Victory Disease
Sometimes things don’t work out the way we hope. Genjirou Inui, a Japanese soldier who kept a diary on his way to Guadalcanal, felt great disappointment as his unit, the 28th Infantry Regiment commanded by Colonel Kiyono Ichiki was divided among slow and fast transports for the voyage to the Solomons. He watched the faster transports sail away to imagined glory. “Both echelons started at the same time, but 1st echelon on destroyers making 25 knots ran far ahead of 2nd echelon on transports making 8.5 knots, and they soon disappeared from our sight. How reliable and enviable they looked!”
He felt sure that Colonel Ichiki at the head of the 28th’s lead regiment would take Henderson field before his got there. A radio broadcast heightened his sense of disappointment at not being in on the show. “We estimate Ichiki-Shitai will make a night attack tonight, retake and occupy the whole airfield area. They will exterminate all the enemies on Guadalcanal with the aid of us 2nd echelon, but our transports are fatally slow!”
Ichiki and 916 of his regiment’s 2,300 troops, designated the “First Element” and carrying seven days’ supply of food, were delivered to Taivu Point, about 35 kilometers (22 mi) east of Lunga Point, by six destroyers at 01:00 on August 19. Leaving about 100 personnel behind as a rear guard, Ichiki marched west with the remaining 800 men of his unit and made camp before dawn about 14 kilometers (9 mi) east of the Lunga [US Marine] perimeter.
Colonel Ichiki disregarded the fact that the reconnaissance unit he sent ahead had been ambushed and wiped out by a Marine patrol. “Papers discovered on the bodies of some of the Japanese officers in the patrol revealed that they belonged to a much larger unit and showed detailed intelligence of U.S. Marine positions around Lunga Point.” With this intelligence in hand, the Marines knew that Ichiki was coming. They wired the banks of the Ilu river and lined the opposite bank with 37 mm guns and 30 caliber Browning water-cooled machine guns.
Ichiki’s regiment stopped across the river from the Marines. Still full of confidence in his plans Ichiki penned the following lines in his diary before ordering his men forward. “17 Aug. The landing. 20 Aug. The march by night and the battle. 21 Aug. Enjoyment of the fruits of victory.” Veni, vidi, vici. There was only one problem: the vici part went wrong.
Japanese infiltrators were sent to silently cross the Ilu. Unfortunately they stirred up the fermenting vegetation at the bottom of the sluggish creek and the sour aroma of the decomposing vegetation spread rank into the night. The 30 caliber brownings were trained in readiness on the far bank of the stream. Then Ichiki charged.
When Genjirou Inui stepped ashore on Guadalcanal they were told the following shocking news: the “Ichiki detachment fought very well, but it was a mistake that they jumped into the enemy’s strongest point. And added that the next battle will be an avenging battle”. By that the briefer meant the detachment had been wiped out, practically to the last man. Ichiki himself was dead.
Time passes but illusion is timeless. Nothing is worse than being the Last to Know. Heading into Denver on the eve of the debate Barack Obama was already prepared to pop the champagne cork. Even in the middle of his charge he was prepared to enjoy the fruits of victory.
When President Barack Obama stepped off the stage in Denver last week the 60 million Americans watching the debate against Mitt Romney already knew it had been a disaster for him.
But what nobody knew, until now, was that Obama believed he had actually won.
In an extraordinary insight into the events leading up to the 90 minute showdown which changed the face of the election, a Democrat close to the Obama campaign today reveals that the President also did not take his debate preparation seriously, ignored the advice of senior aides and ignored one-liners that had been prepared to wound Romney.
Imagine his surprise upon learning there was no victory. That he had been massacred metaphorically to the last man. Still his confidence remains high. Like Genjirou Inui he believes that the next battle will be an avenging battle, when he will avenge himself.
Turning back to Genjirou Inui the next battle for the Japanese turned out to be against John Basilone and more 30 caliber Browning water cooled machine guns. Things don’t change unless you make them change. Here’s how Obama trained.
The Democrat said that Obama’s inner circle was dismayed at the ‘disaster’ and that he believed the central problem was that the President was so disdainful of Romney that he didn’t believe he needed to engage with him.
‘President Obama made it clear he wanted to be doing anything else – anything – but debate prep,’ the Democrat said. ‘He kept breaking off whenever he got the opportunity and never really focused on the event.
Will he prepare differently? It is important not to underestimate the opponent. Even though the polls may be slanted; though reports are uncertain, nothing can be worse than proceeding on the basis of a wish, rather than the best available facts. Now that he’s training with Big Bird maybe things will be change. Or maybe not. In 1942 the Imperial Japanese Army was suffering from the ‘Victory Disease‘. They were wedded to a ‘winning formula’.
Victory disease denotes when in military history, because of complacency or arrogance brought on by a victory or series of victories, an engagement ends disastrously for a commander and his forces. A commander may disdain the enemy, and believe his own invincibility, leading his troops to disaster. That commander may employ strategies which, if effective in earlier combats or maneuvers, prove catastrophic against a new or smarter enemy; the commander afflicted by “victory disease” may also fail to anticipate a new enemy may use tactics different from those of old enemies. An overconfident commander may disregard military intelligence which would enable the commander to realize that new tactics are needed.
With Romney now holding the initiative the challenge for both sides is to remember always that Victory Disease can strike anyone. Just because you’re on a winning streak doesn’t mean you can’t lose.
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There was a point during debate when I think Romney knew he was succeeding and Obama flailing, and I sensed to some degree he started pulling his punches just a bit. For example, he mentioned “religious freedom”, but didn’t come right out and demonstrate how this administration is attacking the Catholic church, and others of religious conscience. I think he started sensing that when the enemy is directing fire at himself, best to let him proceed.
But what nobody knew, until now, was that Obama believed he had actually won.
I thought Romney had done relatively well, but I sure didn’t expect any twelve-point bump.
… and I thought I heard Rush today doing a further analysis of the Pew poll, that lo and behold they had changed their sampling after the debate, accounting for some large part of the delta. In which case maybe it wasn’t even the electorate who changed their opinions, but some smarmy but influential element of the MSM elite.
… or maybe Romney has had them all bribed far in advance, and this is all a conspiracy leading to a Republican runaway in November. Sure, why not.
If what you say is true, Stephen, I wish Romney Hadn’t have pulled those punches. This is not just about winning a debate or an election, it’s about doing what is right. Sooner or later some prominent American is going to have to declare that we will no longer be an irreligious, contracepting, child-murdering, gay-positive nation, and that’s that. Set the Left into a tizzy of sputtering rage, it will.
The day is coming, and it is coming soon, when all that was considered normal and progressive for the last forty or fifty years is going to fall out of fashion. Big changes are afoot. If Romney did well in the dabate by pulling his punches, just think how wonderful it would have been if he’d really cleaned Obama’s clock. But perhaps he is not the right man from job. I’m thinking the major shift will set in only as the Babyboomers begin to lose their grip on power.
Obama is better at debate prep than the staff that does debate prep. Also, he knows he won. He knows he beat the Romney that lives in his negative ads. You know, the lying liar who lies.
These guys are not even good at politics. Without media backing they’d be 20 points down. They run grossly distorted ads and the media attacks Romney/Ryan for lying. I think the media is launching the Kamikaze attacks. Banzai! Oops.
Wretchard says: Now that he’s training with Big Bird maybe things will change. Or maybe not.
