Apparently, or so I have heard on the rumor mill, the troops inside the White House are well aware of this disengagement. They talk of how uncomfortable they feel listening to the president discuss sports for the first half-hour of a forty-five minute foreign policy meeting, seemingly unaware (or uncaring) of the urgent matters at hand. Perhaps this accounts for Rahm Emanuel’s quick exit from the administration. Surely, if he remained, bigger things awaited than even mayor of Chicago.
I have written earlier that Obama does not really want to be president. I think I overstated it. He “kind of” wants to be president. He will run for reelection because he doesn’t want to lose, not because he wants to continue what he is doing. (He isn’t doing much — and business as usual liberal deficit spending is not likely to make a comeback anytime soon.)
I listened to a conservative pundit on Hannity tonight opining that the 2012 election will be the most important in our country’s history, that if Obama were reelected we would be plunged into socialism.
I tend to doubt it. With a Republican House and, most likely, a Republican Senate we will be headed into four years of stultifying stagnation. Most likely of all, like Joe Biden, we will all go to sleep.
Or, as Eliot put it at the end of “The Hollow Men”:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
UPDATE: As for the substance of the wretched Obama speech, the WSJ has it just right.
Obama gives a whole new significance to the MUTE button on my remote.
But the problem is not so much that he is boring, it’s that he’s a liar covering up his general incompetence.
I dont mute. I change channels,
I try to change channels too, but the guy shows up on half the channels. Why can’t the networks just show the clown on one channel? They could easily rotate thru ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. Its not like any of them have anything special to say after the speech anyway.
Channel changer here also. I have gotten into the habit of keeping the remote with me and always being sure the “last” channel is non-news. With this guy, every second matters.
Lol – I know what you mean!
Yes! But I do have to thank the President for increasing my digital dexterity in the last three years. While driving, the nano-second I hear “the President said today,” my finger is on the change radio station “memory” button before I hear one tedious droning, affect-free syllable. No one who’s operating a motor vehicle can afford to hear his voice and fall asleep at the wheel. In fact, all cars presently for sale in the United States should come with a warning label: DO NOT LISTEN TO BARACK OBAMA WHILE DRIVING. A small decal of Biden nodding off should be enough to convey the message.
I checked the local police log this morning and there were 6 citations issued yesterday for DWLO – driving while listening to Obama… It’s a new violation with a $1.7 trillion fine…
Hi, Ragnar!
I usually turn to the Military or Military History channels. Don’t think I’ve ever seen anything of Obama there.
It’s true the emphasis is on WWII, but hey — That beats Obama’s Libya farce. And Obama makes FDR look like a hard right winger, something not even Clinton was able to pull off.
Terry,
The Administration is asleep even when those running have their eyes open. The obvious example is their Middle East policy.
Obama and Clinton and the rest of the drones who run American foreign policy haven’t a clue.
To Israel they drag out the same old nag with a different saddle – Give them more land.
For Israel its , ” been there done that. ” Twenty-five settlements dismantled and ten thousand Israeli Jews moved from their homes of thirty five years. The results are terrible.
American foreign policy relationships are in ruins. Even the unthinkable has occurred – Obama is losing the Saudis! Unbelievable. Clinton refers to Assad as a reformer. Can anyone be so clueless? Or is it so feckless?
Israel has had a Peace Treaty with Egypt for decades and that has been put in doubt.
The American Administration can not answer the question – Who is going to run Egypt? Or Yemen? Or Lebanon? Or Libya? But, presto-chango and hocus-pocus, they have a plan for Israel.
Before they come with up suggestions for Israel they should get the American house in order. And they should demonstrate some expertise rather than expect their expertise and brilliance assumed.
Like I have said many times before (just not here) Carter on steroids.
confedgel: Don’t you mean “Carter on downers”? The guy is all but comatose. The only way you can tell he’s breathing is that he’s talking. And even then, he’s lifeless. This man is the single most disengaged, “my body may be here but my mind is 10,000 miles away President” in my lifetime—which goes back to the still-inspiring and vibrant FDR.
