With just over 50 days in with the “Hope and Change We Can Believe In” Administration and where are we?

Rome is burning. Perhaps we can manufacture violins as part of the stimulus package? Fiddle away America.

Actually America is, indeed, fiddling. I spent the morning watching CNN Headline News and what did I learn? Jennifer Aniston broke up with her boyfriend (again), Rhianna and Chris are back together and just recorded a duet despite the fact he beat the living hell out of her, Anna Nicole Smith’s boyfriend and lawyer are handcuffed and charged with 11 felony counts and the OctoMom (she who gave birth to eight babies despite already bringing up six others with no job living her mother and no husband) is complaining that the donations are not coming in quick enough despite the fact Dr Phil is building her a home.

Yes, that and American Idol. How could we forget that?

If I was a conspiracy theorist (and sometimes I am) I would suggest the news networks are actively trying to distract us from what is really going on both Stateside and globally.

President Obama said yesterday that the “economic crisis is not as bad as we think”. Really?

Talk radio and TV host Gelnn Beck said the other day that the Manchurian Candidate could not have destroyed us faster than Mr Obama and that if you were planning a ‘sleeper’ to come in as President of the US and dismantle us and take us down this is how he would do it.

The Dow Jones has plummeted 32% since the day the President was sworn in. Hope and Change indeed.

Giethner, the Treasury Secretary — the man with a plan (tomorrow or some day soon) with no senior staff and, at a the most crucial of economic times, speaks and the stock market drops with his every word. Even those lefties over at Saturday Night Live opened with a parody of Timothy. Some say when you make it on SNL you’ve made it. Perhaps, and not for the right reasons. This is the guy who doesn’t pay taxes but yet heads up Internal Revenue and is over in London with other finance leaders trying to sort this mess out.

Is this really the time to be talking about Rush Limbaugh, Cuba and stem cell research? Are we all so stupid to be distracted so easily?

Democratic Senators Bayh and Feingold are not going along for the ride. Good for them. Even Whoopi Goldberg, a fervent Obamamanic, is up in arms over the tax and spend agenda. All we need now is for Oprah to opine and then we can confirm what we already know: that the President is in trouble. But, more importantly, so are we.

Baracklash. The Wall Street Journal had a piece today by two of the best pollsters in the business who say President Obama’s numbers are falling to earth. This is how they started out:

It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama’s high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.

Obama’s disgraceful treatment of British PM Gordon Brown (of whom I am not a fan for myriad reasons) is more than an embarrassment. It will actually have consequences in the Special Relationship. For those of you not aware, it is a tradition for the two leaders of both nations to exchange gifts. Prime Minister Brown gave President Obama a pen holder made from the anti slave ship HMS Gannet. This unique present apparently delighted Obama because oak from the Gannet’s sister ship, HMS Resolute, was carved to make a desk that has sat in the Oval Office since 1880. Brown also handed over a framed commission for HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven volume biography of Winston Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert. In addition, the Browns gave the Obama daughters clothing and books by English authors yet to be published in America.

What did Gordon get in return? 25 DVDs. Seriously. Okay, they are great films — Citizen Kane, The Godfather, It’s a Wonderful Life, etc — But guess what? Gordon and Sarah Brown cannot watch them as they were not region encoded. Well done, White House. You can talk to the Taliban and North Korea and Syria but you snub possibly America’s strongest ally — the United Kingdom (along with Australia of course). I suspect Hillary will be making a trip to Downing Street very soon.

We have bailout after bailout and the word quadrillion is actually being used.

Yes, he inherited a mess, but so did Reagan who famously said that the most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I am here to help.”

I think I’ll hit the “reset button”.

Karyn McDermott worked for the former Howard government and for the Republican Party 2001-2008.