{"id":4807,"date":"2009-06-21T13:55:58","date_gmt":"2009-06-21T13:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8000\/\/?p=4807"},"modified":"2026-01-12T09:54:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T09:54:37","slug":"is-killing-a-fly-sufficient-to-scare-dictators-into-submission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/?p=4807","title":{"rendered":"Is killing a fly sufficient to scare dictators into submission?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"President Obama kills a fly during an interview\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FJ2H1K_0FXw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Obama\u2019s Fly Move<\/b>\u00a0 By MAUREEN DOWD, NY TIMES<\/p>\n<p>The White House has two kinds of aides: The ones who prefer to think of their boss as gifted but human, and the ones who think their boss is on a date night with destiny.<\/p>\n<p>The first group thinks that when things go really well for President Obama that he\u2019s benefiting from luck as well as skill. For instance, they suggest, if any one of the sharpshooters from the Navy Seals who killed the three Somali pirates holding the American captain had aimed a millimeter to the left, maybe the captain would have been killed, and the incident would have turned into a symbol of weakness\u2014as when Jimmy Carter\u2019s attempt to free the hostages in Iran ended with a helicopter crash in the desert.<\/p>\n<p>And what if there had been another terrorist attack in America? Everything would be seen through a darker lens.<\/p>\n<p>The second group of aides are more caught up in the myth and magic, feeling that Mr. Obama summons the three-point swishes when he needs them; that his popularity is not so fragile; that the president\u2019s unparalleled vision and buzzer-beating will can shape fate.<\/p>\n<p>Just so, there are some Americans who think the president got an excess of attention from an excitable news media for expeditiously executing a fly that was buzzing around his face during an interview with CNBC and the Times\u2019s John Harwood.<\/p>\n<p>And there are others who see a mystical, metaphorical dimension to the way the president nonchalantly lasered in on the meddlesome insect after it ignored his admonition, \u201cHey, get outta here.\u201d Without even uncrossing his legs or lunging about, the Chill One caught it, crushed it and kicked it aside and then said to Harwood, \u201cNow, where were we?\u201d before returning to his point about regulatory reform.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s like he\u2019s got one of those Fly Terminator targeting systems in his eyes,\u201d marveled Jon Stewart.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe the president who collected Spider-Man comics as a kid couldn\u2019t resist the age-old face-off with a fly.<\/p>\n<p>The moment had echoes of parables in which the ordinary one becomes the golden one.<\/p>\n<p>In \u201cThe Karate Kid,\u201d a teenager whose father has died learns lessons about the body and spirit from his surrogate father and karate teacher, Mr. Miyagi. His lessons are about not going to the dark side, the importance of discipline, and catching flies. \u201cMan who catch fly with chopstick,\u201d Mr. Miyagi says, \u201caccomplish anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the Grimms\u2019 fairy tale, \u201cThe Brave Little Tailor,\u201d a tailor brandishing a rag kills seven flies swarming around his jam-smeared bread. The little man admires his own bravery so much\u2014\u201cFor joy his heart wagged like a lamb\u2019s tail\u201d\u2014that he wants the whole world to know of it. So he stitches up a belt for himself embroidered with the legend \u201cSeven at one blow!\u201d and saunters out.<\/p>\n<p>Protected by his legend, using brains rather than brawn, he dispatches two giants and captures a unicorn and a wild boar before winning a princess and living happily ever after as a king.<\/p>\n<p>The president didn\u2019t order up a \u201cOne at one blow!\u201d belt. You don\u2019t need such accessories in the era of YouTube viral videos. But he did admire his own ninja moves so much that he gave himself a shout-out: \u201cThat was pretty impressive, wasn\u2019t it? I got the sucker.\u201d Then he solicited more snaps for what Harwood called his \u201d \u2018Make my day\u2019 moment\u201d from his press secretary off camera: \u201cWhaddya think, Gibbs?\u201d After the interview was over, he continued his superfly moves by cleaning up the carcass with a napkin.<\/p>\n<p>The moment may have resonated so much because some Americans fear that President Obama is too prone to negotiation, comity and splitting the difference, that he could have been tougher on avaricious banks and vicious Iranian dictators.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cshocking murder in the White House,\u201d as Stephen Colbert dubbed it, was a small moment. \u201cAll they want is to be loved and to feed on our waste,\u201d Jeff \u201cThe Fly\u201d Goldblum said in a dry defense of the exoskeletal creatures on the Colbert Report.<\/p>\n<p>But at least this moment didn\u2019t involve any talking or therapy or charm or compromise or seminars.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe snuff aspect of it was psychologically useful for Obama,\u201d Harwood told me. \u201cHe decided to take it out and he did take it out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If only the president could be so brazen about pushing through gay rights and health care.<\/p>\n<p>Harwood was bemused about the serious issues in his interview getting swallowed by a bug.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will be the most noticed thing in my career,\u201d he conceded, \u201cbut I\u2019m rolling with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; Obama\u2019s Fly Move\u00a0 By MAUREEN DOWD, NY TIMES The White House has two kinds of aides: The ones who prefer to think of <a href=\"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/?p=4807\" class=\"read-more-link\">[Read More]<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5124,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807\/revisions\/5124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}