PS When it comes to this administration’s “policy” toward (or make that against) Israel, I agree that it is Carter on steroids. The entire thrust of the Obama administration against Israel is one of the most despicable aspects of an ignorant group of clueless policy-makers. And they don’t even reflect the staunchly pro-Israel views of the majority of Americans. The President and his entire “foreign policy” team have no idea of the history of the region or of the so-called “peace process.” “Land for peace” in Lebanon and Gaza has meant land for Israeli deaths. This administration’s entire foreign policy is an abject failure, nowhere more so than with respect to Israel and its murderous neighbors.
And when he is talking, that is how you know he is lying.
Fortunately, I don’t have a TV, but I listen to talk radio throughout the day. But whenever it hear that hollow, boring, droning voice with its unnatural cadence at nearly every news break, a wave of nausea hits me and I have to be very quick about turning down the volume before I throw up.
Hey!
I’m delighted to read here that someone else has no television! Yaaaaay!
““““““““` “““““““““““““
However, and this is a portentious “However”,….we Americans fall asleep at our peril during this administration’s mal-adroitness.
Hillary, for example, is a meddlesome witch leering dreamily over a rumbling cauldron of noxious fumes…”Eye of newt…..”, etc. She’s about to drop her pointed, wide-brimmed hat into that roiling, bubbling mass.
Biden, on the other hand, can fall asleep whenever and wherever he wants.
How were we Americans snookered into voting for this dangerous emptiness?
Easy. Hope. And Change.
And what you mean, “we”?
Ahh, I wasn’t.
But more importantly as Mark Steyn said a short time ago paraphrased “If the American people once again vote this guy into office, we have no right to ever criticize him again, rather the American people should be held to account for their mindless uninformed vote”. And if he is elected they will be held accountable as we will have Obamacare even if he gets nothing else passed.
The sound of his voice makes my dog and myself ill.
The…only…person…more…boring…than…Oboob…is …Hillary Clinton.
She speaks to every audience as if they’re deaf and mentally retarded. And foreign.
All the empty heads out there elected him, he was their idol.
Just do what I do, remove my earplugs from my MP3 player while he speaks…..
Few will notice Obama’s lies. Biden falling asleep merely emphasizes this. Obama doesn’t care. As a college lecturer, he long ago became used to people falling asleep when he spoke.
When a government employee falls asleep in a control tower, he has disciplinary action taken. The same discipline should be applied to any sleeping employee, even a VP. Then today, that ATC’s boss quit.
I believe given the same articles of fairness, the VP’s boss should quit.
But then Mr. Sleepy Head would become President. The President can’t fire the VP, you know.
Yes, I know, but he could ask for his resignation, ala Spiro Agnew, and then Barry could pull a Nixon! Problem solved.
I would say to never to underestimate Obama, least we lose the battle in November.
Putting him on mute is perhaps one of the best ways to get a real sense of who Obie Jihad Mao really is.
There’s an easy fix to that problem. Don’t watch network television. Thank God for Retro and AmLife.
I MUST mute when the Resident in Chief stands to speak.
I have a highly calibrated B.S. detector that goes red line as soon as his speech begins. It is louder than most conventional Geiger Counters so I have to mute the TV.
Maybe we’ll wake up sometime soon and find that Obama has turned into a giant cock-roach. Not that you or I or Kafka would find that funny.
How will we be able to tell? He is a politician, after all
I wonder what future historians will make of Obama’s curious mix of hubris, incompetence and unrepentant mendacity.
they will wonder how this nation survived as long as it did with a majority of IDIOTS
What matters is not Obama’s personality or his intelligence but his base, and not only the obvious unions, public sector workers, blacks, most Latinos, guilty liberals including feminists, but “moderates” from all parties. But even more than his pandering, he is in a bind, and I described that bind here: http://clarespark.com/2009/08/09/what-is-a-corporatist-liberal-and-why-should-they-frighten-us/.
And you honestly believe there will BE A FUTURE, much less any historians… since all of history is blatant and unforgivable lies anyway… PUKE
“We” didn’t ‘elect’ this bozo, Roger.
I firmly believe that the “Acorn” voters had a lot of play in how the votes turned out for B.O.
