The American Commodus

JOEL ENGEL SEP 19, 2012 8:30 AM

Apologies to Wikipedia:

Whereas the reign of Marcus Aurelius George W. Bush had been marked by almost continuous warfare, that of Commodus Obama was comparatively peaceful in the military sense but was marked by political strife and the increasingly arbitrary and capricious behaviour of the emperor president himself. In the view of Dio Cassius Mark Steyn, a contemporary observer, his accession marked the descent “from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron”—a famous comment which has led some historians, notably Edward Gibbon anyone familiar with the Constitution, to take Commodus’ reign Obama’s presidency as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire American republic….Unlike the preceding Emperors Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Reagan, he seems to have had little interest in the business of administration and tended throughout his reign presidency to leave the practical running of the state to a succession of favourites, beginning at this time with Saoterus Axelrod, a freedman spinmeister from Nicomedia Chicago who had become his chamberlain henchman.Dissatisfaction with this state of affairs would lead to a series of conspiracies Tea Party protests and attempted coups elections, which in turn eventually provoked Commodus Obama to take charge of affairs, which he did in an increasingly dictatorial manner. Nevertheless, though the senatorial order his political foes came to hate dislike and fear him, the evidence suggests that he remained popular with the army 47 percent of citizens who paid no income taxes and the common people those who believe in free lunches for much of his reign, not least because of his lavish shows of largesse (recorded on his coinage repeatedly in his own boastful speeches) and because he staged and took part in spectacular gladiatorial combats fundraisers and softball interviews.”

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