“The Obama campaign’s ‘Big Bird’ attack line is being panned by the media as ‘goofy’ and ‘small.’ . . . The Obama campaign wasn’t able to discredit Romney as a liar, so it’s moved on to trying to discredit him as an object of ridicule. But the Big Bird meme is backfiring on Obama, making him seem focused on the trivial. As the Republican National Committee pointed out, Obama has mentioned Big Bird and Elmo 13 times on the campaign trail over the last few days. He’s mentioned the attack in Libya zero times. While the Obama campaign was joking around about Sesame Street, Romney was giving a major foreign-policy address that captured the news cycle yesterday.
People wondering why Obama’s debate performance was so dismal should look at the last few days. Has his post-debate defense been any better? When you have no good arguments, the only defense is ad hominen attacks; calling someone a liar, or an idiot, or a joke. Notice that’s all the Obama campaign has been doing since the debate.”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/10/09/big-bird-small-campaign/#more-807592
At least Axelrod hasn’t (yet) come out with a Downfall parody; that’s probably vieux jeu to him.
There is a phenomenon known as diminishing returns.
Historically, many leaders have come up against a strange tipping-point where all the talents, skills and attitudes that served as advantages early in their careers suddenly become fatal weaknesses.
What suprises me most about the debate and it’s aftermath is: I didn’t think Obama did that badly! That is, his dismissive attitude, his sans-teleprompter fumbling, his general diffident demeanor struck me as pretty much typical Obama. The same Obama the left has been applauding for several years now.
He didn’t strike me as being any less effective or genuine than he has been for the last 5 years. What’s truly suprising is how, suddenly, for some reason, the rest of the World finally woke up and saw the same Obama we’ve been seeing for years.
In the battle of Cannae, Hannibal defeated the invincible Roman army.
The Roman battle tactic was to charge into the bowing lines of the Carthaginians. The bow indicated the enemy was on the verge dividing and scattering. It had always worked in the past…
In this battle, the Carthaginian line “bent” into a circle, surrounding the Roman forces. 70,000 Roman troopers lost their lives that day. It is perhaps the largest single loss of any battle in history.
An ancient example of the Victory Disease.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae
pac @ 5: When you have no good arguments, the only defense is ad hominen attacks; calling someone a liar, or an idiot, or a joke. Notice that’s all the Obama campaign has been doing since the debate.
That’s about all they did before the debate.
That’s about how Obambus has handled his relations with Republicans since – forever, and so to him we sing:
May the bird of paradise fly up your nose
May an elephant caress you with his toes
May your wife be plagued with runners in her hose
May the bird of paradise fly up your nose
Wretchard says: Now that he’s training with Big Bird maybe things will change. Or maybe not.
The media aren’t impressed:
“The Obama campaign’s ‘Big Bird’ attack line is being panned by the media as ‘goofy’ and ‘small.’ . . . The Obama campaign wasn’t able to discredit Romney as a liar, so it’s moved on to trying to discredit him as an object of ridicule. But the Big Bird meme is backfiring on Obama, making him seem focused on the trivial. As the Republican National Committee pointed out, Obama has mentioned Big Bird and Elmo 13 times on the campaign trail over the last few days. He’s mentioned the attack in Libya zero times. While the Obama campaign was joking around about Sesame Street, Romney was giving a major foreign-policy address that captured the news cycle yesterday.
People wondering why Obama’s debate performance was so dismal should look at the last few days. Has his post-debate defense been any better? When you have no good arguments, the only defense is ad hominen attacks; calling someone a liar, or an idiot, or a joke. Notice that’s all the Obama campaign has been doing since the debate.”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/10/09/big-bird-small-campaign/#more-807592
At least Axelrod hasn’t (yet) come out with a Downfall parody; even he has probably figured out that that’s vieux jeu.
PS. I got a “posting too fast” notice the first time I sent this; I’m thinking that the message appears when several people try to post at the same time.
wretchard,
Tocque lives? May we get the full feature suite back in here?
Matt 3,
“This is not just about winning a debate or an election, it’s about doing what is right.”
No. This is about winning an election. Reality comes first. If you lose you get to nothing but bore your family. If you win you get to what is right. That does not mean that it is OK to win dirty in civilian life but let the other side theorize while we act.
Over-confidence kills. Time to reread “Henry V.”
8. Josh
My cousin the airline pilot has a one-line version of that: “May the fleas from a thousand sand camels nest in your armpits.”
Sorry about the double post; the “Request Deletion” function isn’t working either.
Reality is doing what’s right, Blast. The good is the beautiful is the true.
Time to re-read Aquinas.
Nemesis follows Hubris.
#7 Leaves – I’d have to disagree that Cannae was a case of the Romans suffering from “victory disease”. That would require preceeding ‘victories’ – no? Hannibal had cleaned their clock at Trebia and Trasimene – they just should have known better (they certainly did afterwards).
“No plan survives contact with the enemy”. If you do not understand that, life will surprise you in an unpleasant way.
The Japanese were prone to very elaborate plans. Indirection, splitting forces, using ships as bait. This can be seen in the plans for Midway, and the battle for the Philippines. Their plans on the Canal were similar, expecting forces in the jungle to be able to coordinate an elaborate plan. They were expecting the Americans to just cooperate with their plan. No half-time adjustments.
In a way there is an elegance to Japanese plans, they are designed to look good, not just blunt force direct strikes, where Americans would focus on a critical point. Perhaps this too is 0′s problem. “It’s the economy stupid.” Not big bird.
While the battle for Guadalcanal was going on, the Japanese were also trying to take Port Morsby on New Guinea by sending forces over an almost impassible mountain pass, which also failed. Perhaps this is also a part of victory disease. There is no obstacle that you cannot overcome. As the song goes. “Ya got to know when to hold em and know when to fold them.”
A personal note from Guadalcanal, my wife’s father was a 1st Division Marine. When we cleaned out his house after he died, we found a message pad from Guadalcanal. Real carbon copies of messages sent. Images of the ordinary daily life of a Marine company. To see an object from a distant time and place makes it real. A real place. Real people died.
Speaking of the next battle – anybody concerned that some people might want to rig the townhall audience for the next debate? Or, maybe those kinds of things would never happen here.
#6 – Cellec – exactly my reaction. I caught a replay of the debate at 9:00 pm PDT as I was in flight real time. I’d caught enough post-debate commentary of how poorly Obama had done that I was prepared for something I didn’t see or hear. It was Obama as usual to my ears. The difference was the juxtaposition of Romney – that, we have not seen in over four years and God, it was great! A CEO in charge and calling a poor-to-mediocre associate to task. YES! Finally! Okay, back to lurking….
On August seventh, forty-two
The landings went quite well
The airfield captured on the run
All thought the island fell
Next night the Tokyo Express
Came roaring down the Slot
Long Lance torpedoes in their tubes
Launched fast and running hot
Our cruisers burnt and lit the sky
Grim torment for their crews
But we hung on and turned the tide
But many paid their dues
Victory is never swift
Not for the ones who’ve died
But courage, duty, sacrifice
Still fill our hearts with pride
More energy is poured into making a reporter look good on camera than into the story he’s reporting, because the silent film pioneers knew the essense of the medium; it is a story told with images; the most interesting image wins the day.
