Obama the Heartthrob: The End of the Affair?
There’s been a plethora of articles attempting to plumb the mystique of Barack Obama, especially the strength of his appeal to so many people who usually don’t fall head over heels for politicians.
One of the more puzzling aspects of this attraction is amply demonstrated in this article, in which Jay Ambrose goes on for quite some time about Obama’s lack of transparency, his unfair pandering to special interest groups, his falsehoods, and his ad hominem attacks on those who disagree with him, and then makes the following curious statement:
None of this means Obama himself is something short of very smart and very charming. He is immensely likeable, whatever his performance.
How can this be? Do secrecy, lies, and unwarranted attacks on others ordinarily foster the idea that a person is charming and likeable? Isn’t there usually a better match between a president’s policies and whether people are drawn to him personally as someone to like and admire?
No one blinks when Obama’s supporters find him personally charismatic. Nor is it a shock when his opponents fail to give Obama the Mr. Congeniality prize. But Ambrose is also hardly alone in his oddly dichotomous reaction to President Obama. A similar paradoxical response is voiced by many pundits and consistently reflected in public opinion polls, where for a long time a greater percentage of the public has given Obama higher approval ratings than endorse his specific policies.
Ever since Chris Matthews felt that unaccustomed thrill going up his leg on hearing Obama speak, people have been referring to Obama in terms that indicate an unusually positive and powerful emotional reaction to him, something more akin to love rather than mere respect or admiration. And this seems true even for those like Ambrose, who don’t seem to approve of much he’s done since taking office.
Cynics say this is due to race. They allege that many Americans are reluctant to criticize the nation’s first black president, either because they are genuinely proud the country has finally surmounted that racial barrier and/or because they are afraid of being called racists if they do. But that’s too simplistic. It doesn’t explain the extraordinary strength of the attraction, nor does it cover people such as Ambrose who have no problem roundly criticizing Obama’s policies but who continue to like him immensely on a personal level.
One way to resolve the seeming contradiction is to consider that Obama has some of the qualities of the best con artists. That’s not to say that Obama is literally a con man; he’s not pulling the old Spanish Prisoner scam. But he shares more than a few of their attributes.
Obama held himself out to be one thing during the election (a bipartisan moderate), and on taking office became quite the opposite. Cons, like Obama, are ordinarily out to deceive people as to their true purposes. But it’s an error to think they come across as sleazy. The most effective ones are unusually likeable and charming, even as they pull off their scams. This likeability is not a tangential characteristic of con artists, either; it is a central one.
“Con,” after all, is short for “confidence.” The con artist works by gaining the victim’s confidence and trust. The successful con artist is so very likeable, in fact, that he seems especially credible, and people who might otherwise be wary and cynical drop their guard around him. They don’t examine him too closely, so great is their desire to believe.
Contradictions are waved away. Acts that would arouse suspicion if they were committed by someone else are excused. Important omissions go unnoticed. Inconsistencies are rationalized. Shady company is defended or ignored. Sound familiar?
The con artist is able to gain trust by using the right vocal inflections to fit the mark (or, in Obama’s case, the audience), changing accents and speech patterns to match. In addition, a con doesn’t usually stay in one place very long (it has been remarked how often Obama changed jobs) because, although people may not catch on to his game all that quickly, he is afraid that if he sticks around they eventually will.
Even though most of us would like to think we couldn’t get taken in by a con—we would know better—the truth is that many people are vulnerable. It’s not a question of intelligence, because some marks are otherwise quite smart. What distinguishes them, however, is that they’ve been disarmed. For one reason or another, they happen to be susceptible to a particular con artist’s brand of charm:
The core … however, was that the mark desperately wanted to believe in the dangling get-rich-quick scheme. ..That is how the classic con is distinct from straightforward fraud: in the con, the victim is actively complicit in his undoing.
Both the con and Obama offer something the mark fiercely desires and show characteristics s/he desperately wants to see. For many wordsmiths (even Republicans such as Peggy Noonan and Christopher Buckley) that would be their perception of Obama as an intelligent, articulate, and especially a literary spokesman. For others — especially the young — the hook is Obama’s perceived coolness. For others it might be his race and his promise of healing the racial divide (in fact, he embodies this quite literally in his very own bi-racial person). For some, it was and is enough that he be the antithesis of whatever it was they’d hated about Bush.
For so many, it was the rhetoric of hope and change, which tapped into their earnest desire that — just this once — it would be different, and that this politician wouldn’t be crooked or in the thrall of special interest groups. And if the hope is that strong to begin with, the need to believe that great, then all the more reason to deny evidence to the contrary that comes in later. Who among us wants to admit to having been a patsy?
It’s no accident that we call the first 100 days of a presidency the honeymoon period. Obama’s honeymoon is over now, and reality is just beginning for many who fell in love with him. But don’t expect much change of heart soon. A cautionary tale is that of the famous British con artist Ronnie Cornwall, many of whose victims remained true to him:
[S]uch was [Cornwall’s] charm that none of the people he ruined went to the police: one even confessed to missing Cornwell’s intoxicating company.
As time goes on and disillusionment grows, people may come to miss the intoxicating company of the Obama to whom they originally felt so strongly attracted, and some will always remain in thrall to that powerful magnetism.
Obama likable sure…but so were any number of rouge despots of recent (20th c.) history…Stalin..Mao..Hitler..these Monsters were likable too…didn’t stop them. Obama flaw is that he is just a big fraud..and he knows it, and soon the whole world will see him for who he is…a toothless tyrant…he’s not even black..unless a spray on tan qualifies..it’s the lips that give him away. No Obama’s only skill is reading well…and his statements of a killing newborn babies who survive late term abortions..says it all.
At this point, Obama’s remaining (vocal) defenders must engage in vast acts of cognitive dissonance if they’re sincere, and equally vast campaigns of mendacity and dissimulation if they’re not. The problem with such a Baghdad Bobbish facade is that thanks to the Internet and a handful of lesser sources, the facts about Obama can no longer be effectively redecorated, much less concealed.
– Obama waged a “post-partisan, post racial” campaign, but has governed as a hyper-partisan, utterly friendly to race hustlers such as Eric Holder and Van Jones.
– Obama campaigned against the Bush era deficits, but has embraced deficits several times as large as anything Bush countenanced.
– Obama attacked Bush’s decision to go to war to remove Saddam Hussein and spoke of Afghanistan as the high-priority front, but has done everything but run away when confronted with his inaction on Afghanistan.
– Obama has demonstrated that he’s incapable of tolerating opposition, dissent, or criticism. In particular, those who call his social-fascist initiatives by their right names are marked for destruction.
– Obama shows no loyalty to his minions, which has unpleasant implications for his priorities.
