I’m not surprised that righties like me and Becket Adams would notice this. I am a little surprised that less conservative brows are starting to furrow. This guy’s supposed to be good at media management, isn’t he?

2008: Hope and change. 2014: YOLO?

Obama reacts as he is greeted by a man wearing a horse-head as he walked the streets of downtown Denver. pic.twitter.com/QNqnXKzwzm

— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) July 9, 2014

Obama has a beer with Gov. Hickenlooper at the Wynkook Brewing Company bar in Denver. pic.twitter.com/NT4gK7YMY1

— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) July 9, 2014

President Obama has a beer and shoots pool with Gov. Hickenlooper at the Wynkoop Brewing Company Bar. pic.twitter.com/UgDIUw6cc7

— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) July 9, 2014

Someone at the pool hall in Denver offered him a hit of weed too. O ignored him, but at the rate he’s going it’ll be worth asking him again in 2015, around the time that Iran’s building its first nuclear weapon.

Anyway, furrowed brows:

It does seem weird for Obama to bro out with horse head Denver dude but not be able to visit the border.

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 9, 2014

Lefty Michael Tomasky sees Katrina potential here if Obama doesn’t at least pretend to take this surge of illegals seriously:

For one thing, there is the specific parallel of the flyover: Obama was going to Texas for a fundraiser but wasn’t planning on going to the border? I usually try to ask myself what I’d be saying if a Republican did X, and if a Republican did that, I’d be teeing off. It’s not defensible.

Second, Obama is at a really vulnerable point in his presidency, I think, not dissimilar to the point George W. Bush was at in August 2005, when Katrina hit. Then, Bush’s approval rating was generally in the mid-40s, as Obama’s is now. Hanging on, but vulnerable to one straw that could break the camel’s back…

I don’t understand it. I covered New York mayors. When a crisis hits, you go. If it’s 3 in the f***ing morning and way out in some part of Staten Island you’ve never even heard of, you go. Obama should have been in Texas or California or Arizona last week.

He wants O to visit the young illegals who’ve just come across and kick a soccer ball around with them or something, “a Pope Francis-esque gesture of some kind.” Which, I guess, explains why Obama’s so reluctant to go. It’s not that going to the border will signal that he “owns the issue,” it’s that liberals want him down there acting like Jesus for illegals at a moment when he’s eager to show he’s, ahem, serious about border enforcement. If he goes to the border, shakes hands with a few BP officers, poses for the requisite photo of him peering through binoculars with a concerned look on his face, but doesn’t visit with any kids from Central America, the amnesty shills in his base will grouse that he’s sold them out again. He’s trying to get them to manage their expectations for what he can do unilaterally on legalization. If he disappoints them again, they’ll be less likely to cooperate.

But none of that explains the good times with Horsehead and the new Choom Gang in Denver yesterday. Why do that when even liberals are nervous about the optics here? I assume O’s thinking (a) that the public’s attention span for all news not related to missing jumbo jets is now down to about 35 minutes, which means this will all be distant, distant memory by the time people go to vote in November, and (b) he’s going to infuriate border hawks pretty soon anyway when he issues his mass amnesty for the millions of adult illegals who are already here. In which case, why not laugh in their faces while doing it? Where’s the fun in being a lame-duck king who can rewrite federal law on a whim if you have to walk around looking grim and pretend-worried all the time? Next time someone offers him a joint, he should take it. Choom on, big guy.