Is it me or is the idea of “grading” the president just something stupid the cable people cooked up to give themselves something to talk about so they wouldn’t have to talk about boring old policy and news and the law and stuff?
Does Obama deserve an A? A B? A C+? Who the hell cares? I’ll take my praise or criticism of the president the same way I take it of anything else: on an as-needed basis, when he does something nice or something tooly. Why do we need a designated grading period?
A.
Just another way for our shallow, arrested adolescent anti-intellectual media enablers to try to reduce President Obama to a stature commensurate with their own.
For the last 8 years, they’ve been able to feel equal or even superior to the people in power. This made them so jolly they could excuse anything.
That’s all changed. The grown-ups are back in charge, and we all know how spoiled brats react to THAT.
And, on the 101st day, he rested.
My favorite comment on this was from a phenomenally craptacular NPR piece on Obama’s “grade” on the economy–they interviewed *douglas holtz eakin* who you may remember was McCain’s economic advisor (thus earning the honor of being the all important ‘brain’ for the ‘dude who lost indiana’) and some professor from an econ department. The professor’s grade was described as “an incomplete” on the stimulus–because the money hasn’t been fully spent yet. He didn’t mean it in a negative way. It was a shorthand brought on by the weird NPR insistence on a “grade” for a brief period of political time. But the hyped up “professor gives Obama an incomplete” was just too amazing to listen to. Uh. Yeah. I’ll say he’s “incomplete” *because 100 fucking days is a really short period of time.* We don’t actually *grade* people before the first exam, or the first written paper, in any class. Its a meaningless concept and the professor would have been better of laughing hysterically when they asked him to do it and explaining that metaphors can be dangerous when used by idiots.
aimai
what gummo said. IT MAKES IT EASY FOR THE GNEWS. and keeps it short. no need to really COVER the 100 days. werk is hard.
It’s the same in sports. Everyone is so busy trying to grade the various NFL teams on their draft. So you grade the president after 100 days and then hope no one pays any more attention. Makes manipulating the news by revising the facts and editing the video so much easier.
While I’m sure my instructors formed opinions that affected my grades early in our time together, I didn’t receive a final grade until I completed the course.
My guess is that there will be much struggle trying to find a grade for Bush II. Something lower than Z is hard to come up with. I’m thinking that an “infinite F” might be appropriate.
It’s the news-media equivalent of a Hallmark holiday.