– Obama, this supposedly smart fellow, seems unable to grasp that he’s been found out — seen through — unmasked for what he really is and really holds dear. Nor is he bright enough to change tactics when his current ones fail him.
The mouthpieces of the Left have, from time to time asked about conservatives, “Are they stupid or evil?” It’s become clear that their main objection is to the “or” part of that query. Their preference is for “and” — that is, for a front man who’s both.
Many of my friends desperately want him to succeed. And don’t expect the affair to end until after the 2012 election. For now, as the scapegoat GW Bush recedes into memory, I notice their ire is more and more directed at “squishy” (ie skeptical) Democrats. The last President that looked as Presidential as Obama—-was Warren G. Harding.
The end of the affair? I have to say that amongst some of my acquaintances it certainly is. There is some serious buyers’ remorse out there and the Ft Hood shootings and the left’s predictable response to them aren’t going to help any. But, did Obama do a con job on America? Not at all. Anyone who paid attention to both his primary run against Hilary and the series of speeches he made in the summer of 2008 should have known what they were getting. Lots of people put their hands over their eyes and ears and then voted.
My message to the body politic is that you better pay attention. There is a reason the certain politicians cater to and surround themselves with the fringe elements of either the extreme right or the extreme left and it has nothing to do with democracy or looking out for the nation’s best interests. Just because people want to see no evil and hear no evil doesn’t mean that there is no evil.
Unless the Republicans can get George Clooney or Mickey Rooney look-a-like to run for president in 2012 the American women will still vote for Bambie.
That’s what he reminds them of.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2610/3966726001_909a104c9e.jpg
A large brown eyed fawn caught in the headlights of American politicians and Fox News bashes.
His white mother and the thoughts that Michell could be a husband abuser cause many women voters to open that secret closet with their
Ken Doll
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Brunette-KEN-Barbie-doll-Mattel_W0QQitemZ170404618374QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item27ace82086 and Barbies beach outfit.
Mike Huckabee will wish the 19th amendment for women suffrage had never passed.
Powerful magnetism…even you are buying that load of bull….!
As his performance and policies gain disfavor, Obama’s popularity hangs in there. I think this will encourage him to stay on his disastrous course. While a lot of the damage can be reversed, his appointment of lousy judges will be a lasting legacy. Yet, this chronic back ache may be worth it if the country wakes up to the massive con being run by DC and Wall Street and in the process gains a new appreciation for our founding principles and the laws of economics. Tea Party on.
“Cynics say this is due to race.”
I shall remain “too simplistic” and continue to describe the general public’s infatuation as due primarily to race guilt. Every other theory, at best, rates a distant secondary consideration. Barack Obama is a genius at manipulating guilt-tripped whites. I saw through him immediately and was perhaps the very first individual to point out the obvious fact he is intellectually shallow and poorly read. A Harvard University soft-science credential really isn’t all that much to brag home about. The standards of this once great institution have dropped precipitously since affirmative action grading became perhaps the norm some forty years ago. It also dawned on me early on that Obama is subconsciously enraged at white people and desires to stick it to them good and hard. This may very well explain much of Obama’s intense hostility towards capitalism. He belongs to a cultural milieu that considers free market economic doctrines as a con job perpetuated by white folks to enrich themselves at the expense of the planet’s dark skinned poor and disenfranchised. White America is presumably the number one source of evil in the world. Needless to add, my views were not always well received in certain quarters. Some of my fellow conservatives were even shocked and appalled—and a few even banned me from their blogs. These same people now seem to completely agree with me. Eighteen months or more of enduring Obama’s shenanigans can do that to anyone possessing a lick of sense.
The leftist establishment has bet virtually everything on Obama’s ability to pull their ideological train all the way into the station. He is the messiah who can lead them to the Promised Land. Immense power and high incomes are supposedly guaranteed to those who stay loyal. Who else can they turn to? Hillary Clinton? Give me a break. Obama is currently their only superstar. But this is likely to change in the very near future. Over five months ago, I asserted that the odds were roughly 75-80% Obama had become a marginalized elected leader. He would be unable to get any serious domestic legislation signed into law. So far, I am correct. Neither a major health bill nor a cap and trade proposal will likely get through the U.S. Senate. Obama is rapidly being perceived as something of a lame duck president. His present adorers will abandon him once they realize he can’t bring home the goodies. He will be the one, for a change, who will be thrown under the proverbial bus. Lastly, I still predict that Obama will have a mental breakdown and turn over the final years of his presidency to Joe Biden.
Are you still proud that you voted for Obama? Really? Cross your heart and mmm mmm mmm?
A famous dead white male,with whom libtards try to compare with Obama once said: “You can’t fool all the people all of the time.” The party’s over!
I didn’t vote for him, and at no time did I find him charming, brilliant and/or irresistible. I just don’t get it.
bah.. con what. It was information disposed in the form of an argument/story, and that includes spiritual information about life, which I know you all know, which is why it works. Its a life story. Btw stopping talking of pres position this is ridiculous. Cause its true. And it couldn’t have been any better if I wanted it to.
Although slightly trooferish in its tone and slightly risible at first, perhaps the case for Ericksonian Hypnosis gets better every day. I hate everything you do but gosh I like YOU!
http://tinyurl.com/6kqn55
First thing I would like to say is Batman either you know awfully ignorant women or you are just ignorant yourself. I find your remarks offensive to all women-even Democrat ones. Women-especially mothers & grandmothers are not going to squander their children & grandchildrens future because someone is “cute.” And I wouldn’t count on Huckabee being the candidate-maybe the Republican one but not the Conservative one.
David Thomson got it right, it was unearned white guilt that got obama elected. That worked once with gullible people but won’t work again-Americans are having severe case of buyer’s remorse & trust me even ones i know that felt guilty enough to vote for obama are over their guilt now.
actually he is a con man …just a con man. sadly he is now the president of the declining USA
David:
I pretty much agree with you except for the breakdown. That’s wishful thinking on your part. He will continue to fumble around until something really disasterous happens at which point he becomes a lame duck President with Congress running much of the show while bureaucrats at Defense and State do their best to prevent a complete collapse of our ability to pretect US and Allied interests around the world.
Rasmussen numbers show that Mr. Obama has enjoyed a 30% very favorable rating now for many weeks. His core constituency represents those who are dyed in the wool believers of the “narrative.” Their support will remain solid to the bitter end.
Contrast the above statistics with Mr. Obama’s unfavorables at 40% for the same period. No amount of personal charisma will woo this demographic group back into the fold. We’re on to the scam, and our opposition will remain adamant through 2012, and beyond if necessary.
It’s the 30% in the middle that matter. Independents are abandoning Mr. Obama in droves. Charisma is nice, but “facts are stubborn things.” The president will not survive high unemployment combined with inflation. And the latter is gathering like a tsunami.
