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No, Really — Why Does He Do That?

by Stephen Cox  |  Posted August 18, 2011

Have you ever noticed that President Obama runs whenever he sees a set of stairs?

He always (check this out, and you’ll find I am right) runs up and down the steps to his plane. If there are steps to the platform where he’s going to speak, he runs up and down those steps. I mean, even when he’s speaking in the White House, where he lives, he thinks he needs to run the two steps to his podium.

Now he’s touring the Midwest on a gargantuan bus that is supposed to make him look like a normal Midwesterner. Good luck. But the vehicle has the usual three steps between the ground and the body of the thing. So after every speaking engagement, Obama hauls off and runs up the steps of the bus. He runs up three steps.

I don’t mean that he walks fast. I mean that he runs like a junior high school kid doing his first competitive sprints. And he doesn’t just run the steps, he takes off from ten feet away, as if he needed to win third place at the Kalamazoo County JV meet and knew that you’ve gotta show your hustle if you wanta win. His arms are pumping, his legs are striving to please the coach, and his demeanor is like, “I can do it! I can run up these steps.”

For God’s sake, what kind of person is this?


About this Author
Stephen Cox is editor of Liberty, and a professor of literature at the University of California San Diego. His recent books include "The Big House: Image and Reality of the American Prison" and "The New Testament and Literature."


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