Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrlll returns just in time with JUST PLAIN FOLKS. She writes:

The President is fond of invoking “The Folks” in his droning speeches. Now, in rural Minnesota, your “folks” are your parents. But he is referring to those “little” people who make up the once-vast middle class in America. The not-rich and unfamous. The God-fearing, gun-totin’ clingers. In other words, people he has never ever hung out with in his entire pampered life and has total contempt for; he doesn’t have a clue what makes us tick.

And that’s cool. I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be so rich that I lose track of how many homes I own. Or to be able to spoil someone’s wedding reception in order to golf. Or to whine about being flat broke while giving six-figure speeches. Now, praise God, I’ve never been a homeless junkie either, but I’ll tell you what flat broke was for the working poor, Missy Hillary.

In 1976 for example, flat broke was supporting a family of 3 on $3.50 an hour, and driving a battered 1968 Mercury. It was leaving a movie on a rare Date Night and finding your car battery stolen when it’s 30 below zero out. The $50 replacement battery was a serious budget-busting crisis. As icing on the cake, the movie was terrible.

So there’s rich and there’s poor and I did not then and do not now resent the rich. I’m doing much better myself now, thanks for asking. That’s what work, education, and a long-term marriage will do for you. The problem arises when Obama or anyone else tries to “pass.” Try to pretend you are just plain folks, and you could wind up complaining about the high price of arugula, a burning concern for every Walmart grocery shopper. It sounds like a disease. “My doctor thinks this rash might be arugula, but I’m hoping it’s just leprosy.”

I was once hired to entertain at a ladies’ luncheon in an upscale country club. During lunch, I recounted an embarrassing incident that had happened to me the day before. I had parked in downtown Minneapolis in one of those confusing multi-level parking ramps. When I went to retrieve my Rabbit, it was not where I thought it should be. Oh, God, was it stolen? The ramp personnel were used to this. One of them took me around in his vehicle until we located the car exactly where it had been left. I could have kissed him, but settled for a $5.00 tip.

We all had a nice laugh of recognition about this at the luncheon. A sweet little gazillionaire whose family owns an important Minnesota company piped up, “Oh, yes! I can relate. The last time we were in Paris, we couldn’t remember whether we had left the plane at Orly or DeGaulle.” Even in this milieu, there was an awkward silence followed by polite laughter. Lost 7-year old sub-compact car in a freezing slush-filled parking ramp; lost private plane in Paris: Not exactly the same, dear, but thanks for playing!

Perhaps the most embarrassing moment of Obama’s many off-teleprompter gaffes, for me, was when he was in the Nationals booth after chucking out the first pitch of the 2010 season’s home opener against the White Sox. To say that he threw like a girl is an insult to girls everywhere, including the blind drunk. Sporting a White Sox cap, the President pretended to be a long-time fan, even though he had previously called their ballpark Cominskey rather than Comiskey. The guys in the booth were thrilled to have him there and took him at his word that he had undying devotion to the White Sox. I mean, he had lived in Chicago for years. Color man, Rob Dibble, opened with a question.

Did he ask him to explain the infield fly rule, or to weigh in on the relative merits of the Designated Hitter? No, he did not. The first Nerf toss was to ask who had been his favorite Sox players. He could not name a single White Sox player, current, past or old-timey. Not one. He clearly didn’t know the White Sox from the Red Sox from tube socks. Would you not think that his handlers would have at least written down a couple of players for him to mention? Frank Thomas or Luis Aparicio, say.

There is no shame in not knowing baseball, especially for a guy who spent his youth in a madrassa in Indonesia. Fine. All I know about hockey, for example, is that the players are on skates; if they beat an opponent senseless, they get a brief “time-out” in The Box of the Penalty (longer for stabbing or shooting); and, for some reason, they compete for a Big Gulp cup owned by a guy named Stan. Also, Gordie Howe and Bobby Orr are frequent crossword answers. In short, I’m a hockey ignoramus (ignorama?), but I do not lie about being a rabid hockey fan.

Anyway, after doing his patented rambling stammer, Obama allowed as how he liked the Cubs, too. He claimed that growing up in Hawaii he had been a fan of the Oakland A’s. Dibble did not ask him to name any Cubs or A’s, or even see if he could identify Mickey Mantle or Henry Aaron, probably because the Secret Service had a gun aimed at his privates by then.

Pathetic. I can understand lying about something trivial like Benghazi or our health care system, but what kind of sociopath lies about sports?

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