The part that troubles me is that Mr. Obama doesn’t seem to care about the impact of his policies on average Americans. He’s cold, aloof, and mean-spirited when crossed. He doesn’t seem to realize that his personal charisma is beginning to fail.
In addition, the man has a dark side that is largely still concealed. When the mask finally slips, I fear we will see Dorian Grey revealed in all his horror. Even then his true believers will worship the painting in his attic, his persona, a man that never was.
#8 is exactly correct. Our first affirmative action president was not at all vetted by the MSM. He was not the editor of the Harvard Law Review, he was the president of that group. It was an elected position and not one related to any scholarly work done in law school. In fact, a minority was most likely to be so elected. Did anyone in the MSM point out that distinction?
If our president was so smart, how come there are no scholarly articles that he published during his stellar academic career.
Why are his college and law school transcripts not open to public scrutiny? Most likely they would show that he got special treatment due to his minority status.
How could someone with such a thin resume be elected to the presidency of the USA? If he were not black he would still be a back bencher state senator in Springfield, Illinois voting present on most of the hard issues that he was confronted with.
It is, indeed all about race and not about qualifications or his social and foreign policy ideas.
One last thought, if he had been a conservative and black how do you think that the MSM would have handled his vetting process? Think Condi Rice or Michael Steele.
“I pretty much agree with you except for the breakdown.”
I consider Barack Obama to be way over his head. He may even be the least qualified president in our nation’s entire history. The majority of white voters supported him almost solely to prove they were not racists. Obama’s presidential campaign should not have even survived after the first few primaries. A conservative Republican possessing a similar resume would have been roundly ridiculed and laughed out of town. Obama has had it made since his late teen years. Guilt tripped whites gave him stuff on a silver platter. He has no real idea what it is to really earn anything. Obama has been spoiled and pampered. Such individuals can’t handle it when the going gets tough. He will break under the pressure. Things are only going to get worse.
Infatuation can last a few months, but four years? Jimmy Carter will have secured his spot as second worst president ever by the time this vacuous narcissist is kicked to the curb.
- Contradictions are waved away.
What I see in those who are starry-eyed over BHO’s mere existence is that he unabashedly supports the utterly broken, adolescent morality that cleaves to socially suicidal leftist ideology. Past Democrat leaders have been reserved in their obeisance to this twisted world view, but BHO has said – and demonstrated outright – that he plans to go all-in to implement a new brand of Third Way, corporatism/fascism/national socialism in the U.S., though the heavens fall. The left has been waiting for this savior for decades. For many, it’s been the only thing that’s given their lives meaning. Those folks see his dissimulation in the same way islamists view taqiyya. They welcome it.
The fact is that every leader of this type in history – Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Hitler, et al. – has effectively functioned as a con artist. You don’t glean public support for your policies by advertising the fact that you plan to put all of a nation’s citizens in thrall to an omnipotent State. Rather, like the con artist, you convince your mark that it’s their idea.
But the contradictions aren’t being waved away in all cases. Watching what happens there will shed more light on this phenomenon. I’ll bet at least 5,000 quatloos that if-and-when the gay community’s limp boycott appears to have some impact on BHO’s actions, they’ll go right back to worshipping him and the platform he stands on (in fact, they haven’t wavered on the latter in the slightest). They’ll be content, completely ignoring the one fact that should have made it clear exactly whom they’re dealing with, i.e., that his ‘change of heart’ was really all about the Benjamins and retaining their vote next year and beyond. They’ll go happily on, once DOMA and DADT are history, ignoring the fact that if BHO had ever really had their interests at heart, he wouldn’t have had to be coerced into acting as such.
I like Paules’s argument best. Obama won the Presidency, not only in defeating Senator McCain but also a field of Democrat competitors, by winning the independents. They are vital to any re-election hopes he harbors. Then, would any of the posters care to speculate on what moves the independent voters? The anti-GOP sentiment of many of the Tea Partiers implise that they’re not Republicans so much as independent. I wonder how many of them once voted for Ross Perot.
David Thomson and ~Paules – nice comments.
I agree that Obama is intellectually shallow, poorly read and incredibly ignorant of history, economics, political structure etc. And he has no ability or desire to amend this. He is intellectually ‘vacant’, uninterested in facts, analysis, consideration of effects of policies. It’s all ‘empty’ to him.
That’s why I say he’s not a socialist; he’s ideologically empty. He’s in with the Democrats only because their party sets up the govt as elite and in control of the unwashed masses. And Obama’s in politics because it’s the only profession where he can earn an income (other than car salesman) where all he needs to do is manipulate, misinform and charm.
I think that long ago, as a young child, he moved into his now embedded pathology of narcissism, and an interactional style of:
misinformation, manipulation by emotions; and accusations of bias if you disagree with him.
And this means that he IS cold, aloof; he is unable to feel any empathy for anyone; his need is to Control You…That’s all. If he can’t control you, you quite literally cease to exist for him.
This triad has been his only style of life -and his agenda is to control Others. This control is expressed in their adulation of him. That’s his only agenda. He’s not interested in policies for themselves, not interested in the wellbeing of America. He has only one focus: his ability to control you.
As such, he’s become very skilled at manipulation, which is why the radical socialist Democrats picked him for their socialist takeover of the US. It worked to get them elected but it only worked because the electorate were tired of war, anti-Bush, and focused on the spring/summer flowers of the empty rhetoric of ‘hope and change’.
But will it continue to work? Can his ONLY skills, which are not to persuade people to like a policy, but to like Him..can they bleed over into making people accept the socialist policies of the BackRoom Gang?
I agree with David – it’s becoming more difficult for people don’t like the policies and despite all Obama’s tricks, they are focusing on those policies. Obama and the BRG have tried – attacking any and all who criticize as ‘unAmerican’; attacking FOX News; pretending, for a while that the Tea Parties don’t exist, with Obama even calling them ‘teabaggers’.
Their contempt for The People is obvious. Obama’s denigration of Congress to a rubber stamp, with his insistence that they pass ‘his’ bills without reading or debate and only because He Says So…
The rapidity of the agenda trying to get the bills passed before The People wake up…
His need for adulation is, I suspect, increasing, as he is exposed to criticism..and he can’t handle criticism because it means he has lost control over you. So, can the BackRoom keep his increasing need for adulation satisfied? Can his failure to force through Their Bills…be dealt with? His pathology, which requires his feeling he can contol others, means that he feels threatened by dissent and criticism – and his rage at that can be extreme.
His foreign policy so far is a massive failure; he has insulted all our friends and kowtowed to our enemies. And his military policy..the same.
Will he collapse? I know David suggests this. Obama has never had to deal with accountability; he’s protected himself all his life from that. So, I don’t know.