Romney looked better on camera; because he was more self-assured, confident, competent; he presented a better image than Obama. Barry looked bad on camera, in prime time, perhaps for the first time. As anyone who swims in that sea knows, that is the un-pardonable sin. That, I think acounts for the medias hysterical reaction to the debates, Obama lost his audience, his ratings must inevitably decline.
” He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake.”
“
Interesting statistics I saw today.
30 days ago about 75% of Repubs said they were excited about voting for Romney and about 85% of Dems said they were excited about voting for Obama.
Now it”s 71% of Dems and 85% of Repubs.
I see nothing but a sea of Romney signs here locally and Romney bumper stickers fairly frequently. It’s a foregone conclusion that this county will go Repub, but last time I saw a number of Obama signs in the neighborhood; now I see none and maybe one Obama bumper sticker.
And I’m reading a good book now, Intrepid Airmen, about the USS Intrepid air wing attacking the IJN Musashi. The Musashi crew had a song they sung, which began, “The Musashi is unsinkable and if it sinks so does Japan.”
A number of them chose to go down with the ship, and not just the force commander, Adm Inoguchi, either.
Romney’s lost again and again in politics. He ran for US Senate in 1994 and lost to Teddy, the lesser bro of RFK, JFK and Joe. He ran for President in 2008 and lost to POW-become-Perma-CO-Senator McCain.
Obama ran for office once, prior to 2008 — he lost. That was the time he ran for US Rep from Illinois in 2000. Ran ran against an established incumbent, Bobby Rush, and lost 29% to 59%. Obama did not learn from that race. Rush said, “Barack is a person who read about the civil rights protests and thinks he knows all about it” and called Obama a Harvard educated fool. Rush still holds that seat.
Obama learned from the races that were HANDED to him. Obama won his other elections by using pre-election process to clear the field. In other words, he used PROCESS, legal and other than legal, to trump democracy and fairness. To avoid the harsh judgement of a truly competitive election.
Obama has always run away from real challenges (such as hard school and college courses) and challengers (like Rush). He has the gift of an adept confidence man’s easy glibness to run outside and around the barriers of hard word and difficult challenges. Yet, it’s true, yes, Obama has won what he has set out after and more. He got into Columbia and jumped from there to Harvard Law, and not only got boosted into the Law Review, but President of it. Yet how? Absent the transcripts it is a grounded-in-his-history assumption that PROCESS, not merit, was exploited.
Yet when Romney lost and also when he won, he LEARNED by effort. He rode the garbage trucks as Governor, not for photo op, but for the REAL MERIT of improving his leadership as governor by learning directly what the state employees did each day.
Romney runs to a challenge and whether he wins or loses, he attempts to succeed on merits and learns, learns, learns no matter what. A directed learning, directed to the task of improving that which his office or job at the time is tasked to do, to do on its actual intrinsic merits.
While it is a marvelous and true thing, “Victory Disease” does not apply to either man. Both Obama and Romney come at opportunity differently than Col. Kiyonao Ichiki and Lt. Genjirou Inui. Romney comes at it more like Sergeant John Basilone. Determined to do what it takes and use whatever resource available.
Obama comes at it like a lazy and much less intelligent yet very targeted version of Timothy Ferriss, author of the 4 Hour Workweek, who won a Chinese Kickboxing world championship using PROCESS, rather than merit, efforts — knocking his opponents out of the ring. He extremely dehydrated before the weigh-in and re-hydrated before the match — by actual match time his actual weight was a few weight classes ABOVE his challengers. How like Obama. But Ferriss is actually a hard-worker and very sharp. He just likes doing, well, everything.
Men like Ichiki, Inui, Bastilone and Romney meet each other on battlefields without outside runarounds, the kind the “PROCESS” which is outside the actual battlefield provides. A man like an Obama is NEVER found on that field. He is always working outside of it. What does a man work for in the end? For honors? For victory? For office?
It’s interesting that in war, the POW experience is the most process oriented, as are the experiences in prisons too. Or in a peacetime military fwtw. The Senate is ALL about process. The elections — that is the FIRST election for a US Senator — is really the only “battlefield” experience a Senator may have. Obama avoided even that. Once a Senator wins that first battle, incumbency provides all the most mighty of process forces that prevent all but the rarest defeat in re-election.
Desperate people do desperate things and 0bama, 0bama’s team are finding out they are truly in a desperate situation, they will do something desperate, watch for the student loan forgiveness, possible out right amnesty for all illegal’s with immediate voting rights! Another extension of unemployment insurance… all sorts of Feed the Mob tricks, than we have the “Wage the Dog” Bill Clinton trick, it ain’t over yet and Chicago Politics has no boundaries! Romney needs to come out and call for Hildabeast resignation for the Benghazi debacle!
I don’t accept the “victory disease” premise entirely. Comrade Obama behaves like a a lefty apparatchik behaves whether he’s winning or losing. Comrade Obama has little or no experience with losing but his expectation of victory doesn’t come from winning, it comes from just being; the game has always been rigged for him. Obama is just like all the other members of the self-annointed “educated elite.” They believe that left and smart are synonyms. They form a construct in their heads and expect that the World will conform to their construct. Comrade Obama had defined Gov. Romney in his head and was absolutely certain that he was superior to Gov. Romney every day and in every day. Consequently, he didn’t need to waste his time with a bunch of that stinkin’ homework stuff. Romney saw him coming just as those long-ago Marines saw the Japanese coming.
I am currently reading ‘Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway’ by Parshall and Tully. Their depiction of the ‘Victory Disease’ of the Japanese Navy is exactly as you describe. They also describe a weakness in preparation and infighting within the leadership. These are interesting times.
Obama has not advanced by pure luck. Rather his success has been due to understanding and exploiting what has been called the “process” weaknesses of the system. Obama understood much better than McCain what the ‘real rules’ were. In that sense Obama was superlatively talented. But the talent lay not in having ‘talent’ as conventionally understood but in was knowing how the political system could be gamed; when it got trapped in an error condition and how to proceed inside that shadow.
What Obama failed to take into account that his incumbency and the world crisis changed the rules he formerly used to his advantage. He queered his own pitch. It’s not 2008 any more and the key mistake of the campaign was to ‘recapture’ the magic when it was single shot affair. Obama needed a new approach for this election because the system behaved differently now. Romney played it as it laid. Axelrod played it from nostalgia.
Science fiction fans will recall that only James Kirk ever passed Kobayashi Maru test by the expedient of reprogramming the simulation. The problem with the Kirk solution is that having done it once you can’t do it again. His passed because his cheating solution was ‘original’. The second time around it is no longer original.
Similarly Obama learned to his cost that you can’t Kobayashi Maru twice. The reason why the debate seems more damaging than it might at first appear, as some commenters have remarked, is not because of anything that happened in the debate itself. Rather it was because the obsolescence of a stock formula was revealed in full public view. It was not Obama that fell that night as much as the paradigm he had been using.
Someone had patched the program. He couldn’t use the old error conditions to hide any more. I do not think the forthcoming second debate will be as decisive as the first for that reason. Because no matter who does rhetorically better it is a new game that is being played. It is not the old one that Obama won in 2008.
In Australia, the Gunnery Seargents had the barrels of those 37mm guns cut in half (they were “useless” WWI antitank guns). They also got hold of a small supply of grapeshot rounds for them. Giant sawed-off shotguns. Just the ticket on what they called “Alligator Creek”. The more things change…
HDGreene: He knows he beat the Romney that lives in his negative ads.
