Seriously?

Delia Lloyd seems to think Obama might be primed to win victory by playing off the archetype of being everyone's father.  I have any number of reasons why I'd take issue with this (seriously -- if anyone over the age of 35 sees Obama as a father figure type, they have issues), but this passage stood out as driving me nuts...

It’s evident in the way that he speaks to us. As I’ve watch the presidential debates with my own kids, I’ve been struck by how parental he sounds. Particularly in the third and final debate, where the president could barely mask his disdain for Mitt Romney’s less-than-up-to-date grasp of our military, many pundits – including my colleague, Melinda Henneberger – saw his tone as patronizing, and wondered whether it wouldn’t alienate undecided women voters in particular.

Patronizing? Perhaps. But isn’t that what parents do? They tell us what’s good for us in an “eat your spinach” sort of way and get exasperated, at times, when we just don’t “get it.” And the most annoying part of that schtick, as we all know, is that they’re often right.

I did not watch the debates with my kids, mostly because both were in bed and are far too young to care.  And I can't tell anyone whether or not this had an adverse impact with women voters, but as a father myself, I don't see anything resembling paternal responsibility in Barack Obama's Presidency, assuming we want to carry forward the silly analogy of putting Obama in the position of father figure.  

You have to be a complete idiot to believe that Obama is the one prescribing tough love and medicine on his "kids", a.k.a. the American electorate.  Entitlement reform?  Eh, we'll get to that eventually.  And yes, we'll make your richie rich older brother eat his spinach (pay taxes), but you'll get to eat less spinach, and I'll even throw in some free candy for you! And yes, we seem to be underwater on the mortgage, but that's the fault of mom's ex-boyfriend who moved out four years ago; yes, I took out a second and third mortgage and ran up the credit cards, but it's still his fault!

Bottom line, Barack Obama seems to be a pretty good father to his daughters.  But he's a pretty crappy President for the other 300 million of us.  They can't fire him and probably shouldn't; we can, and hopefully will, next week.