This fraud is a pox that will eff up our political trust for a long time coming.
of course acorn was set up from the start as a part of the democrat machine. and who was the biggest supporter of acorn?? the great community organiser!!
It didn’t help at all that for some God forsaken reason John McCain ended up our candidate. Lord do I hate the two party system. You couldn’t have asked for a bigger stepping stool for Obama’s rise than John McShame. Why should the people vote socialist lite when they can have the real deal. It’s the reason Hillary didn’t make it through the primaries. Everybody was fixated on this Hollywoodized version of reality were elect this one guy and he magically fixes all the problems. Until we get serious as a nation about understanding the role of the presidency, and not allowing Congress get away with murder and act like nothing is their fault, we are going to go on looking for Messiahs both Republican and Democrat, and we are going to be sorely disappointed.
McCain was the republican nominee because of all the states that don’t have closed primaries. I firmly believe we would have had a better candidate if democrats and independents couldn’t have voted him in.
So true, had a dim friend and he was bragging about this, GOP, wake up please.
It is his utter predictability that makes Barokeydoke so boring…given what we know about his upbringing and political history,anything he says is going to be formulaic,pedantic,and completely foreseeable…not to mention that since he seems to think that speechifying is his strong suit,he runs it into the ground…and is has so little self awareness that he evidently thinks that reading what somebody else wrote for him off a teleprompter is profound and historically worthy of note…a legend in his own mind
Obama’s 2012 campaign song will be titled: “We’re all going Barokeydoke”.
I agree with Terry (#1). Obama is a continuous, relentless, pathological liar. If he says it is daytime, probably even his wife triple checks it.
Because of his staggering and broad-based ignorance and incompetence, and because nothing he says is ever remotely true, there is simply no purpose in listening to him. Listening to Obama is as pointless as dropping everything and carefully listening to the neighbor’s yippy dog bark for two solid hours.
The only good thing about Obama (and those two pathetic nut jobs Pelosi and Reed) working so hard to bankrupt their own country as fast as possible, is that there are no longer large amounts of money available for them to give away to unions and other corrupt, destructive liberal groups.
“…carefully listening to the neighbor’s yippy dog bark for two solid hours.” Perfect!
Previously in my mind’s eye I pictured a stern faced, imperial four year old swaggering like Patton atop a coffee table and lecturing an enraptured audience of stuffed toys.
I’d much rather the yippy dog…the four year old thing is too close to real.
I watched his Tuesday speech with the mute on. It was pure mugging for the cameras. Lots of hand movements. He had his game face on. His serious face. The man’s style is manipulative and arrogant. It still fools millions so we have a problem. This is why the Donald is so good. He deconstructs this lazy, incompetent fool.
The banality of the tax and spending weasel.
Listening to Obama is like droping a rock down an empty well and listening for a splash.
Excellent!!!
Terrific!
or a cesspool
Yep. And you get out of it what’s put into it. The BS’er in Chief.
I’m not sure But I think that Obozo actually beleives that a statement of a Goal is actually a plan. At least that’s the impression I got from his speech today.
So when the going gets tough, Obama gets speechifying.
BTW Roger, I will still say; Obama wants to BE President, he just doesn’t want to DO President.
I think you are right. He thinks that saying it makes it so!
I sit in meetings with similar people at work. They spout on and on about their lofty goals. As soon as I start talking projects and process to achieve them – obtaining capital, project personnel, equipment, facilities, etc… Their eyes glaze over and they lose all interest. At that point I lose interst too because I know s/he won’t support the effort.
He’s a real nowhere man sitting in his nowhere land making his nowhere plans for nobody.
Steve, Perfect description! By the way, I didn’t watch his speech. I wanted to watch something a little closer to reality so I watched a Star Trek Voyager DVD.
Steve;
I have to correct you…
He’s a real nowhere man sitting in his nowhere land making his nowhere plans for the rest of us!
Steve, we’ve all been duped by the media!
This picture was taken while Biden was taking the Air Traffic Controller final exam!
This reminds me of Bismarck’s assessment of Napoleon III:
“A sphinx without a riddle”.
Spot on, sir. Well done.