But – I don’t think this country has ever had a president so pathologically unstable …
“The palpable apprehension is that the anointed is a stranger — a deeply engaging, elegant, brilliant stranger with whom the Democrats had a torrid affair. Having slowly woken up, they see the ring and wonder who exactly they married last night.”
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, AUGUST 2008
For a terrific dramatization of the con and the con-man see the 1987 movie, “House of Games” starring Lindsay Crouse and Joe Montegna. If you remember “The Sting” from the previous decade, you will understand the basic premise. In “The Sting”, the subject was presented as somewhat of a comedy. In “House of Games”, it is presented as a film noir, psychological drama.
In this drama, an author-psychologist (Lindsay Crouse) seeks to understand the mind and motivations of a con-man, (Joe Montegna). They each take each other for separate rides as the movie plays out.
At one point in the movie the author-psychologist asks the con-man with disbelief, “Why do you do this?” The con-man replies matter-of-factly, words to the effect of, “I gain the mark’s confidence. I give him confidence in me. In exchange, the mark gives me his money. It is just business. It is what I do.”
Exchange “money” for “vote” and/or “adoration” and you have Obama.
Mory:
I believe in simple explanations. Obama didn’t release his academic credentials because they show that he is intellectually inferior to the hated George W. Bush.
If you remember Michael Isakoff’s Newsweek article comparing Gore and Bush in 2000 you will get the point. Isakoff started on the assumption that Bush was a dummy and Gore was brilliant and after comparing what was known about their credentials reluctantly concluded that Bush was the more intelligent of the two. In 2004 Kerry hid his academic record because it would have shown the same thing. Of course, it eventually leaked. Obama, who lives by mythology, has no interest in revealing to the faithful that George W. Bush and Sarah Palin is smarter then he is.
Ever since Adlai Stevenson ran against Eisenhower in 1952 the Democrats have claimed that their candidate is smarter then the Republican opponent. It has seldom been true. There was no way that Stevenson was intellectually superior to Gen Eisenhower, who ran the most complex military campaign in the history of coalition warfare. Kennedy was at a 60 IQ point disadvantage from Richard Nixon who was probably the President with highest IQ of the Twentieth Century. No post war Republican candidate was at a substantial intellectual disadvantage to his Democrat opponent, and more often was the more intelligent of the two. To be nonpartisan, I believe that until Gore, Kerry and Obama came along the Democrats fielded candidates who had the mental wherewithal to be President.
Unfortunately, people still believe the media hype and the vague promises from the 2008 campaign. I was talking to someone recently who said Obama would “make things fair for everyone”, bringing “change”, seeing no problem with “redistributing wealth”. This person is A LAWYER. Another friend in the conversation then had to explain the difference between socialism and capitalism to her, and why socialism kills economies and how it’s actually unfair.
I rent an apartment; she and her husband have a condo and a house (they recently married; she moved into his house and is renting her condo out). If the subject comes up again and she still doesn’t get it, I’ll tell her it’s unfair they have a house and a condo while I have neither, so the government should seize her condo and give it to me.
#10, you’re right, “You can’t fool all the people all of the time.” Obama knows this, but he also knows that he only has to fool 50.1% of the Sheeple on election day.
I am about to ruin three movies for any that read this. But, to really see this idea in action you have to watch them again, not for entertainment, but for the plot. The Music Man, Needful Things, and Something Wicked this Way Comes. The first one, Music Man, ends with everyone giving into the delusion but the others are closer to the real thing. Elmer Gantry isn’t a bad fit either. All the characters and their reactions as well as the tactics of a con man are in there. Sorry to ruin these films for you, but I had to give up Barbara Streisand in the 90′s. Just couldn’t listen without thinking of politics. Broke my heart. But, enlightenment sometimes comes at the cost of disillusionment.
Since you feel free to describe the thoughts and motivations of liberals, I’ll do the same for you conservatives:
Banished by the will of the American people, Conservatives are faced with a tough choice – continue with their disproved rhetoric or adopt an even more strident version of that same rhetoric. But their chosen banner carriers keep succumbing to their baser nature – getting diapered, making masturbation videos and going on half a dozen national talk shows to claim it’s all part of a campaign to silence her, hiking the Appalachian Trail, and on and on. Rather than turning from their hypocritical and indefensible pathology, conservatives are turning to their last gasp of relevance – handing over their future to a bunch of game show hosts whose only principle is greed – a greed rewarded by the marketing of hate and divisiveness. And so the Grand Old Party has devolved into The Biggest Loser – replete with gluttonous heroes and self-serving melodrama.
There, that was easy. Hope you don’t mind me assuming I know you better than you know you.
“He was not the editor of the Harvard Law Review, he was the president of that group. It was an elected position and not one related to any scholarly work done in law school.”
Carol Platt Liebau was an actual working member of the Harvard Law Review. She says that he rarely showed his face at the office. Once in a blue moon—Obama would visit, say Hi to everybody, stay around for a little while longer—and then leave the premises. That essentially was the full extent of his involvement. Unfortunately, the majority of our nation’s voters were deeply impressed by Obama’s exalted title. These well meaning people had no idea that it was, for all practical purposes, merely an honorary appointment.
Obama also was credited for two books that were probably co-authored. The odds are perhaps as high as 95% against him being the sole author. And yet, they made him widely popular. Many praised his enticing writing style. Some deluded fools have even compared Obama to the greatest writers of all time! This is why I expect him to experience a mental breakdown. Obama apparently has never truly earned anything. He is the proverbial empty suit.
I see now and then has made his drive by appearence and seems to be unaware that that statistically speaking the Democrats did not get a single independent vote in Virginia or New Jersey. There were also a couple statewide races in Pennsylvania that the Republicans won. You need to update your talking points to account for these changes.
Agreed, David Thomson, Obama is an ‘empty suit’; he’s never earned anything by his actual work.
But, since he moved himself into a delusional cocoon of innate superiority many years ago, can he even see that He is failing? As we know, he blames any failure or problem on others. If you don’t agree with him – that’s your failure.
The crisis point might come when his handlers can’t keep his ever-increasing need for reassuring adulation satisfied. As complaints, criticisms of him increase, Obama will need more and more adulation. And, if he can’t get Their bills through, and they are trying every thugish Chicago tactic possible – will the Democrats continue to support him?
tdiinva: I have to reject the thesis that grade point average or even IQ tests are a measure of intelligence. The first is based on academic credentials which may or may not have any real world relevance. The second is society biased. Remember that Jimmy Carter was the closest thing the US ever had to a nuclear scientist as president. I can only guess how Eric Hoffer would have done on the SAT math test.
Obama’s reality challenged world view was apparent in the campaign, as was the fact that there was something wrong with someone with no resume running for President in the first place. Neither was a function of GPA.