I think seriously this is the real problem Buraq and many of his minions have. They were out there believing their own bullsheet again, and thought the caricature the DNC and the Media has fabricated as a stand in for Romney would actually show up to the debate. This is where the distraught surprise comes from. Instead of the fumbling, inarticulate corporate stooge they assured themselves would show up, they got this poised, confident business executive/ governor who cleaned their clock.
Mollie Hemingway quoting James Taranto at Ricochet today:
Does Obama Have Trouble Relating To Men?
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
·
“Obama seems to lack the basic emotional skill–surely of enormous importance to any task of political leadership–of accurately sizing up other men, whether they be allies or rivals, and of adjusting his view of them to take account of new information.
We are advisedly gender-specific here, for Obama does not seem to have this particular problem when it comes to dealing with women. As Richard Miniter observes in his new book, “Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him,” “four strong-minded women, who intertwined their lives with him, were the most formative: his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham; his wife, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson; his mentor, Valerie Jarrett; and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.”"
Obama’s problems dealing with men in politics have been legion. Think how ineffectual he has consistently been, both with domestic rivals (Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor) and with foreign allies (Benjamin Netanyahu, Mohamed Morsi). Of course it’s not Obama’s fault he grew up in a broken home. That doesn’t mean America deserves to pay the price for it.”
To deal with his enormous abandonment demons from childhood, Buraq has had to construct this fantasy world where he is in total control, and where his potential adversaries are mere trifles to be easily beaten down by Buraq’s overwhelming intellectual, social and communication skills. Could it be that these childhood demons are now the cause for his inability to astutely compete against a skilled and worthy adversary such as Romney?
He queered his own pitch.
Immune response by the body politic?
Well, we will see. I still consider Romney a remarkably weak candidate. If Obambus is going to lose, he’s going to do it to himself. Which is exactly what the Romney brain trust has been counting on all along.
I think we can all find examples from our lives of the disease. The advice that an experienced fire officer drilled into my brain was “fight the fire you have right now, not the last fire you fought.” From the middle 1930′s, the Japanese had kicked butt all over The Prosperity Sphere with obsolete small arms and Yamato-damashii. They were ripe for comeuppance.
Obama has had a pretty good run. (At least for his tribe.) Report cards will be issued in his present position, and he can’t seal the records.
I think the unstated premise of Obama’s 2008 election was partly racial, but not entirely in the bad sense. There was a genuine desire on the part of many people, black, white and other to elect an African-American as a way of atoning for the injustices of the past. But the unstated other half of the bargain was the expectation that Obama would try. That he would make an effort to be a good, solid president. That was a racial factor in an acceptable sense.
By that unstated standard Obama might fail. He might even fail miserably. But I think (and it is only my opinion) that if people saw him striving and doing his best they would consider the bargain fulfilled.
In the 2012 election the historical debt was considered paid or at least paid in part and Obama could no longer run simply on the basis of white guilt. He had to make a showing; produce some result, to run on his merits to keep competitive. He could no longer dine out on the novelty of being the “first” black President. His election in 2008 had forever shut that door.
What made made the debate so damaging was not Romney’s performance but the cavalier attitude Obama showed the voters. He blew it off. He didn’t care. He went sightseeing at Boulder Dam. He showed a contempt and disinterest for the job which people who voted him in couldn’t help but notice.
Even those who consciously or unconsciously bought into to the racial bargain felt short changed. He had torn up the minimum bargain, which was to at least try; to give the Presidency a shot, put in the hours, show up for work, to make an effort valuing the honor given him.
I remember a father whose wife had divorced him to marry a much richer man. At his daughter’s graduation the father gave her a second-hand car which was all he could afford. The young lady, now accustomed to grand circumstances, took one look at the modest graduation gift and said “you expect me to accept that?” The pain and humiliation on her father’s face was something no one should ever have to see.
The worst thing you can do to a man is take his most precious gift and to throw it in the trash with contempt. That’s what Obama did on debate night by treating the event like it was a joke. Obama could survive failure if he showed sincerity. But he could not survive both failure and show blatant insincerity.
If he done a good or OK job the voters would have overlooked any disinterest on his part. Nobody looks a gift horse in mouth. But very few will accept a President who fails so spectacularly and shows such disrespect not only for his supporters (like the hapless Andrew Sullivan) but for his entire constituency.
Jennifer Rubin is observing how disappointment plays out in the hard left. Rubin wrote:
Left is ashamed of him for not trying hard enough to be Stalin, in their own perverse way. Being cavalier offends everyone because you’re making a joke of things that others consider either important or sacred. That’s why I say he “queered the pitch”. It’s not 2008 any more. Time he looked at the calendar.
As a USMC officer, a superb feature of our training was that we studied our defeats. Mayaguez, for example, was in the news today due to the identification of remains of a PFC. The details of the (mis)adventure are still in my brain housing group. Same with Desert One, Grenada, Beirut, including peacetime mistakes that got Marines killed. Certainly the USMC prevailed due to individual courage but as officers we were sobered up by the knowledge that the stupid enemy died quickly (leaving the smart ones to tangle with), that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and that we’d be in a life and death struggle whenever combat ensued and to learn to question ourselves with detachment. Plans were usually denigrated but not the planning process, we learned how to constantly work together to adapt plans. We admired our enemies, their strengths, and the historic weaknesses of Americans in general and the limitations of our own weapons systems and even our own resolve. The Marine Corps in my era was largely godless but I thank God for the training and the men who sharpened me “as iron sharpens iron.”
f @ 29: Report cards will be issued in his present position, and he can’t seal the records.
Oh yes, somebody tweet that over to Romney/Ryan HQ!
w @ 30: But the unstated other half of the bargain was the expectation that Obama would try. That he would make an effort to be a good, solid president. That was a racial factor in an acceptable sense.
…
What made made the debate so damaging was not Romney’s performance but the cavalier attitude Obama showed the voters. He blew it off. He didn’t care.
Another dead-bang yes! I would quibble with this, because too many leftists don’t even expect effort, they think success is automatic, that taking office is the triumph. I speak of course of the Nobel committee. But it’s all in Marx, and Rousseau. It’s the antithesis of Red Queen conservatism, that you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place. But if I’m right then I’d lose your parable, and I *like* your parable! No reason the voters can’t go White Queen too and believe six incompatible things before breakfast, so I’ll take them both.
Two men fishing in Alaska are confronted by a large Grizzly bear. One asks the other, “what are you gonna do?” “I’m gonna run!” replies the second man. “Why you can’t outrun a bear!” “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I’ve just got to outrun you.”
Romney may well be a “remarkably weak candidate.” All that matters is that in the next 28 days, he be a better candidate than Obama. Obama has become a victim of the character flaws that fueled his ascent-that plus terminal laziness, a by-product of said character defects. An October surprise in his case would not be doing something “over the top;” it would be a surprise IF that after four ineffectual years, he did ANYTHING. It’s impossible to go from Letterman, The View, The “Pimp with a Limp,” JayZ, Beyonce, Katy Perry and Big Bird to a strike on Iran. Hell, at this point, announcing the Bin Laden capture might not even nudge the needle.
In the first debate, I believe we saw the fear and shame of a man being exposed-in the next one, we will see the desperation of an animal being trapped.
