I remember a discussion with some of my friends where we discussed ideas for the biggest practical joke in history.  The discussion was done just for fun, because these days you couldn’t pull off a huge joke without offending multitudes of people — so many people are just wusses when it comes to humor.

But after seeing Obama’s first 60 days in office, and especially the political events of the past week, I have to wonder: Is President Barack Obama part of the biggest practical joke in history?   I keep hearing unusual news stories about Obama, and I find myself wondering if people are just making it up or if Obama is really doing stuff that stupid?   It seems inconceivable that our nation’s leader could be this ignorant and incompetent.  Here’s a few examples:

* Obama was laughing incessantly about the economy on 60 Minutes, to the point that the host asked him, “Are you punch drunk?”  That’s not something you expect to have to ask the President of the United States!

* Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez called him “ignorant”.  Well, that could probably happen to anybody.

* AIG execs get huge bonuses, and at first Obama’s administration said they didn’t know about it, then we find out they are lying.  For some reason, they decided to let the bonuses remain.

* Obama appeared on Jay Leno like he has nothing more important to do.  Has anyone told him the campaign is over and that he has a LOT of work to do?

* Speaking of which, Obama continues acting like a celebrity, thinking it’s all about him.

* Obama keeps filling leadership positions with people who don’t pay their taxes.  Don’t they run background checks?

* Obama said he wouldn’t put people in his administration who were recent lobbyists, then he did exactly that the same day, in the same speech.  You just can’t make that stuff up.

* Obama gave 25 DVDs to the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and then the DVDs weren’t playable over there because they are region encoded to work only in North America.  Did that really happen?  Doesn’t our President have access to better gifts for leaders of other countries?

* Under Obama, our government seems to be spending a few more hundred billion dollars every other day, when our government is already over $10 trillion in debt.   Doesn’t he realize that it’s bad fiscal policy to spend more money than you have?  And that if our country ever runs out of available credit, we’ll go bankrupt?

* Obama claims he will cut the deficit in half, but then his policies call for unprecedented spending.  What deficit is he talking about, and how many expenses are excluded from those calculations?

I could go on, but you get the idea.  I realize Obama is an amateur when it comes to leading a country, but he’s hired a lot of Bill Clinton’s former people to report to him, so they have experience (for what that’s worth).  Plus, some of this stuff should just be common sense.  So instead of thinking that Obama is really this stupid and incompetent, this must be some kind of huge practical joke.  Surely, any day now he’ll say “April Fools!” and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief and eventually have confidence in our government again.   Come to think of it, April 1st is right around the corner, so maybe that’s when we’ll find out if this is all for real or not…