Isn’t it odd that so many in so many places are trying to understand Barack Obama’s psyche. I can recall no such concern with any other President, at least not to this magnitude. I know it is fear generated concern. Great comment on O’s leadership, he generates fear in the public.
Grades, IQ etc. are indicators of relative intelligence. They made not be good for a cardinal ranking of intelligence but they are fine for a ordinal one.
I suspect that Hoffer would have done quite well on both parts of the SAT. ACT math is a different matter since it is a knowledge based test and if you don’t have the courses it becomes harder to make high scores.
By the way, my father with his 9th education could do differential calculus. He learned it during his short stint in the anti-aircraft artillary in 1941-42. He would also have done well on the SAT math and verbal tests.
David Thompson -
Your comments on all PJ Media topics during the past year seem to be consistently on the mark and very encouraging to me as well as uniquely interesting -more so than most other conservative commentators and bloggers. Sometimes I fast-read the articles and comments to get to yours. You always seem to nail it without giving into despair or cynicism. A hearty thank you from me and I’m sure other readers who concur.
Keep it going……
This has nothing to do with race. In Canada, we had our own “Obama”. His name was Pierre Elliot Trudeau and he was white, and his message about hope and change and his eloquence, his mannerisms, his “coolness”, uncanny resemblance. He also lurched Canada to the left – hard. Now more than 50% of working people work for some level of government, not counting the companies that rely solely on government work. Our taxes for ordinary people (not rich people) are over 50% of our wages and climbing every year. He is hated in parts of Canada, but parts still adore him – amazing. Read his speeches, read his school background (never worked a real job either), they are so much alike.
You cannot Con an honest person because
they cannot learn to love Big Brother.
Saved some time, here is the link. He pushed a lot of social programs through and then ran into trouble paying for them and tried wage and price controls (which bombed). Our CBC (communist broadcast corporation) still names him on the greatest politians ever.
http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/top_ten/nominee/trudeau-pierre.html
Neo neo-con – you say:
“The core … however, was that the mark desperately wanted to believe in the dangling get-rich-quick scheme. ..That is how the classic con is distinct from straightforward fraud: in the con, the victim is actively complicit in his undoing.”
Absolutely correct. Of course Mr Obama is a confidence trickster. He came into view with a big blazing neon sign over his head – “Mr Flim Flam Man”. Half the nation instantly went blind and couldn’t see it. Mr O. pulled off an historic confidence trick to become POTUS. There will be movies about it called “The POTUS Job”.
Now he’s trapped in the Presidency and he will be undressed. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
PS – should readers worry about the “con” in your pen name?
“It also dawned on me early on that Obama is subconsciously enraged at white people and desires to stick it to them good and hard.”
In a word, Bingo!
Imagine how tormented he must have been as a child with a promiscuous white mother who brought home a series of black lovers . . . unspeakable rage and confusion.
His drive for the presidency was obviously rooted in his deep-seated hatred for whites . . . . striving for the ulitmate office in order to strike back, on a nationwide scale.
We WILL pay, and pay dearly.
there’s nothing charming here, of course people feel sorry for someone who is fatherless and acts like it, but that’s not a sufficient reason to vote for such a dysfunctional person for president
Nope, not the end of the affair for the folks I know. I suspect, like Socialists of the 1930s and student radicals of the 1960s, these folks will bray about Bush and “the system” spoiling Obama’s presidency.
Hate to admit it, but I am related to folks who went to their deaths believing Communism was, deep down, a good thing. Even people now critical of Obama say socialism tries to help the common man. They are wrong, of course; scratch a socialist and you get a fascist.
Useful idiots, all of them.
Macdaddy running a scam??? I’m shocked… Shocked I tell you! If you didn’t see this comming, you had to be blind; or a Democrate.
#10 & #28
Actually, I think Obama studied at the school of Maverick, who noted “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, and those are pretty good odds.”
I second the nod.
If I had any doubts about the makeup of a man I always thought a con and now President, two minutes of Obama’s rambling congratulatory speech and “shout out” before mention of the massacre at Ft. Hood was all I needed for confirmation.
All I would ask independents who voted for Obama is, now many years did Obama need to sit in the pew at Rev. Jeremiah’s church to determine there is something seriously wrong with your choice for President?
19. David Thomson:
I consider Barack Obama to be way over his head. He may even be the least qualified president in our nation’s entire history .
Last year I investigated the work experience of US Senators who later became President, and made up a metric.
US Vice Presidential Experience
US Cabinet Experience
US House of Representatives Experience
Governor Experience
Military Experience
Of the US Senators who became President, only one had none of the above experience: Warren Harding.
That also describes Barack Obama’s experience.
Just listened to George W. Bush speaking at the opening of his library and his salute to political dissidents fighting for freedom throughout the world. He mentioned that among those contributing to a part of the library dealing with their fight will be President Havel and the Iranian who led the student takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran but has since come to his senses.
Is it my imagination but did President Bush just pull the carpet out from under Obama?
It was so nice listening to an American President rather than an anti-American one.
35. tdiinva; Maybe I should have not commented on the Math SAT. I took it in 1968, we had fewer numbers back then.
When people can admit to all of his moral and psychological defects (to put it mildly), yet say that he is “likeable”,it speaks more about their lack of a moral core than it does about Obama.
The “mark” often feels a Matthews-esque “thrill” in being taken, particularly if the “con” has the perceived power to make them “part of the game.”
Watch “House of Games”, written by David Mamet. The “smart lady” gets taken, but also learns the “game”.
BTW Neo, she’s a shrink…
The man was obviously an empty suit form the get-go that I have really have to question the values and judgment of anyone who has supported him at any point in time. Obama’s deficiencies were so obvious one had to work to avoid acknowledging them.
That so mant could not or would not see the fraud is somewhat frightening – especially after Rev Wright and Bill Ayers.
These are surreal times we’re in. I wonder if we’ll make it.
Political con artists can thrive only in societies that lost their moral compass and self-confidence, like Weimar Germany, post-revolution Russia, etc. They are opportunistic infection, more symptom than actual disease. When people feel confused and disoriented, guilty, hopeless or existentially challenged, such false prophets are sure to appear.
Bravo, Sergey (#52)! Best comment I’ve read on PJM all day.
Sure would be nice to see more conservative internet bandwidth devoted to fighting the disease rather than endlessly characterizing, re-characterizing, criticizing and re-criticizing the symptom(s). I guess I was mistaken in thinking that this was what “Conservatism 2.0″ was going to be about. Silly me.
52. Sergey:
Exactly and this is where America is at right now. Both major parties reflect our condition and you are right, Obama is a symptom of the disease and it can be fatal.
51. RE:
Surreal times indeed.
It’s the last fleeting attempt to rationalize away what you know is coming – but do not want to believe.