Obama got to the State Senate and then to the US Senate (as well as to Columbia and Harvard Law, and Law Review, and then to Chicago upper-level patronage positions) by playing the process game, which has both in-the-light aspects and in-the-shadow aspects. Process however is never a game of learning to lead, or to be a chief executive, or a commander. It is a game of learning to be the follower. Like a POW or a Political machine operative, the most important lesson is how to kow-tow. When “Process” is King it is a jealous master and tolerates no equals. It is intolerable of risk and thus despises endeavor.
Yet only in delusional thinking can process ever be king, for the world is set so that a man, that men, must apply their inner Captain James T. Kirk. Or like the far more real Admiral Spruance at Midway .. good men must master both Process and Endeavor.
Where Obama has no inner Kirk, Romney has plenty of inner Spruance, Nimitz and Halsey.
Evanston2 31,
Well said. The Navy also stressed studying failure more than celebrating victory. The most important part of any operation is the post mortem and lessons learned. In OCS we all studied Command Responsibility using as an example the Honda Point Disaster.
The ability to self correct and profit from error is the great strength of Western Civilization. Other cultures are almost never capable of that. Occasionally a rare exceptional leader is able to respond to pressure and introduce an innovation. That does not mean for non-Western cultures that innovation and self criticism become embedded in the culture as a general good. In fact the converse is true and most cultures become more dependent on the Great Man to carry the burdens when threatened. Only in the West are paradigm destroying small businessmen and entrepreneurs protected by law and culture. Only in the West are honors directed towards strategic sergeants and junior officers, who must know when to assume responsibility and when to disobey orders.
Socialism, partly by decommercializing and decapitalizing society and partly through its ties to pacifism by demilitarizing society, has eroded that strength in the West. Europe is now little better than other places when it comes to learning from failure and innovating. Large sections of American society are also trapped in a positive feedback loop leading to failure.
OT with an election observation from western PA…
Mark Critz is an incumbent Democrat from the mountains of western PA. His base of strength is in Johnstown, PA, still a bastion of long-time Democratic constituencies. He was an aide to John Murtha and stepped into Murtha’s seat after the old codger’s death. Critz is an old-line party Democrat, heavily relying on blue-collar union votes.
He battled Jason Altmire in a runoff when two Democratic districts were re-drawn into one, drawing in exurbs of Pittsburgh. (BTW, more Dems need to recognize how devastating the 2010 Republican landslide was for them in the medium term; the headline was the U.S. House, but Republicans CRUSHED at the state level. And those were the legislatures that redesigned Congressional districts based on 2010 census data. Dear Leader and his minions screwed his party for years to come with their overreaching in 09/10.)
Critz is opposed by a Tea Party-oriented Keith Rothfus. Normally, it wouldn’t be a contest– like his former mentor, Critz would plan on holding his seat for decades.
Anywho, over the past week or more, Critz has been running ads where he touts himself as “pro-life” and “pro-gun”. One add even goes so far as to say “Keith Rothfus and I agree on a lot of things…”
It’s anecdotal, and I fully expect Critz to hold the seat, but my sense is that their internal data is showing ripples from a rising Republican tide.
@27 Unsk: Great points. Led by alpha women and a pseudo alpha himself, BHO finally ran into a real alpha, and one who does so with firm gentleness.
BTW, did you all catch that photo of Michelle glaring at Romney after the debate? She dwarfed her husband in that photo.
Speculation: Will BHO become so aggressive in the next debate that he appears to be obnoxious? Or will he just become more pedantic and condescending?
This thread reminded me of the 1943 classic, “So Proudly We Hail,” about the siege of Corregidor in the Philippines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XmzggLzLTA
Starring Claudette Colbert; follows the nurses who served with the men and were captured by the Japs and forced on the Bataan Death March. Stirring stuff from a time when Hollywood knew what love of country meant.
The movie trailer above mentions the Rape of Nanking: http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/nanking.htm. How many kids now, or even adults, have even heard of this, the single greatest war crime of World War II?
More at the link, if you can stomach it. Send a copy to the swine at the Smithsonian Museum who wanted to rewrite the atom bomb exhibit materials to make the Japs the victims in the scenario.
obama will try to be aggressive but he is shit scared inside, so he will start trembling and blinking and acting/talking oddly once he sees that he can’t affect rommney. there is a real chance he loses it on the stage, now that the stakes are even higher than the last time. rommney is obama’s huckleberry and both of them know it. rommney delivered the kill shot last week, and obama has been staggering around ever since.
The Japanese were also used to fighting the Chinese. The KMT troops were poorly trained badly equipped with bad morale and a severe lack of motivation. The Banzai charge would scatter them.
I do not know if that is victory disease or over confidence. They assumed that because their Bushido was so high all enemies would flee before them.
Speaking of learning from mistakes…
Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned.
Women are turning against Obama in droves. They are beginning to realize that all the Democrats are amoral. The Democrat’s eminence grise, Bill Clinton, is a proven philanderer (Monica’s blue dress) and a convicted perjuror. The rest (John Edwards anyone?) are even worse. Given that no Democrat truly could run on “family values”, how could women, whose first concern is their own family, vote for one of them now?
Yes, they were initially attracted to the allure of “hope and change”. Now they know better.
presbypoet (15),
My dad had in his possession, briefly, the actual hand-written note from the bridge (or what was left of it) to the semaphore operator when the San Francisco was shot up a Guadalcanal. (He was editor of the US San Francisco Association Newsletter at the time; and IIRC ended up passing it on to the museum in Vallejo–or maybe at the Naval Academy…) It was awe-inspiring but kind of spooky to hold it (carefully!) and imagine what it would have been like to have been the author or the original recipient.
““Obama seems to lack the basic emotional skill . . .”
I have long held that Obama is, first of all, not that gifted but, second, is stronger verbally than nonverbally. Nonverbal/visuoperceptual abilities are critical to picking up on social cues and seeing the big picture. (Verbal abilities tend to emphasize detail, analytical thinking and visual to be more holistic and integrative.)
The thing about people who are better verbally is that they usually seem smarter than they are – or rather, their nonverbal weaknesses are not seen while their verbal strengths are. They also tend to be less adept socially, maybe even a bit clumsy, and to get lost in the forest for the trees.
Also, since they are not as good at picking up on social cues, that insensitivity tends to breed narcissism as a defense against awareness of inadequacies and failures.
This is probably the opposite profile of Bush 43, by the way, who always seemed much brighter in his grasp of the big picture and in his handling of himself socially than he was able to express in words.
Be that as it may, this would imply that Obama’s only avenue for improving his debate performance is to memorize lines and use them when appropriate. They can stack the audience to facilitate this, but the big picture that the American people are now seeing will still belong to Romney. Obama cannot, both because of his rigid ideological stance and the inability to see the forest
that promotes the rigidity, grasp the true nature of the battlefield.
As an aside, note also that Obama, for all his physical training, is still a bit on the clumsy side physically, another common trait of nonverbal weakness.
And I second Matt’s point that we are watching a collapse moment in the slow, messy death of liberalism, no matter what happens to Romney.
I hope you are right Maineman.
It is true that the left’s mythology is starting to fall part in multiple ways.
The US State Dept has just admitted formally that it never believed that the Bengazhi attack was connected with the video.
And CBS correspondant Lara Logan said on 2 Oct that rather than being “one airstrike away from being eradicated” as claimed by the Obama Admin, Al Queda in Afghanistan is staging a resurgence and that the new kinder, gentler, more moderate Taliban that we can do business with is no such thing. She called the Obama Admin claim of things going well in Afghanisan “a major lie.”
