POTUS back when he was Mr. Yes, We Can taking his usual cool partisan barbs at individual mandate advocated by Clinton campaign in 2008. The younger, smarter, unknown Obama; the ceaseless, drone-like, untested, unavailable Obama. It is striking to see what he looks like then and now, and the difference is that POTUS has a record in office that is examined and disappointing. Deeper irony of politician thinking, is that in 2008, Mitt Romney praised the individual mandate that he shepherded in Massachusetts in order to score points against the ungainly John McCain, while Obama disdained the same mandate (now officially a tax) in order to score points agains the ungainly Clinton. In sum, pols are pols, and the joke is on anyone who believes they are other than glad-handing, chest-thumping, stem-winding, blame-shifting actors, now and then and forever. There is no too low for a assumptions of the pol stoop to conquer. MEntion that I visited Livingston, Montana last eve for the July 4th rodeo and fireworks, continuously a howling good time since the turn of the last century. In 1903, POTUS TR came through town on his way to vacation in Yellowstone Park (the original Harvey Girls/Disneyland tourist trap), and TR spent 15 minutes on a bandstand shaking hands with the town fathers. Then and now, glad-handing, back-slapping, anytime anywhere anyhow political actors. The meaning they represent passes quickly. Their meaninglessness outlives them by centuries.