No Runny Eggs

Quick, put together a list of famous duos. Here’s the one I just came up with:

Sonny and Cher
The Carpenters
Lewis and Martin
Abbott and Costello
Fred and Ginger
Bergen and McCarthy
Siskel and Ebert
Murphy and Duel

Odd thing about my list is that while they were all incredible talents when together, the individual performers never seemed to rise to the same level of fame and accomplishment once the duos broke up.  This is especially true in situations where one of the partners died like Siskel and Ebert or Murphy and Duel, andlet’s face it, Charlie McCarthy was never quite the same after Edgar Bergen’s death.

I’d like to add one more duo to the list of “great when together but awful separately;”  POTUS and TOTUS.

POTUS and TOTUS were one of the most amazing political duos ever.  Focused, eloquent and convincing are just some of the adjectives used to describe the performances of these two. 

Who can forget their performance in Germany where POTUS apologized for America saying:

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

Or the night POTUS won the Democrat nomination and in Minneapolis, TOTUS came up with this unforgettable line:

this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal…

Sadly, like several of my notable duos, the incredible talents of this duo ended with the death of one of the partners; TOTUS.  We now know that like Peter Duel, TOTUS led a troubled life and on July 13, 2009, chose to end it.

What caused TOTUS to end his life? 

Through June, POTUS’ strongly disapprove ratings had not moved above the low 30’s.  On July 2nd, the strongly disapprove rating hit 35% and has been moving up since then.

On June 28th, Rasmussen reported that Republicans had taken a lead, outside of the margin of error, in the generic poll for the first time in a few years.

These events made it clear to TOTUS that despite his best efforts, POTUS was a complete loser.  TOTUS understood that it was one thing to be performing together in the carefully crafted and controlled environments of campaigns.  However, it was now a completely different challenge to try to perform together in the rough and tumble world of actually governing.  No matter how good TOTUS was, no matter how well he did his job, he understood that POTUS wasn’t up to it and was going to hold him back.  Worse, while TOTUS was handling his end of the act flawlessly, POTUS was the one who got all the adulation.

The final straw for TOTUS came on July 12th.  This was the day that Rasmussen reported that the most important issue that POTUS and TOTUS campaigned for, health care reform, now had more Americans against it than supporting it.  Seeing that this was the beginning of the end and knowing that he wouldn’t be able to convince POTUS to resign, TOTUS did the honorable thing and threw himself from the stage.

Since the death of TOTUS, POTUS hasn’t been the same.  Several times last week, POTUS attempted to convince Americans that the government could run successful commercial operations by pointing to the continuing loses of the USPS!  Over the weekend, POTUS said he wasn’t for single payer before he said he was for single payer before he said he never said he was for single payer health care. 

Clearly, POTUS has loss his luster.  As his polls and those of his pet projects continue to sink, POTUS attempts to maintain his swagger as if he was still in the halcyon days working with TOTUS; but he’s not.

It was sad to watch Sonny attempt to perform without Cher.  It’s incredibly sad to watch Ebert become gloomier and reserve praise only for the most obscure of foreign films, without Siskel.  Likewise, it’s sad to watch POTUS attempt to carry on.

When Peter Duel died the producers of Alias Smith and Jones attempted to bring in Roger Davis to fill the role.  The show only lasted another 17 shows and most of its fans felt it was a painful 17 shows.  Perhaps POTUS could learn something from Roger Davis.