Perhaps the Left will find out about their own “Design Margin” the hard way.
As I have posted since the 9/11 Benghazi attack that Hildabeast must go, Romney in the next debate needs to ask why Hildabeast and her State Department staff chose to, after numerous attacks against the Consulate and request from the Ambassador himself, request for more security completely ignored them all, Romney needs to, on national Television demand to know why 0bama has not fired Hildabeast and demand that 0bama fire Hildabeast for the death of 4 Americans tied directly to the Benghazi debacle! Romney needs to be daring as he can to keep the focus on the multitudes of 0bama failures, Romney needs to bring up the Fast and Furious (Executive Privilege cover up) as Very Bad Foreign Policy with one of our closest neighbors, again asking if Eric Holder will made available to Mexican Authorities, if Romney does not make it sensational (keeping 0bama and team off balance) the MSM is going to fix the debate for 0bama and the election will be lost (for Romney), Romney must have more fireworks in the next debate, especially if Ryan’s does not have a stunning performance in his debate with Biden.
BftP – Thanks for the link. I never heard of the Honda Point disaster. Fascinating. Funny the body of the text blames DR but the link points out an error in radio navigation. Anywho, epic fail. Whenever navigating near rocks using DR, I shoot long and look for a fix. It would have been interesting to see what happened to the careers of those who led and those who did or did not follow.
Beverly –
This couldn’t happen anywhere in the modern world except in Mexico or anywhere where large numbers of Mexican gang members who worship Santa Muerte congregate. Our country has been infiltrated with hundreds of thousands of armed combatants and your government has decided to replace you and your countrymen with these sadistic murderers for their own power and profit.
I think Obama is going to throw up a wall of rhetoric to protect himself then circle back to it every time Romney thrusts or parries with frequent explanation to the audience of what the real Mitt would do. The problem Obama had in the last debate is he did not lie enough. It worked for Kennedy and it will work to some extent for Obama. He doesn’t need a win, he, at this point, needs a standoff.
In short the issues should be;
the economy
energy
foreign affairs
good governance
social welfare
In that order, the Obama administration has made a dog’s breakfast of all of it.
Many have speculated here that Obama is worth more dead to the Left. The thinking goes, if he can’t get their agendas passed then at least his assassination will serve to stir up race riots and drive permanent wedges between America’s civic factions. I think there is a sliver of truth to those speculations.
But, there is another way out for the failed radical. It is the clown’s escape: appear to be a bufoon. In essence, commit character suicide – on your self, and on purpose – so there’s no reputation, past, present or future, left for the Left to kill. People who play the Chicago way know the rules of the game and Obama’s bumbling debate performance suggests he’s chosen the stupids’ exit door.
Should a masked Sirhan Sirhan-wannabe take aim at Obama now, he’ll be targeting damaged goods. It is better now to save the bullet and hope for the next election cycle. Noone’s gonna riot for Obama the loser…noone’s going to go to the barricades for the Left’s fantasy “hope and change.” Not after Romney skewered him at that debate. Obama the bumbling clown is useless as a corpse.
But, had an assasin struck just last month, say just before the Benghazi attack, the act would have garnered lines of mourners, race riots, UN condemnations of American ‘root causes,’ and accusations of systematic racist oppression by CBSCNNMSNBC et al.
I expect Obama the Bumbler to show up to the next debate. His shirt will be tucked in and his crease will be ironed, but he’ll mumble absurdities and mime illicitly, and he’ll deliberately come across as a half serious, barely trying amateurish clown.
And in doing so, he may actually be saving his life!
38. beverly
RE: the Rape of Nanking: http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/nanking.htm. How many kids now, or even adults, have even heard of this, the single greatest war crime of World War II?
The power of the level of evil represented by the Rape of Nanking to endure and ripple down through time and continue to wreak destruction was demonstrated by the fate of the talented, beautiful author, Iris Chang, who had devoted herself to chronicling that evil madness for posterity so that future generations might avoid a repeat.
Her immersion of herself as a necessary part of her research into that morass of horrific evil information finally overwhelmed her and caused or contributed to her to taking her own life. In pursuing the completion of that book she did a noble thing, but as history constantly reminds us, the cost can be dear and tragic.
If this debate ends of changing everything, it will be because of the President’s record, not his demeanor.
In 1980, Jimmy Carter ran an entirely negative campaign against Ronald Reagan and held a lead in October of 8% per Gallup. Other polls had the race closer. Reagan did not begin to lead the national polls until the last week of October after their one debate. He won by 10%.
Reagan performed decently in the one debate, but not nearly as well as Romney did last Wednesday. Political scientists, interviewing voters, determined that the debate was decisive not because Reagan won (there was some credible dispute though most thought Reagan won), but because he showed enough to do the job — to take over from the failing incumbent. You see, these voters knew that they were unsure about Carter, but they were also unsure about the caricature in Carter’s attack ads. This made the direct comparison in the debate devastating for Carter. It also suggests that Carter needed to win decisively in the debate to avoid “losing” in an electoral sense. Any outcome that left Reagan appearing credible erodes the image of the attack-ad bogeyman from Carter’s ads.
If applicable to this race — I certainly think it is to some extent — this analysis suggests that four years of failure weigh on the President. The wheat is white standing in the field, but someone has to go out and harvest it. The debate was an opportunity to do that, and the President may be difficulty reversing Romney’s momentum short of a decisive victory. The President may need a substantial gaffe from Romney to right the ship.
You can say “Why don’t these voters know already that the President has failed?” The truth is that changing minds is a matter of complex psychology. If there is to be a margin for Romney, he has to convince a substantial number of people who voted for Obama the first time to change their vote — to admit to themselves at least that their first vote was a mistake. That is not something voters relish, and perhaps making that admission is something many voters will not do until the decision time is actually upon them. That certainly seemed to be the story of the 1980 election.
tharkun -
I think I may have communicated with you in the past about Iris. I was working with her on a book about the battle for Bataan at the time of her death. I had previously written a book about the Holocaust and we discussed the effect that researching and writing about the massacre of innocents had on authors. Little did I know at the time that she was presaging her own demise.
Iris was a beautiful person: extremely intelligent, compassionate, down to earth, hard-working, a sweetheart. Her death was a tragic loss.
b @ 37: Speculation: Will BHO become so aggressive in the next debate that he appears to be obnoxious? Or will he just become more pedantic and condescending?
Well, he’s being heavily coached to avoid being pedantic and condescending by obnoxious, Chicago-style thugs like Axelrod, so that’s my bet.
I think Romney showed us his style, which is lots of sharp factoids in short sentences, American business-talk 101. I tend to associate it with lack of comprehension, but on the positive side it associates with action, and apparently tends to impress casual listeners. Come to think of it, any Republican trait that appears to associate with action, should be a good thing.
