Bravo, Doctor.
My take on The Self-Exalted One is a combination of (b), (d), and (e).
(b)- He does see himself as a Messianic figure; his rampant egotism and narcissism makes the typical metrosexual look like Jimmy Stewart. He expects worship, and in fact believes he deserves it- just for being him. If he were ever to be ignored, he would probably suffer an emotional shock he would never recover from. He’s the Tiny Tim of American presidents. (I’m talking about the “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” guy, not the character from Dickens, here.)
(d)- He believes that any problem can be dealt with by either (1) talking it to death or (2) studying it to death. He believes that if we talk long enough, the Islamists will stop hating Israel and us, and that if we “look at” nuclear power long enough, Holy Wind and Sun will save us from the evils of… nuclear power. This is a variant of the old “If you delay long enough, problems go away by themselves” meme’. Which violates Commoner’s Law; Nothing Ever Goes Away By Itself.
His overwhelming faith in the UN is an illustration of this. He sees the UN as the U.s. Congress writ large, and thinks that as long as “the right people” (i.e., people who think like him) are in the majority, it will always do the “right thing”, and do it better, nicer, and more respectfully of “other cultures” than us provincial, trigger-happy Yanks.
He fails to consider the fact that most of the “nations” in the General Assembly, and about half the members of the Security Council, are little more than thugocracies run by self-absorbed plutocrats, grasping autocrats, and/or barely-literate borderline psychotics with AK-47s and “Death To (Your Name Here)” T-shirts. (He equates the likes of Hugo Chavez’ and Danny Ortega with serious “statesmen”. No more need be said.)
(e)- He genuinely does see this country as inherently racist, violent, irrational, greedy, and unfeeling- as not having sufficient “respect for other cultures”, and for having an electorate that does not understand that their leaders (at least from his party) are just naturally smarter, kinder, more brilliant and insightful, and just plain all-around more wonderful than the “common herd”. His apparent failure to realize that the “tea parties” are an actual grass-roots movement (like Pelosi, he seems to dismiss them as GOP-inspired “astroturf”), tells me that like his mentors and role models (Ayers, Wright, Carter, and for all I know Tallyrand, Robespierre’, and Marat), he has no actual knowledge of, or even much interest in, the average citizen. In fact, the opinion of the “man in the street” is something he only considers insofar as he can convince himself that said individual agrees with him.
They say that “pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” When The One falls, it will be through his own efforts, and his lack of actual ability- at anything except admiring himself. If anyone wants to know what to expect, look at how Jimmy Carter left office. I expect The One to do so in much the same way.
The only problem is, considering the present world situation, whether or not the damage The One manages to do to not only us, but our allies and indeed the rest of the world in the process, will be repairable. Either soon, or at all.
clear ether
eon
