isn’t perfect, Obama admitted. But it’s the best we can get, President Clinton followed.

With that Obama excused himself to help Michelle prepare for another holiday party and handed it over to an overjoyed Bill Clinton. Clinton felt right at home again, fielding questions from North Korea to the economy off the cuff.

Sixteen years earlier, a younger, more subdued President Clinton stood in the same press room after he lost 53 seats and the House in his first midterm. He suffered his lumps before outflanking Republicans to take back the center and became one of the most popular presidents in modern American history.

It will be harder this time. The unemployment rate was 6.5% in 1994. And Republicans learned their lesson after shutting down the government. They went too far and let the President move to the middle. They won’t make the same mistake again. Bill Clinton was also more of a charmer. He would call up Newt Gingrich at one in the morning if he had an idea.

Obama is more cerebral and sometimes prickly. He will have to grit his teeth through 18 holes with Speaker of the House-to be John Boehner. He will have to swallow his pride and pass piece-meal bills that leave both sides underwhelmed. He faces two grating years of playing nice with the opposition while alienating his own party in the name of creating jobs.

But Obama the Candidate will have to emerge again, too. He will have to get mad in Indiana and Pennsylvania auditoriums when Congress jams up. He will have to reawaken the snoozing college voter. Obama will have to show he is the president fighting for the nation’s Velma Harts above the fray of Congressional fracas.

If Obama fails, he will be dismissed as a more productive Jimmy Carter. But if Obama succeeds, he will have a second term for high speed rail and the climate change bill he always wanted. He could become the Democrats’ titan. A Clinton-mentored, Franklin D. Roosevelt-lite who brought the most sweeping social programs since the Great Society in the face of two wars, the Great Recession, and a paralyzed Congress.

And maybe someday he will ham it up in the White House press room. Just like old times.