0bama went into the first debate believing the fix was in, PBS debate moderator would do his job, attack Romney while giving Obama all the time he needed to give his usual stump speech responses to the questions and stop Romney from responding back, 0bama team believed they had it in the bag as it was all setup to go 0bama’s way, Take the latest VP debate moderator revelation, 0bama’s team knew this the entire time, not thinking it wrong, unfair or suspicious for 0bama to have been at the moderators wedding… Of course we are talking about 0bama, a man that votes AGAINST waving the Warren Act for New Orleans (Which passed anyways) than has the Gaul to go to New Orleans and say they (Federal Government) give White Cities breaks but not “Black” (Or should we call it “Chocolate”) City of New Orleans and that was 2 weeks after 0bama voted “No”. yet it passed and New Orleans was given the same break as the supposed “White” cities… 0bama is evil, intentionally trying to deny black people and then intentionally lying about it and blaming White People! Why this is not major news is unfathomable… Proof 0bama wants to tear this country apart by any means!
If I’m coaching Obama for the debate, I’m realizing that there really is no good way to go here. There is nothing I can offer that will help what has gone so terribly wrong. He doesn’t want to study hard and, besides, there’s no way for him to learn everything he needs to know to be on top of things.
That means that I will have to sell him a bill of goods, make up something that sounds right and hope he’ll buy it, knowing full well that it’s just another nonexistent costume for the emperor.
I guess in that situation I would tell him to take the gloves off, attack Romney so as to cut him down to size. I would cater to Obie’s narcissism by building him up and feeding his self-inflation.
It almost certainly wouldn’t work and might well backfire, really badly. But that’s what I would offer him as the best strategy, a way for me to pretend things are okay while keeping my head/job.
” … the Gaul to go to New Orleans … ”
I’ll see your Gaul and raise you two galls.
It will be interesting how a leader who can’t take advice or compromise is going to change his style.
He has little experience actually arguing in court or any legislature. I don’t think he has found his voice and suspect he can’t think on his feet.
His dial doesn’t have much in the way of gradiations. He has his professorial glib style, “Those Republicans say A, but any one knows thats sloppy-slurpy-thinkin’, it is B. Plain as the nose on your face.” He never says what the Republicans say is wrong, and it is wrong for three reasons and lists the reasons.
He has his Gospel style that slips into folksy dialect. That’s not going to sway 9/10s of the audience, and it is hard to sustain when your making a complex argument with several points and have to drop all those g’s without sounding like Wilbur Brimley.
I think Obama is either going to be slipping into old ways, which will sound heightenly glib and pedantic, or threatrically quaint, or drift into unknown territory. No, I don’t think he’s going to be comfortable until the third debate and by then the die will have been cast.
Obama: but you said X, you believe X.
Romney: no I didn’t, no I don’t, here’s what I believe.
Obama: but you’re a rich white guy, your greed holds the world in need.
Romney: and you’re the food stamp president, the sixteen trillion dollar leech, and a Hawaiian choom-squad at best.
Raddatz: let’s get ready to ruuuumble!
Pollster pulling out of FL, VA, and NC because Romney likley winner?
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/10/10/pollster-pulls-out-of-fl-nc-and-va-saying-obama-cant-win-them/
I’m just the messenger.
I’ll see your Gaul and raise you two galls.
That comment needs an Asterix.
Russia bridges Middle Eastern divides
By M K Bhadrakumar
A multi-billion dollar arms deal with Iraq, a summit meeting with Turkey, a fence-mending exercise with Saudi Arabia, a debut with Egypt’s Sphinx-like Muslim Brothers – all this is slated to happen within the period of a turbulent month in the Middle East. And all this is to happen when the United States’ “return” to the region after the hurly-burly of the November election still seems a distant dream. Simply put, Russia is suddenly all over the Middle East.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/NJ11Ag01.html
This is apparently what happens when you “lead from behind.” Someone doesn’t even know that you’re there and just slip slides in the vacuum. All this while the President was visiting with the Pimp with a Limp? Sounds like a clear case of “victory disease.” Yeah, a Pyrrhic victory.
And the U. S. races into Jordan? Oh, I know there is great unrest in the Middle East and Jordan is “one” of our “strongest allies” in the Middle East, right? But wait a minute, I thought we just let our allies be over-turned by the will of the people while we stand in the background…helping our ally’s enemies.
Somehow I feel the spectre of Gavrillo Princep has returned, but in a different form, in a different country.
We may already BE in another war, but we are leading from such a great distance away, we just don’t see it yet.
Unless, of course, this is all a part of a great “plan” the President forgot to tell us about.
I think a lot of what the debate did was to give people permission, so to speak, to come out in favor of Romney. They want to, they prefer him quite a bit over Barry, but the social pressure to stick with the Amazing Black Messiah is exceptionally high (it varies by parts of the country, but I think it’s significant everywhere) and the media onslaught against Romney (evil! rich! evil!) is extreme. Once Romney showed him up, it wasn’t that people said “Oh wow, Obama is really an empty suit! Who knew?” Rather, they said “Thank God, now I don’t have to be embarrassed to say I’m for Romney.”
This is probably even more the case for women, who are more status conscious and aware of making a social faux pas like saying “I’m for Romney.” Once Romney strode off the stage a clear winner — and the Alpha dog — women were free to switch to him.
55. Limpet6
I think Obama is either going to be slipping into old ways, which will sound heightenly glib and pedantic, or threatrically quaint, or drift into unknown territory. No, I don’t think he’s going to be comfortable until the third debate and by then the die will have been cast.
He has had successful managment up to now (I didn’t say ethical) and is around 50% approval, so if what you say is true…why have the debates?
There’s a brewing crisis in the Middle East…perhaps he will not let it go to waste and will feel it is finally necessary to take dramatic action – against America.
King of Jordan must be a dim wit! hasn’t he seen what’s happened to Egypt and Libya when you get involved with the 0bamanation! Bet Jordan Security forces are keeping an extra eye on those US Stupid (State) Department personal and NGO’s…
Obama, who thinks he is a better debate coach than his debate coaches, will lay an egg again. To prepare is beneath him. Since he is intellectually unable to “dazzle them by his brilliance,” his perpetual M.O. is to “baffle them with bullshit.” That’s all he has, that’s all he has ever had, and that’s all he will ever have and that’s all he has needed for 51 years. Too late to change now.
Maybe he’ll bring up Big Bird-Doesn’t appear that the bird needs any subsidies, probably the reason Sesame St. put the kibosh on the dust-up.
From the Wall St. Journal editorial page:
“The United States may be on a fiscal path to Greece, and working-class guys in Toledo may have stagnant incomes, but Mr. Obama says their tax dollars must continue to flow to one of the most successful TV properties of all time. Middle-aged readers may think that Big Bird’s popularity peaked in the 1970s, but his earnings power remains strong.
According to financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2011, Sesame Workshop and its nonprofit and for-profit subsidiaries had total operating revenue of more than $134 million. They receive about $8 million a year in direct government grants and more indirectly via PBS subsidies. Big Bird and friends also receive corporate and foundation support, and donations amount to about a third of revenue. Distribution fees and royalties comprise another third and licensing revenue makes up the rest.
At the end of fiscal 2011, Sesame Workshop and its subsidiaries had total assets of $289 million. About $29 million was held in cash and “cash equivalents,” mainly money-market mutual funds. Another $121 million on the balance sheet was held in “investments.” According to the accompanying notes, these investments included stakes in hedge funds and private-equity funds. It’s unclear from the financial statements if Big Bird has ever invested in funds run by Bain Capital, founded by Mitt Romney, but no doubt Sesame would be welcomed as a client by many investment managers.
So Big Bird likes to maximize revenues and investment gains as much as the next muppet. And now the President has made this adorable critter the symbol of federal programs that allegedly require eternal taxpayer aid, even if it has to be put on the future tax bill of today’s pre-schoolers. Is that funny?”
