Flim Flam Man

(fr. True Fashionista Now!)

I have here in my pocket -
and thank heaven you can't see them -
lewd, dirty, obscene, and I'm ashamed to say this:
French postcards.
They were sold to me in front of your
own innocent high school
by a man with a black beard... a foreigner
--Elmer Gantry (1960)

Alice: One can't believe impossible things
Queen: When I was younger,
I always did it for half an hour a day.
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as
six impossible things before breakfast
--Alice in Wonderland,
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
________________

Two incompatible headlines from yesterday's news:

"Obama's Task: Maintaining Support for U.S. War"

"Fed Holds Interest Rate as U.S. Recovery Limps"

It seems mauvaise foi to argue for two contradictory things; it can't be both. Yet Mr. Obama continues to tout the resilient (not so) U.S. economy.

In keeping with our lead-in quotation, a third might be the headlines for Michelle Obama's current South African trip while the raging waters are soon to breach the dikes in North Dakota, a very uncool place for a new jet-setter like Shelly O. (North Dakota Residents Flee as Historic Flood Waters Rise):

"Michelle Obama, Daughters Make Splash in South Africa"

She's unlikely to make a splash when the poor folks in Minot are inundated; the First Lady always manages to be on a junket when our nation faces a crisis. At least she was not shown frolicking poolside as during her trip a few months ago to South America. That would have been tres unchic considering the floundering state of the nation she would pretend to represent.

{Note: Ashwin Madia, Iraq war vet and interim Chair of VoteVets.org wrote a solid piece in HuffPo yesterday on the President's speech -- Time for Troops to Come Home. Madia accuses Obama of violating President Lincoln's dictum: "You can't please all of the people all of the time" by fronting a mish-mashed war policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.}