Why, the ever-helpful CNN has compiled a list of Ten Things President Obama Must Do in the next ten weeks before the mid-term elections. Perhaps he could take one item per week? The list is not clear, because any time you see a “top ten” list in journalism, it will never be substantive but a time-filler for someone paid by the entry and not by the word. Check out High Fidelity if you want to see the type of mentality that compiles top ten lists. This one was burped up by somebody with the professional name of Kristi. We assume she does not dot her i’s, but instead uses any number of symbols.

Anyway, here is Krየstየ’ list with the Czar’s thoughts.

1. Simplify the message. CNN recommends Obama stop using so many big words and long sentences. Don’t talk so professorally! Czar: this would be like asking GH Bush to stop stammering, or Clinton to stop with his goofy laugh, or Kennedy to pronounce his Rs. This is who the guy is. He scored a one-hit wonder with “Hope and Change,” but now it is being used against him. Right now, his only two simple messages are “Look,” (which means you shouldn’t look too closely to what he says) and “Lemme be clear,” (which of course warns us that intense nonsense is to follow). Believe us: if he could do it, he would be doing it now.

2. Channel Ronald Reagan. CNN thinks Reagan knew how to build a message and get it across to people. Czar: This is beyond preposterous. If Obama could channel Reagan, what the foxtrot do you think Gipper would be telling him? “Man up, get a backbone, smack Iran, kill all this spending, undo your healthcare fiasco, and simplify the taxes to where I had ‘em.”

3. Propagandize the truth. CNN thinks that the President should do what Chris Christie is doing in New Jersey. Czar: If the President was capable of thinking rationally and simply about financial issues, our country would not be in the crisis it’s in. Come on! Christie is an anti-union, small government fiscally responsible conservative. Exactly where does Obama find a hook to attach a line to, here?

4. Go on the offense. CNN quotes some pablum about ignoring distractions and to stop equivocating. Czar: Great advice, except the President does not care a jot what we think. He merely talks, now, wondering where the applause went. The President is not going to go on the offense, because he is by nature overly defensive. The best he can manage is a combination of the two: being offensive.

5. Put up a fight. CNN is not very clear on what this means. Evidently, he should campaign hard. Czar: Unfortunately, the Democrats seem to prefer he stay the hell away from their already precarious campaigns. They are well past distancing themselves: on both the mosque issue and ObamaCare, they are contradicting the President. The only fight he stands a chance of winning will be internecine.

6. Be positive. CNN advises he stop with the negativity. Czar: this is a President who seems to really hate his job. He liked the rock star status at first, but like any over-promoted celebrity, he hates his fans. Count the number of times he uses metaphors about cleaning up messes, or mentions inheriting problems, or how hard his first two years have been. Then count how many vacations he takes. Folks, he presently hates everything about being President. No surprise: it’s the first non-sinecure job he has ever held. Started out great, but now it has become a freaking grind. He just wants people to go away so he can rebuild things the way he wants them. Heck, he even spent his birthday alone. His every smile is a grimace lately. He’s like the call center operator who loved getting hired, but now lets the phone ring a couple more times just to see if someone else picks it up or the caller hangs up on their own.

7. Look to the future, not the past. CNN acknowledges it is time to stop blaming Bush for “driving the economy into a ditch.” (Hey, there’s another I-get-all-the-crap-work metaphor!) Czar: We agree here. The first Bush suffered badly in a debate against Candidate Clinton for looking backward as opposed to discussing what to do next. Obama is setting himself up for just such a headache: the more he blames Bush—who evidently is not waiting for the judgment of history to regain his popularity—the more Obama’s numbers crumble.

8. Pay attention to independents. CNN falls for the myth that independents are the swing voters, and he should be wooing them! Czar: False, in our opinion. There are almost no independent voters. When election ballots have only two major candidates, you can only vote for one of the two. Independents already know whether they will vote Republican or Democrat; they just claim to be independent because they have no clue what persuasion the pollster is.

9. Be prepared for Election Day. CNN says it could be bad for him. Czar: Okay, and so what? How should he prepare? With lunchmeat and soda? A night on the town? Base jumping off the Washington Monument? Care to explain what this means?

10. But don’t stop at November. CNN says he should be like any CEO and focus on the next quarter, not dwell over past performance. Czar: Eewww. Bad analogy, given how many CEOs the President has alienated. But once again, CNN does not really explain any of this. Why? Fluff piece!

Here is the Czar’s counter list of Ten Things President Obama Must Do:

1. Wake up and smell the coffee. The country does not like you very much, because almost half of us never voted for you, and more than half of us were promised somebody much cooler and more capable than you. Acknowledge that you have a deep pit to climb out of. Your handlers tell you that Reagan had bad numbers early on, too; they may not be telling you (a) Reagan dealt with it and continued on, and (b) Jimmy Carter had bad numbers early on, too, but did pretty much what you seem to be doing.

2. Start sending very clear messages to Iran that the regime has only months left no matter what they do, but that the good people of Iran will receive our full support if they become a true democratic government and do business with us more than Russia and China. This stunt worked in the Cold War, and you better realize there is a Cold War going with Islamofascism right now that keeps trying to get warm.

3. Take your military seriously. Get the F-22 going again and make it a symbol of American capability. Start using the Navy to establish a force presence around the world. Give some of the Iraq vets some time off; take the rest and beef up Afghanistan. Act like a Commander in Chief. Like it or not, you are in the military now.

4. Cancel your ridiculous spending sprees. Return the repaid TARP money to the taxpayers. Announce that Pelosi’s healthcare reform was not what you envisioned and call for a moratorium on it, in lieu of real reform next year. Use the unspent bailout money and start paying the staggering interest we owe to China. Drop the Boomer attitude that someone else can pick up the tab: this is your bill. Pay up.

5. Speaking of China, start viewing them as deadly competition, not friendly competition, and re-establish a cult of America back in Asia. Let Russia bellyache; they got nothing on us…yet. But do not ignore China any longer; they have big plans, and the plans are not good.

6. Start pulling back the ridiculously bloated size of government. Demand a 10% reduction in workforce every year for the next two years at least. Start with the IRS and Office of Personnel Management. Demand that new federal employees use a 401(k) they fund themselves and outlaw new pensions. Start purging AFSCME salters out of the ranks. Either run the government like a business or don’t—just stop with this bastard hybrid we have today.

7. Dump Tim Geithner, Janet Napolitano, and Eric Holder. You know why.

8. Publicly call out Nancy Pelosi and her most open, honest, and ethical Congress ever. You have no idea how popular this will be with the voters.

9. Start cutting taxes to corporations. This lowers operating costs, which lowers prices. Lower prices encourages spending by the 80% of us with jobs. This encourages growth, which hires the other 20%. Low taxes equals low unemployment. It ain’t rocket science.

10. Stop holding hands with scumbags. Yeah, we mean dolts like Chavez. But we also mean a lot of the people who seem to be doing real harm to your image, like George Soros, the Code Pink folks, the union heads, the Center for American Progress folks, and the rest. They are not your friends, although right now they very much want you to like them. You’re like the naive kid with spending money who shows up in a drug-addled high school. They flock to you, and for a brief moment, you think you’re finally popular. You already know the rest of the story.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.