Obama’s speeches are hackneyed and mendacious and insufferable. But there are people who are still enthralled. Chris Matthews, I think, would love to have his baby, if he could.
>> #5 Chris Matthews, I think, would love to have his baby, if he could. <<
Who says he can’t? Matthews would probably get a sex-change operation, if only he could decide which sex to change to.
“But there are people who are still enthralled.” Some, perhaps, but I suspect not many. I live and work in an overwhelmingly Democratic region. The vast majority of my relatives, co-workers, friends and acquaintances were absolutely enthralled by Obama. They were ecstatic from election day through inauguration day, and for about a year after that. They talked about Obama constantly. Then something curious happened. They began to mention him less and less frequently, until they stopped mentioning him at all. They still discuss politics, the economy, and foreign affairs, they still trend Democratic, they will talk about anyone else, but not about him. It’s as if he has fallen off the face of the earth.
I have a few relatives and friends who bought the ‘Hope and Change” rhetoric and argued vociferously for ‘Hope and Change’ during the 2008 campaign and thereafter for – as you mentioned – about a year. Walk into a room full of them now and ask “Hows that hope and change working for you now”? and you’ll get nothing – not even a blank stare – no response from most of them. They don’t even have the guts to make eye contact!
THEY KNOW!!!
Each and every one of them know. They may not be able to vocalize it yet but they know!
They understand now what I was trying to get across to the dimwits a couple of years ago – this is a man in an empty suit – the ‘Hope and Change’ was a blank line that the MSM happily filled in – running cover for this bozo at every turn and now we are stuck with him for the remainder of his term unless something unforeseen happens along that tosses him from office.
I can Hope for Change can’t I?
Boy, you know what your observation reminds me of? Those people who spend years in utter conviction that… the world will end / Rapture will come…. on a certain day, the big day comes, and there they are with bells on (like election day, I suppose), and then the sun sets, the stars come out, the crickets chirp, the sky in the East starts to lighten again…. and there they all are, staring at each other. (Win The Future…???)
Those who will still believe, because they are in too deep and their lives and souls depend on it, will make some explanation up out of whole cloth the next morning, and by that nightfall will clip-clop along as before, but will never mention that date again. Many will sheepishly realize they’ve bought into nonsense the whole time, and will also never mention it again out of embarrassment, but will bail out entirely from the con game they’ve been run through. Some, but very few, will stand up and denounce the cult leader for what he is, which is not an easy thing to do. All of them, deep in their souls, some possibly even beneath their own consciousness, will be deeply ashamed that they always thought of themselves as smart enough to never buy into such idiocy and childishness, but here they are.
Anything here sounding familiar?
“Of that day and hour no one knows except the Father…”
It will happen. And for an idea (spoken in first century terms) what is to follow, peruse Revelation. If Christians get it wrong, they aren’t out anything. If they get it right, they aren’t out anything.
Besides, if somebody wants to stand on a hill and stare expectantly into the sky, what is that to you?
If that someone takes a moment out of his staring time to go vote for a leader who, along with millions of others, are convinced that Rapture is going to come on date X, and therefore it is literally a waste not to blow through every single national resource we have because, after that date, what does it matter….
Actually, that matters quite a lot to me, to my family, and to my country.
I’m weird that way.
Me too. Having sat on both sides of the God issue, raised by an atheist, I think I can sort through facts as well as any zealous secularist.
No Christian of my acquaintance voted for Barry Obama. They all held their noses and voted McCain, Sarah Palin being pretty much the only reason to do so. In 2008, we were simply outnumbered by the lions.
So, I don’t believe that ‘Christians’ are to blame for 2008, keeping in mind that many who claim to be Christians do so because they attend some church at some time in some city; but are much the same as a person who stands in a garage claiming to be a car.
Sule, as we are pretty much the only ones in this sub-thread, I assume you are talking to me, but I can only guess so, as what you are saying is utterly unrelated to any point I have made.
In what way, shape or form have I said “Christians are to blame for 2008″? The entire idea is ludicrous. Non-Christians, or anti-Christians, who have thrown Judeo-Christian philosophy out the window, and thus are replacing it with secular supernaturalism, like, for instance, turning Obama into a Messiah who can literally, literally, mind you, cause the oceans to recede, are responsible for 2008. The very opposite of Christians.
