A recent yahoo article takes the lede, buries it under about 50 pounds of dirt, then poops all over it by reporting that president Barack Obama has resorted to quoting Jimi Hendrix lyrics in his attempts to counter his “powerful” critics.

“Some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time — and they’re not always happy with me — they talk about me like a dog. That’s not in my prepared remarks, but it’s true,” Obama said during a speech at Wisconsin’s Laborfest on Monday.

Though Obama didn’t acknowledge it, the line was a verbatim quote from “Stone Free,” the first song Hendrix wrote after moving to England in 1966. “They talk about me like a dog,” the song says. “Talkin about the clothes I wear. But they don’t realize they’re the ones who’s square.”

It’s unclear if Obama consciously or unconsciously cited the lyric.

Once again, the main stream media — or, as I prefer to call it, the lame stream media, because they’re lame, because they don’t cover the stories I think they should cover, nor do they cover the stories they do cover in the ways that I think they should cover them, i.e., without the usual “spin” that they always use, like for instance, I write great stuff that’s as good as anything by Maureen Dowd and David Brooks put together but the New York Times won’t publish any of it because they’re lame —  has missed the point of the story. Sure, if the president said something like, “Excuse me while I kiss this guy,” then the writer might have a point. Or, “Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand.” But the president did not say those things.

Read the president’s entire quote, not just the part about the dog, which is what the lame stream media wants you to fixate on (it’s classic misdirection, like a magician practicing sleight of hand, which is what the entire lame stream media is all about). He claims he’s being persecuted by “some powerful interest.” These interests and their persecution of him have driven him to such distraction that he actually went off his prepared remarks to speak about it.

He never goes off his prepared remarks. Remember back during that oil spill (the first one, not the one that just happened that the lame stream media isn’t covering), and everyone was telling him that he was being too cool, and that he needed to stop being so cool all the time, and show some emotion (that’s a line from the Joan Armatrading song “Show Some Emotion,” but it’s not clear if I consciously or unconsciously cited the lyric)? That has always been his great fault.

Yet now, he is going off his prepared remarks. He has changed his method of operations. And in the process, revealed a mind that sees conspiracy against him at every turn. The president, a politician, sees opposition to his policies from the supposed opposition party, and as a result he sees himself as persecuted by some unnamed “powerful interests” who are out to get him, and all because he’s got such obviously great ideas for saving the country.

I am no psychologist so I cannot say this with any authority, but this is clearly a classic example of Paranoid Delusion 101 in the First Degree.

The person suffering from Paranoid Delusion 101 in the First Degree believes that some shadowy “powerful interest” is always attempting to keep him down, and to prevent his success. For instance, why do you think that even though health care reform passed, the president’s polling numbers are so low? That makes no logical sense. The only explanation: the president has offended the wrong powerful interests.

The article features further evidence of the president’s mental deterioration:

“If I said the sky was blue, they’d say no,” he vented. “If I said fish live in the sea, they’d say no. They just think it’s better to score political points before an election than to solve problems.”

The Paranoid Delusion 101 in the First Degree sufferer believes that powerful interests would oppose him regardless of what he said. For instance, if he said something that was demonstrably true, such as “health care reform will save people money” (the sky is blue), then the powerful interests would say, “No, it will not” (the sky is red). If he said something else that was demonstrably true, such as “I won’t raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year” (fish live in the sea), then powerful interests would retort, “You just did when you signed that law raising cigarette taxes” (what’s a “fish”?). This is clearly the unreasonable assertions of a group that is trying to defeat the president.

In other words, he is being persecuted. But it’s even worse than that. In his attempts to gain our sympathy, the president has misstated some important facts. Take what he has said about the sky. In the daytime, the sky appears to be blue, usually. But at night, the sky is not blue, it is very dark. Because it is night. Moreover, from a strictly scientific perspective, the sky isn’t really blue during the daytime, either.

The earth’s atmosphere is filled with minute dust and water particles that act like a filter, scattering the light rays. The rays of light with the longer wavelengths, such as reds and yellows, tend to pass more easily through the atmosphere, while the rays with the shorter wavelengths, like blues and indigos, tend to be randomly scattered more easily. These more easily dispersed shorter light rays are what give the sky its blue color.

Red skies at sunrise and sunset are caused by the same phenomenon. When the light hits the Earth at an angle it has more of the atmosphere to go through; this increases the filtering effect and that is why you see a red sky.

In other words, the sky is a sort of “rainbow stew” (that’s a quote from the Merle Haggard song “Rainbow Stew,” but it’s not clear if I consciously or unconsciously cited the lyric), full of all kinds of colors, not just blue.

And, while fish live in the sea, there are other types of animals that live there as well. Mammals, crustaceans, zooplankton, worms, mollusks, and phytoplankton, to name just a few. In other words, the president has presented only part of the story, as if it were indisputable fact.

That is a rather flimsy case on which to build your persecution-by-powerful-interests theory. Unless, of course, you suffer from Paranoid Delusion 101 in the First Degree. Yes, it is only to the truly demented mind that such ramblings would make perfect sense. I submit that the president is demented.

Why is the lame stream media ignoring this important story? Answer: They are lame.

Further evidence can be found in a story from Reuters:

“We are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads — that’s enough to circle the world six times. … We’re going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways — enough to stretch coast-to-coast,” Obama told a labor rally in Milwaukee where several thousand supporters cheered his every line.

What can we say about a man who wants to build roads that circle the world six times? That makes absolutely no sense, except to someone suffering delusions of grandeur — he wants to conquer the world with roads. Yet, most of the world is covered in ocean (where fish live, remember?) anyway, so building roads on them is insane.

And the less said about his “we-need-to-have-sex-with-railway-lines” line the better.

All of this leads us to one inescapable, self-explanatory conclusion. The president has gone bonkers. Or, to put it more delicately, he has Paranoid Delusion 101 in the First Degree. But the most damning evidence of all comes from the end of the yahoo article:

“They’re betting that between now and November, you’ll come down with a case of amnesia. They think you’ll forget what their agenda did to this country,” Obama said. “They think you’ll just believe that they’ve changed. These are the folks whose policies helped devastate our middle class and drive our economy into a ditch. And now they’re asking you for the keys back.”

Yes, the president is once again using the “economy-as-a-car” metaphor, even though it has already been brilliantly debunked (full disclosure: I debunked it). Perhaps it’s the president who is suffering from the “amnesia”? After all, he must have read my posting about his car metaphor, right? He can’t have ignored it, it was so good, it got more than 50 “likes” on facebook.

Anyway, there is nothing more insane than using a discredited metaphor to “drive” your arguments. Unless, of course, it is the wanton use of unrelated metaphors. The economy is a car! The sky is blue! Fish live in the sea! They talk about me like I’m a dog! One after another, a veritable litany of insanity, laying bare the disturbed mind of a man who believes everyone is out to get him.

I call upon the lame stream media to stop reporting stories in ways that run counter to the logic that I bring to bear on current events, and start reporting honestly on the president’s Paranoid Delusion 101 in the First Degree problem, such as I have here. Until that time, our country is doomed.

And to the New York Times: I call upon you to run this on your editorial page. I know you won’t, because you’ve always been against me, but you can’t tell me it’s not as good as what usually appears there.

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Ricky Sprague

Ricky Sprague occasionally writes and/or draws things. He sometimes animates things. He has a Twitter account and he has a blog. He scripted this graphic novel about Kolchak The Night Stalker. He is really, really good at putting links in bios.

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