Americans, please wash hands before criticizing Obama

Friday, May 8th 2009

New Rule: Now that we've answered his call to wash our hands, President Obama must continue to tell us how to live. Last week, when America was faced with the pan-global swine flu omega death plague, the President went on TV and told people to wash their hands, and experts tell us this made a big difference, which augurs well for next month's "National Wipe Your Butt Day." Next week, in a fireside chat, he'll tell us not to put a fork in the toaster.

It's sad that the leader of the free world had to call a live press conference to tell his nation of clueless nitwits that employees must wash hands before returning to work. If that's not the "Forrest Gump-ification" of America, I don't know what is. Feeling wet, America? Why not try new, "Coming in from the Rain"?

You may think I'm blowing this out of proportion, but this plea from Obama - you know, the "Audacity of Soap" - was the first specific thing a President has asked the American people to actually do in decades. Unless you count "go shopping." Hopefully it will open the door to other, slightly weightier suggestions from the President.

So please, Mr. President, tell us to turn the lights off when we leave the room. Tell us not to buy crap we don't need and can't afford. Tell us to lay off the Ring Dings and Cheese Nips, and think twice before dating a stranger we meet on craigslist. For God's sake, tell people to read a newspaper. Not just to save the newspaper industry - though Lord knows I'd miss my Daily Jumble - but because having a public that actually knows something is our best defense against ever again electing a President who knows nothing.

There's a name for people who do the right thing for their country, even if it involves sacrifice. And no, it's not "socialists." It's "patriots." We all know the modern definition of a patriot: It's the person who pays the least taxes and listens to the most A.M. radio. But that wasn't what it always meant.

Patriots want their fellow citizens to be able to go to the hospital. They want to make sure no one sells them bread made out of Chinese skulls. They want a country where the deer and the antelope can still play - and not just so Sarah Palin can shoot them from a helicopter. Patriots want to burn less coal and buy less oil. Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof and Ronald Reagan had them removed. You've heard of "opposite marriage"? This is "opposite patriotism."

Rush Limbaugh celebrated this Earth Day by praising coal-fired power plants and the plastic bag, while Glenn Beck cheered a man on while he cut down trees.

During the campaign, Obama suggested that one simple thing Americans could do to help with fuel-efficiency was check their car's tire pressure. And Republicans freaked, because to them, every suggestion for the common good is a direct attack on their personal liberty, and it's unpatriotic to interfere with anyone's God-given right to be big, dumb and selfish.

When the President suggests things that will help the greater good, that's not a slight against your fragile manhood. I know, you're a rugged individualist. But you're not - you're just a schmuck.

Going back to Reagan, all of our leaders have predictably and reliably told us that government is always the problem, never you my precious, perfect American citizen. You are always perfect just the way you are, like a precious little snowflake. A beautiful, precious, 350-pound, pig-ignorant snowflake.

-Bill Maher