On Top Of Being Incompetent, Lazy, And Without Merit, The Fool Is Late

WASHINGTON -- "There's a new time zone in the nation's capital: Obama Time.

Barely two weeks into his presidency, Barack Obama has made a clean break from George W. Bush in several high-profile moves, including reversing a number of the 43rd president's policies.

He's also reversed an unwritten but much-noticed Bush policy: Be on time, all the time.

Obama has been routinely late to events and news conferences, including the ones at which he reversed Bush's orders. This has led to an already familiar refrain from the Obama camp: "He's running late."

The president was 45 minutes late Friday for a ceremony in which he introduced a team of outside economic advisers. He was 10 minutes late Thursday to a memo signing at the Energy Department. He was nearly 30 minutes late Wednesday for the ceremony at which he signed a bill to expand children's health care.

Even before the inauguration, Obama wasn't a punctual sort; he arrived late to a Jan. 8 news conference on the economy that was aired live by broadcast and cable networks.

When it comes to following the clock, Obama closely resembles Bill Clinton, who was famously late to events when he was president. By contrast, Bush despised being late and was punctual to a fault. He set the tone early in his presidency -- he arrived at the Capitol five minutes early for his inauguration.

"To me, being tardy, it's got to be one of two things," said presidential historian Doug Wead, who advised both Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush. "Bad organization that can be corrected, or it's arrogance. It sounds to me like this is arrogance."

Then of course there are the apologists:

"Mark Lindsay, a Democratic consultant and former senior White House adviser to Bill Clinton, disagreed, explaining that Clinton was late sometimes because he was making accommodations for logistics or average citizens.

"I would make the opposite observation," Lindsay said. "I would say that taking time to accommodate your schedule to regular citizens is not an act of arrogance. It's an act of humility."

As if there's ANY reason for a grownup to be forever tardy. Oh so often I've made mention of attention to detail. Professionals have it, successful ones at least, and it bespeaks volumes of goodness about a man who is punctual and refuses to make...in the case of a President...the world wait.

OBummers handlers can hardly help it, though, as they're special people surrounding a special man, so how dare the little folk bitch about waiting to bask in his presence.