Is it a Christian ethic, setting aside belief in the rapture per se, to go around saying “it will happen on August 21, 2013 (or whatever specific date) because God has personally told me (or my Great Leader) that it will?” Is that typical of Christian theology? I hardly think David Koresh or Jim Jones or their ilk are reponsible and honorable memebers of the community of people known as Christians.
My point is that Obama voters are acting more like cult members than mainstream and honorable Christians, and just because many a cult uses Christianity to its own nefarious ends does not make such people geuniune representatives of the faith or its ideals. Quite the contrary, and I think Christianity itself has much to say about such charlatans.
Christians do not vote for Obama, people who have cast Christianity aside (on what they think are intellectual grounds) vote for Obama because they try to fill the hole in their soul by assigning Christ-like qualities to him, and then find themselves adrift and ashamed when they realize how stupid a choice that was, for reasons both theological and intellectual. In essence, “If you believe in nothing, you will believe anything”.
And, with all due respect, I actually think my original post was pretty obvious about that.
If anything, Christians would be stockpiling food and medicine to serve as manna for those left behind. Not long after the Rapture will come plague and famine like none the world has ever seen before. Soon after that, no one will be able to buy or sell without accepting a mark that will damn your soul for all eternity.
But the question remains – “In 2012, will they vote for him again?”
I think the reason guys like Biden fall asleep is because the liberal/progressive meme hasn’t changed it at least 30+ years– not only has Biden heard it all, he’s said it all and tried to enact a lot of it.
I think Obama is coming in at the end of a failed social experiment– it’s failing here and in Europe, so it’s not a question of intransigent Republicans obstructing everything– but he doesn’t know anything else! He’s the first President we’ve elected that was truly and completely raised in the sort of liberal blather that is failing, so he is incapable of offering anything else, even as the lie of what he says is demonstrated all around him.
Imagine (just as a thought experiment, no flaming please) if you, as a Christian, were handed irrefutable evidence that Jesus Christ never was never resurrected? How long would you hold onto beliefs that were so dear to you for so many years? How hollow would your protestations start to sound? How much excitement and reverence could you gin up? (And, from Biden’s standpoint, how many times have you seen Grandpa fall asleep in Church?)
“He will run for reelection because he doesn’t want to lose . . .”
I think you’ve nailed it. He wanted the job because he thought it would be easy, especially with a compliant Congress. Say “I want to close Guantanamo, sign a sheet of paper, and, voila! –– Guantanamo is closed and everyone loves us, but more importantly, everyone loves ME.”
His “rock star” rise has turned into a “one-hit wonder” as the American public, not to mention the political leaders in the rest of the world, turn away from the hollow, styrofoam acropolis of “hope and change” . . .
Well, at least Biden had the courtesy (and stamina) to fall asleep after the speech started. Maybe it is a conditioned response, the text starts to flow over the twin teleprompter screens, Barry Dunham appears and it’s lights out for the veep. His last thought before he drifts off, “He is the most boring president ever, I will stay awake, I will…zzzzzz.”
Poor Barry. Trying to revive tired old ideas and disguise them. Nope, he’s not a tax and spend liberal, community agigator, master of distraction and keen promoter of self. He’s Historic. Present. Gifted. And wears well ironed pants.
Waiting for Barry to get to the point and offer specifics is time we’ll never get back. He’ll hide who he is and his true intentions as long as he can. He just has to hope that voters who appear to be encouraging him to run aren’t playing the same game.
Hey Roger,
I like your analysis and writing alot, but I have to disagree strongly with part of your T.S. Eliot analogy. Obama may have discovered post election that he “kinda wants to be President”, but he is reflexively Marxist and multicultural, not “kinda” Marxist or “kinda” Multicultural. His beliefs in those two arenas are strident, radical, and orthodox. This is what makes up his political DNA.
You don’t hang out with the pack of radicals that this bum hangs out with unless you are one of them. You have to be approved and certified in order to hang. It is clear that his marxist peers see him as a member of their tribe.