The same type of thought process that happens right before you are about to be in a high speed auto accident or an airplane crash, realizing that you are probably going to die, but hoping against hope that there is some possibility that the outcome will be different.
This is just the same, except the process is slowed to where we can really see the mind use pretzel logic.
Many of these sycophants treat Obama as if he were a child.
Something to that I think.
I don’t think I have ever, even once, heard even a supporter give actual meaningful praise of Obama. All of it falls into one of only two categories:
A) The “at least he’s not Bush” statement and all its variants (deeply ironic since he has borrowed every policy from Bush that he thought was useful).
B) Praises that relate to image without substance, such as “temperament”, “bearing”, etc. All qualities are quite hollow without something to back them up. Who was that Character in Catch-22 who kept rising in the army just because he looked like an officer?
In this second list I would include “smart”, which if often applied to Obama, but only in a vague way, as in “potentially smart” if we just give him the chance. There are so few actual accomplishments that we could link the adjective to, and even those are in the area of campaigning, not governing.
If their is one thing that I wish Americans would start remembering again, is that the election of a President is not a spokesperson, symbolic gesture, or a popularity contest, it is a job interview.
We are hiring someone to work for us. The job description is that they run the executive branch, and deal with foreign affairs. And I challenge anyone, anywhere, to offer me one praise, or one qualification, of Obama that doesn’t rely on either A or B, as I described them above.
Speaking of affairs:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21451147/Lucas-Daniel-Smith-10-12-09-new-Declaration-SACV09-00082-DOC-Anx
Hitler loved to be photographed surrounded by children, especially very young children. He was also fond of being surrounded by members of the Hitler Youth who would gaze at him in sublime adoration. That didn’t make him any less of a murderer. So Obambi is smart and charming and appeals to many people. He’s thin and appears to be in good shape and has a lovely wife and two darling little children. Those things alone are not enough to excuse the miserable performance he’s turned in, up to this point, as President and Commander in Chief of the United States. The economy is still tanking, the wars go on and on, unemployment is now double digits, the government is taking over private business and now we have another terrorist attack on American soil by a jihanist. Now President Bush, you may love him and you may hate him but at least you knew that he was an American who loves this country, our military, our citizens and is not ashamed to let everyone know. And those who attacked our country knew enough to be afraid. Very afraid.
58. kenny komodo:
And Hitler had what to do with your post? Was it to point out that the Pope was one of those pie-faced Hitler Youth?
In addition, a con doesn’t usually stay in one place very long
Well, goody, goody, because he should continue to follow this pattern and quit after one term. Better yet, since 4 years is a long time for this guy, he should resign sooner.
Obama is a sociopath, and the media is having a harder time covering for him.
The race card has been played well past it’s expiration date, the economy is not going to improve – mainly because of Obama’s and Nancy’s policies, the left are going to turn Afghanistan into Vietnam, it just goes on and on.
The only thing remaining for the Obama supporters is to write love letters to him and pretend the real world does not exist.
They have so much invested in him, that surely this slide into oblivion can’t be happening, not Obama!
Nailed it Neo.
30. Now and Then.
Another one…
“Since you feel free to describe the thoughts and motivations of liberals, I’ll do the same for you conservatives:”
We’ll I’ll be! Do you get paid for the service?
“Banished by the will of the American people, Conservatives are faced with a tough choice – continue with their disproved rhetoric or adopt an even more strident version of that same rhetoric.”
Remember Conservatives, you’ve been banished. You are NOT Americans. Besides, polls mean nothing if you are on the short end of the palm.
“But their chosen banner carriers keep succumbing to their baser nature – getting diapered, making masturbation videos and going on half a dozen national talk shows to claim it’s all part of a campaign to silence her, hiking the Appalachian Trail, and on and on.”
Her… Who could that be? Do you masturbate… Now and Then? Or never! Isn’t that Modern Liberal birth control? Would you rather have Anita Dunn in your video? How’s that video… coming?
“Rather than turning from their hypocritical and indefensible pathology, conservatives are turning to their last gasp of relevance – handing over their future to a bunch of game show hosts whose only principle is greed – a greed rewarded by the marketing of hate and divisiveness.”
This statement is really, really profound. Love that Modern Liberal Thesaurus.
And more.
“And so the Grand Old Party has devolved into The Biggest Loser – replete with gluttonous heroes and self-serving melodrama.”
“There, that was easy.”
Are you relieved? Did you put away “Her” photos? Need some Kleenex? Maybe a cold shower?
“Hope you don’t mind me assuming I know you better than you know you.”
Oh, of course not! Her photos can only tell you so much. And her videos too!
Yeah, Hope is all you have. Is Change dead?
Anvil Johnson, who hell is that?
#49 rjh – Good post. Exactly so. Beat me to it. I never found him charming or appealing. Never. I knew the evil when I saw it, and I rejected it. Such requires a moral grounding.
I’m sure people would find the Devil charming and appealing, until they were absolutely forced to see the absolute evil. The Devil tries to hide his evil, but is usually unsuccessful. It matters not, He knows, because most people will refuse to see the little things.
Like Obama, the Devil is a Narcissist, the Ultimate Narcissist, to have such hubris as to desire to displace God. Like the Devil, who is the Great Deceiver, Obama lied through his teeth. Occasionally, the mask would slip (bitter-clingers, race card), but most could not see it.
Ben Franklin said that our form of government is suited only to a moral people. This is what he meant. Without the solid, moral grounding, we are led into chains by false prophets who hijack our government. First, they drive God from the public square. Then, they replace Him with their own worship. Hear the scorn the Far-Left has for God and religion, even while they worship at the temple of their false Utopia.
#52 Sergey – Excellent post. False prophets, indeed. More like a golden calf. False idol worship. Fear is the absence of faith. When people become filled with fear, they turn to faith. The question then becomes, which faith? Shall they seek true wisdom… or false prophets? The Cult of Obama is mere idol worship.
Wow!! All these comments and only one little troll toiling away. Could soros be scaling back operations? Or could it be that even the trolls are starting to see the truth about “o”. When more people see he can’t/won’t stand up to islam but instead defends it, his numbers will really fall. What bs will he try to engineer to prevent elections in 2010? Stay tuned. . . .
I echo comment 13. Go google Ericksonian Hypnosis and learn how Obama does what he does.
62. Mr Lucky:
“Remember Conservatives, you’ve been banished. You are NOT Americans.”
Oh now come on Mr Lucky, quit pouting. You just have to live with the Prejean thing. I know, you wanted to continue pimping out her victimhood for conservatism’s sake. Just like her. But what do you know, she turned out to be a liar and a softcore porn star. Forget about her, Mr. Lucky. She’s old news. It’s much more fun to think about who’s gonna fall out of the closet next! Hannity? Beck? Coulter? Limbaugh . . . again? O’Reilly . . . again?
