ENIVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT - AT 11:45 A.M. ET:  Just a short comment about the president's trip to Europe and Africa.  We'll be doing more of these short takes in the future:

Have you noticed that, with each foreign trip, the president's impact internationally seems to diminish?  What has this trip actually accomplished?  Who acted impressed?  The president is suffering from the following:  1) He is overexposed; 2) He hasn't achieved any success worth noting; 3) He never understood that the public eventually tires even of stars.

Noel Coward once said that there's an invisible curtain between performer and audience.  It's good advice in theater and in politics.  We have too much Obama too much of the time.  It's all about him, not enough about substance, which is often lacking in his news conferences and statements. 

Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard," said, in denying her decline, "I am big. It's the pictures that got small."  The way a president stays big is to keep the picture big.  If it's all about him, he will get small very quickly.

July 12, 2009