Peterike (58),
Oh what marvels Uderzo could do in caricaturing Obama!
@35 Blast, Back atcha, I’d add sports and clubs and other associations that De Tocqueville noted as providing the small unit leadership essential for correction and innovation. The Great Man is a trap. Even in religion, many would think that Christianity is a worship of a Great Man. WWJD, etc. The problem is a fixed notion of what is good: we agree with God when He agrees with us. Jesus, however, was and is the ultimate countercultural force. Bear with me here, I’m not trying to derail the topic or go off on a tangent, but the very foundation of Western civilization is Christianity. You mentioned Europe and it’s not the abandoning of a Roman model that got it in trouble, oh no. It’s thinking that man is “basically good” and excusing those who “mean well” if they fail. The Bible says we are all evil, no one “means well” and therefore excludes that Overarching Excuse, even from the Admirable O. No, instead we get a refreshing pragmatism (judge by their fruits) and a realism to expect less from our leaders (no “Great men”) but more from ourselves. Responsibility. Look at Libya for how no one is responsible any more. As you said, “Large sections of American society are also trapped in a positive feedback loop leading to failure.” Regardless of whether you buy into the Bible, thinking it’s worthless ignores the covariance of its spread (not just religiosity, but actual knowledge of the text and devotion to it) with the rise of the West. As a fanatic of sorts, I do believe we’ve crossed the Rubicon with repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. We’ve introduced an ethos of pleasure-first into the Armed Forces. We’ll be fine in peacetime but who in their right mind wants to head toward the sound of the boom-booms, where the stream of wounded is coming from? If there is no higher ethic than pleasure, the men (regardless of their sexuality) will already know it instinctively. Equipment is nice, but it’s the culture that matters. As a supply officer I’d order lots of meds and body bags for the next conflict. Less equipment, we’ll just abandon it to the enemy anyway. Look at our Consulate. We don’t have the balls to go there. The USN is hardly a bunch of saints, nor the USMC, but at least we understood toughness and sacrifice. The ignorance of the soi disant sophisticates is going to get a lot of people killed and doom many nations to misery.
Mitt and the first debate was more like the Marines taking Henderson. There the JIA weren’t ready and left the field.
The next debate will be Romney’s ridgeline. Obama will come with all he’s got. All his game, his delusions and decades of coasting, which will serve him poorly. His ‘cool, hip, snark’ are old and played out.
Mitt remembers well being ghetto’d and punked by trash Ted Kennedy. It won’t touch him now. Mitt will stick to his guns, old school and dated that they are, and let Obama flail and die on slopes, slippery and rotted.
dlsada – “That’s all he has, that’s all he has ever had, and that’s all he will ever have and that’s all he has needed for 51 years.”
He still has the MSM. During the town hall, betcha the girl with a green bow in her hair is called to ask why Romney wants to keep her from getting affordable birth control, wont let her marry her girlfriend, and why she must have a back alley abortion using a wire hanger. Oh yeah and her dad died of cancer after Romney shaved his head.
65. Evanston2
Paragraphs, please … paragraphs.
Next up on the democrat agenda, Banning Debates between candidates.
@59: And the U. S. races into Jordan? Oh, I know there is great unrest in the Middle East and Jordan is “one” of our “strongest allies” in the Middle East, right?
Perhaps Obama can entice Jordan to revert to its original name, Palistine.
Jordan is one of our strongest allies in the Middle East and punches well above its weight.
What?
Plenty of insight as how and why Obama punted the Big Debate with Romney, but what will be interesting is who shows up to debated Mr. Romney next week.uess
My guess is that though Obama does have a great potential to be charismatic in front of an audience that is willing to suspend disbelief, he lacks the essential manly quality of “heroism”, to go into a difficult position and to do what is necessary regardless of the personal outcome.
He has to become something he never was. So although the precise details of the future are unknown, I think it highly unlikely that Obama can recover from the debate in which he looked like a normal man and not a political demigod.
@68 Jockstrap, Oopsies.
The Lincoln-Douglass debates were low on process and high on intellectual endeavor. Our modern debates are high on process aspects and low low low as intellectual endeavors. Just the apply the standard Flesch–Kincaid reading scoring to a transcript of some random sample of a modern debate and those of 1858 to marvel at the intellectual difference. Yet Lincoln and Douglass held their audience of fly-over country hicks spellbound for hours at a time.
Even then in 1858 there was process — rules of order for meetings, bylaws for association in meetings. But it was lightweight, men in charge adapted it mostly in honorable ways — ways fair to heart and soul of the arguments to be made by each of the parties. Process was the held in check as the servant of human endeavor.
Yet of course those in power will seek to use its advantage in setting the rules to their advantage, and over time that comes to mean a grand aggregation of rules and process. In 69 HEP-T says the Democrats will find some way to call off the debates in the future, but hey, hey hey, that’s already happened decades ago, back at least to the Kennedy-Nixon debate set-up for TV. Process has blocked all but the most rudimentary of information transfer, intellectual improvement during a debate. And the more of a stranglehold that process has gained over intellectual and politic[al] endeavor the more a true champion must gimmick around and break out of the restraints in order to reach the electorate.
Romney learned to do that in the wild-west debates of the GOP primary. Obama has NEVER learned to do it inside the setting of a actual debate, no matter HOW process-managed it is.
“and that he believed the central problem was that the President was so disdainful of Romney that he didn’t believe he needed to engage with him.”
Once upon a time in the northern wastes of Minnesota there was a gubernatorial debate. An arrogant Repub, a Dem with a big political name and an overwhelming sense of entitlement, and a ridiculous professional wrestler running on a third party ticket squared off in debate. The Dem was condescending as hell toward the wrestler. The Repub wouldn’t even address him directly during the debate.
I took great pleasure, after watching that abortion of a debate, in pulling the lever for Jesse Ventura. Clearly so did many of my fellow Minnesotans, as we wound up with Governor Ventura for 4 years. And I remain convinced to this day that the main reason was that debate and the poor performance by the “establishment” candidates.
It would be a huge mistake for Obama to think he’s “all that”. Even many of his acolytes would be turned off by too overt a display of arrogance, and he stepped dangerously close to that line in the first debate. May he step way beyond it in the next two.
50. Roughcoat
I remember those discussions and your comments about Iris Chang. While I never had the pleasure of meeting her I did see her in a few televised interviews. She came across exactly as you described her. Her loss is tragic indeed.
buddy larsen and I used to joke that “the universe runs on irony”. Sometimes that’s a source of amusement, of “ha, ha!” irony, but all too often it’s simply the cruel, brutal, senseless and deadly variant. She deserved better.
re: Iris Chang.
Reminds me of the even harder-hitting 2009 City of Life and Death. And the feeling in the gut it leaves as it hits you that Nanjing was but the largest of dozens of similar events – including the Philippines and the treatment of our captured aviators that was suppressed by our own government. Where I suspect those responsible withheld the reporting of the atrocities to speed recovery – vice the “exterminate them all” righteous blood lust that the electorate would have demanded had they known.
And sadly (unlike the Germans and the holocaust) Japan has never expressed remorse as a society for what they had done, had allowed to happen in their name. I worry that it sets the scene for another Versailles – where China sees Japan gets paid back in kind, perhaps a century, not decades, later.