And don’t worry, you ARE Americans. You’re just not REAL Americans.
You’re really not very good at this – the whole commentary/humor thing. I suggest you put your more natural talents to use – perhaps artificially inseminating turkeys.
One of the worst aspects about democracy is that the stupidest voters decide our elections. As much as I don’t like Democrats I can respect them if they are engaged, understand our system and understand the issues. I don’t agree with their solutions but I can respect their views.
But people who only vote during presidential elections and then vote Bush I, Perot, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, are the problem. They vote for the perceived “cool” candidate and then, when things get ugly (as they always do), they run to the next new thing. They also tend to re-elect legislative incumbents because “their guy/gal” is different from the other 534 members of the House and Senate.
I don’t think any Republican could have won in 2008 but having an in-the-tank media, Oprah, celebrity, etc. candidate guaranteed an Obama victory. He could have killed a puppy on live TV and he would have gotten a pass.
So the question for the Republican party is- what candidate appeals to the base and also appeals to the stupid voters? Right now I don’t think any of the projected candidates fit this mold. Maybe by 2016….
Now and Then,
If I were you, I would avoid watching the various political polls for the next 11 months.
Things are turning very ugly for the lame-duck-in-chief, not to mention the Congressional Mafia.
It’s going to be beautiful watching Harry Reid get his pink slip.
Neo’s commentary reminds me of this, from Charles Baudelaire:
“Dear friends, never forget – when you hear boasts about the advances of the Enlightenment – that the neatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing you that he doesn’t exist!”
Now and Then should watch out – he’s blowing Obama’s cover.
#59 NOW and THEN; read it again. Then think about the subject of the post. Try reading it a second or third time. Still not getting it?? Maybe you should just revert back to personal attacks that display your complete lack of understand of any issue. Or maybe you should just go away.
Blacks will always love him its a RACIST thing and many of those gullible, naive, hysterical others who voted for him because they were well gullible , naive, hysterical, uniformed, ignorant and just plain stupid will continue to support him because they are too stupid or ashamed to admit they were gullible, naive and hysterical etc.and were taken in by an “empty suit”, all things to all men,
70. kenny komodo:
You mock me because you fear me.
Obama is not Devil incarnate, nor even antichrist. Too contemptible for that. Rather he reminds me two literary personages: Klein Zaches genannt Zinnober, from E.T.A. Hoffmann story, and Billy Flynn from “Chicago” musical. Both have some diabolic overtones, of course, but they are only Devil’s pawns. Amicable mellow voices and a total, absolute absence of conscience. But I completely agree with Mark #63: it is more fruitful to turn the skills of a professional psychiatrist from this contemptible individual to psychiatric evaluation of a society where such persons become trusted and adored.
This ‘love affair’ with Obama is simply a serious character defect of the smitten. Some people are natural rubes…no matter what the evidence or how many times they get taken, they’ll line right up for more. That there are enough such people in this country today to elect this zero as President is terrifying. They used to be relegated to the Jerry Springer show and Oprah.
@74. rc: – They used to be relegated to the Jerry Springer show and Oprah.
And MonaVie franchises.
No wonder they don’t see anything wrong with the feds running a Ponzi scheme.
66. Now and Then
“You just have to live with the Prejean thing. I know, you wanted to continue pimping out her victimhood for conservatism’s sake”
“Her” referred to Nancy Pelosi, didn’t it?
“I suggest you put your more natural talents to use – perhaps artificially inseminating turkeys.”
No thanks, I’ll pass. The last thing that is needed now is more Now and Thens running around gobbling up “rich” people’s seed stock.
RE #8/David Thomson:
[...] It also dawned on me early on that Obama is subconsciously enraged at white people and desires to stick it to them good and hard. This may very well explain much of Obama’s intense hostility towards capitalism. He belongs to a cultural milieu that considers free market economic doctrines as a con job perpetuated by white folks to enrich themselves at the expense of the planet’s dark skinned poor and disenfranchised. White America is presumably the number one source of evil in the world [...]
Bingo! This is a solid verity for him, which he barely tries to hide, and also a (hypothetical) situation for whose fulfillment he steadfastly acts -
It is very difficult to find any of his policies that has no detrimental consequences for this country -
A last straw here – it’s been for weeks that I got the feeling that Obama’s “dithering” in the Afghanistan matter is not dithering, but a deliberate attempt to generate a situation which will resemble Saigon in the 60-s, for later to serenely describe it as the unavoidable outcome of America’s deeply flawed policies towards a mighty wronged world -
What an a$$HOLE:
http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2009/11/exclusive-30-nude-photos-8-sex-tapes-carrie-prejean-surface
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/13/fox-news-purges-youtube-o_n_357507.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/11/12/2009-11-12_my_solemn_surprise_meeting_with_the_president_at_my_friends_resting_place.html
Mr. Lucky: Comment #76 was great!! Just about choked on my coffee. . . . all the little now and thens running around…. turkeys are already really stupid, don’t know if the crossbreeding would work, might be too stupid to hatch. . .
RE #78/Now and Then RE the Prejean affair:
“I might have been a tippler but that doesn’t mean that you should be at the wheel now” – this saying captures very well the Prejean situation -
1) The fact that Prejean once screwed up doesn’t mean that she cannot have her opinions on the gay-marriage thing, and, even more that that, that her opinions cannot be correct, or reflecting the views of a vast majority of US citizens – and eat this second part of the phrase -
2) Then, as a second observation, the campaign against Prejean has misfired from the very beginning, showing the Perez Hilton types exactly as they are, just a bunch of resentful and stupid maldjusted types – hardly a gain for the gay rights movement that’s started slowing down significantly lately -
But keep doing it – at a certain point the swamp you created will swallow you – and, tant pis, Marie Claude would say -
N & T come up with another doozy:
You mock me because you fear me
Nah. We mock you because you’re a horse’s ass.
The whole Prejean thing aside, how can any one think at this point that gay marriage is a losing issue for conservatives? I personally don’t feel terribly strongly about it, but good God, if deep blue California and Maine won’t go for it, if it’s been voted down in 31 of 31 states that have put it to a vote, no, sorry, being against it is not going to hurt any politician. Being for it will – which is something even Obama has realized.
80. misanthropicus:
“The fact that Prejean once screwed up doesn’t mean that she cannot have her opinions on the gay-marriage thing”
I didn’t say that saying that. Nobody is saying that, certainly nobody on the half dozen national shows she’s been on in the last 72 hours, you know, the evil media that is behind the campaign to silence her. She can say anything she wants and has been since she foisted her sanctimonious self on the world. All I said was that she’s a lying hypocritical phony baloney opportunist. I’m also saying that conservatives aren’t willing to admit that because they made her a hero and now they’ll look like fools having been duped by this bimbo. As for “screwed up once” . . . the count now is dozens of nude photos and eight sex tapes, made not when she was a teenager but when she was 20. This despite her claim a year ago that there was only one photo.
81. Donna V.:
“Nah. We mock you because you’re a horse’s ass.”
Remember that the next time I mock Palin.
“The whole Prejean thing aside” Now why would you want to set that aside? (see above)
@82. Now and The[n]: – This despite her claim a year ago that there was only one photo.
“I didn’t say that saying that.” – what, can’t type through the tears in your eyes, fake vet?
I can just hear the crack in your voice.
So she completely broke your heart. Get over it. There are plenty of other opportunist bimbos out there for you to obsess over. BHO is still an option. You’ll just have to get in line behind Chris Matthews.
One theory I guess.
I don’t buy it all but it is interesting. It explains some of the phenomenon of this guy but doesn’t address his inability to get by without a teleprompter. A confidence man is smooth and a good talker, looks ahead and is quick on his feet. This guy stumbles over plumbers and tax cheats. The romance of having a black man for POTUS is,I think an elixer for many. It soothes the guilt they feel, not for anything they did but for the guilt they’ve been taught is theirs.
The polls that claim his popularity is holding are being answered by those people who are afraid of the racism tag or partaking of the elixer.
81. Donna V.
“N & T come up with another doozy:
You mock me because you fear me.
Nah. We mock you because you’re a horse’s ass.”
Now and Then. Would you accept being a pregnant turkey Then. Now?
Did Anvil consort with turkeys? Is that how it happened, you handsome mixed European Turkey with a touch of Black?
Oh! Prejjjjjeannnnnn? Oh my Johnson! Naked…!!!??? And….!!!
Who cares.
Given that the O hasn’t produced any real results and that he’s not likely to since he gets what he wants without doing so, I’m hoping that the O phenomenon will be seen for what it is – a gigantic hole in the spiritual life of a tremendous number of Americans. None of the producers I know were taken in by the O. They are not carrying around this big vacuum within themselves that they hoped O would change. That vacuum isn’t going to be fixed by an outsider – no O, no lover, no parent, no one. If America’s get that lesson, then O will have done some good.
What disgusts me about the fawning of liberal media types and entertainers – people like Joy Behar David Letterman and Bill Maher – is their confident assertion that Obama is some sort of brilliant guy who represents a dramatic intellectual improvement over George Bush. Bush would make comical grammatical gaffs, but Obama’s mistakes are those of a true ignoramus. We got a sense of this when he bragged during the election about having campaigned in “57″ states. When he was in Europe this spring I cringed with embarrassment at the ignorance he displayed on a number of occasions. The most notorious was that dumbbell display in Vienna when he told his audience that he wanted to explain the concept of “wheeling and dealing” to them, but didn’t know the Austrian word for “wheeling and dealing.” So the man the Left touts as brilliant is so lacking in knowledge he can’t even be bothered to read up on the fact that the Austrian people speak German. LOL! That’s the kind of mistake one expects from some zit-faced high school kid who never bothers to read anything because he’s too busy playing video games and – please excuse my Austrian – jerking off. But that’s your “sophisticated” Barack Obama for you.
Neo-neocon:
I’ve been reading your blog for months and have found you to be an insightful and literate commentator. This article fits right in with that.
I never saw the appeal of Obama. I did recognize the quality of his oration early on, but found his speeches to be fairly vapid and content-free. More importantly, I immediately recognized his early popularity being due to his being a complete cypher. He didn’t have any political baggage (so far as the vast majority of people knew) and therefore people were free to let their wildest fantasies run unchecked about who he was.
He capitalized on this by running an almost completely content-free campaign wherein he said only two things about himself:
1. I’m not Bush.
2. I am who you want me to be.
He constantly described what he would do, but never detailed how he would do it, the true mark of a con-man and amateur.
My biggest concern is that whether or not we, as a country, can turn back from his path of destruction and tyranny, it won’t change the fact that the electorate is so gullible they wouldn’t laugh this guy back to Chicago. We are doomed again and again, it seems, to engage in a suicidal flirtation with radical leftist presidents every generation or so, with national amnesia setting in as another generation of illiterate and indoctrinated people go to the polling booths and vote their feelings, their fantasies, their illusions, anything other than reality.
Unlike most commentators on this board I have no problem identifying and calling Obama a liar or a con artist. In fact from Day 1 , I referred to him as a snake oil salesman.
My positioning is different because I am not an American. I am from the Caribbean and have been involved in politics for over 20 years. Obama was easily identifiable to me. I have seen these “dime a dozen” Third World socialists over and over again and in a number of blogs when Obama was elected I expressed my concerns in no uncertain terms.
You have elected a liar and con artist with all the guile and charm of a snake oil salesman.
Remember the Old West stories of these salesmen being run out of town and the beautiful girls still follow him to the border for one last kiss. So it is with Obama andthe liberals particularly the media.
It’s interesting that Now & Then’s screed against conservatives and Tea Partiers is mostly about things like our supposed fixation on Prejean. His focus says much about him and little about us. Here’s a news flash for you, N&T: we don’t really care about the Beauty Queen/Porn Star or the color of anyone’s skin. We care about the toxic national debt, creeping socialism, big state busybodies and extortionist public sector unions. Our prime concern is not gay marriage but closing the borders, defeating the jihadists and rebuilding our communities.
But of course if you accepted that, you’d have to argue policies on the merits instead of making ad hominem attacks. Tough to do, as all over the world socialism, fascism and communism are failing and people are clamoring for limited government and free markets. Better to ignore the actual evidence from the two hundred million on the right and in the center, and get your illusions about what we think from the New York Times and the ravings of Nancy Pelosi.
About Batman’s idea that women will vote for “Bambi” against their own interests and in sympathy for him as a possible victim of abuse by Michelle: True, some women have done and will do that, but in no greater numbers than men who throw away resources chasing cynically marketed pulchritude. Falling victim to sexual con artistry is an equal opportunity stupidity.
Michelle Obama IS an angry, mean and unhappy person, anyone can see that. However, I doubt she is a textbook spouse abuser – more likely she is reacting defensively to years of playing second fiddle and holding up the illusion of marriage to her bi or gay husband. Michelle is clearly quite intelligent, and I believe she sees the curtain starting to come down on the “Barack the Redeemer” show. Her life is about to change dramatically and not for the better, she knows it, and yet she must stick to the script. I’d be frowning too! It’s surprising how few comparisons have been done of Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton. Both chose to sidekick a deeply flawed but compellingly charming man, and both have largely squandered their own high potential because of it. Yet the radical feminists and Democrats cannot allow themselves to see it because it doesn’t fit the myth that conservatism is what hurts women.
We are in for a wild ride in the next decade or so.