Obama himself notes in his book that Frank (Self-described communist and bisexual) Marshall Davis “mentored” him several afternoons a week during his adolescence in Hawaii. They hung out together.
Pelaut,
Right you are. By the way, I believe Davis was also involved with his wife in statutory sodomy of a teenage girl. Presents a pretty interesting portrait of his character, doesn’t it.
Some will likely just go to sleep. And under ObamaCare some will likely be put to sleep. Just think. Two more years of this stultifying bull crap.
Thanks for the article Roger. When I look at the Obama Presidency I see Incompetence. It is bad enough that I disagree with his policies but he and his administration seem totally incapable of actually acomplishing anything.
Now I know some will point out Obama Care but how much did he or his administrataion have to do with it? He let Congress carry the ball with little or no direction and all can see what a fine piece of legislation came out of that. We still do not know all the hidden Easter Eggs of Doom await us all unless we can get this thing repealed.
Yeah Obama is kind of Hollow like he is kind of there.
#19 – You have just come up with a great slogan for repealing Obamacare:
We need to repeal it to find out what’s in it!
He is kind of a socialist, kind of a liberal, kind of a multi-culturalist, kind of an environmentalist, kind of globalist, kind of a budget cutter — but none of them with any real commitment. Basically, he’s a vague and uncommitted person pretending to be otherwise. He is the man that voted “present,” now in the presidency.
Obama is not a kind of a socialist, a kind of a liberal, a kind of a multi-culturalist, a kind of an environmentalist, a kind of globalist. He is very much all of these things and he is very committed to his green/socialist/ globalist/goals. He now has U.S. military assets employed under the direction of NATO at the behest of the UN and the Arab League. He has placed the country firmly on a path to insolvency and he will, as he showed yesterday, demagogue anyone who stands in his way.
He is not any kind of budget cutter. He thinks the budget can be fixed by simply taxing the rich. He is as clueless as Krugman and every bit as zealous in fundamentally transforming America into a Social Democracy. He is not going to be defeated by pretending he is a boring empty suit. He may not understand economics but the thought that his ideas may be wrong never enters his mind. He has the idealism of a college freshman and the knowledge base to match.
Most Americans are already asleep.
Witness the continue litany of “Obama is incompetent!” that continues to sound across the pages of every conservative discussion forum.
If he’s so incompetent, how has me managed to do so much damage to America in such a short time?
It reminds me of the lib’s accusations of Bush being stupid, but still he managed to mastermind 9-11 without getting caught.
Right.
Biden was just practicing for his new job as a Federally hired Air Traffic Controller.
Good one.
Caption,for Joe biden,should read;I just as well,get some zzzz’s.I know the talking points by heart.Use,pity,guilt,fear,racism,sexism,homophobia,class warfare,and now islamo-phobia.Use,and exploit children,and senior citzens.to promote involuntary servitude/slave trade,against the productive,class,in america.Oh i almost forgot,blame everything,on george w.bush,the selfish,greedy,american people,and those who create wealth,success,and jobs.so democrats can waller in the fruits of their labors.and buy the loyalty,of,the useless,clueless,worthless,selfish,godless,destructive,addicted,obsessed,and the lawless.at the cost,of the helpless,innocent,vulnerable,,productiveSacrificial,and law-abidingSo they can pal around with their hero’s.Who are dictators,totalitarians,terrorist,pedophiles,genocide peddlers,and drug,sex,and human traffickers!!!Jimmy Joe”The Liarfryer”
I agree that Obama is a ‘hollow man’. He has no integrity of principles, no commitment to policy or program, no involvement with the real world. His sole focus is on himself as Himself; that is, on a deep sense of his own superiority and a need to feel that he controls others.
He IS a socialist but he is a psychological socialist; not an intellectual socialist. There’s an important difference. The latter actually believes in the theories and agenda of socialism as a mode of governance of a society. A psychological socialist has become one, within the political realm, because it is the only political ideology that sets up a Ruling Elite over the ‘ignorant ruled’. That’s Obama – a Ruler. Someone who considers himself so special, so extraordinary, that his mere words, his presence, can reduce the oceans to calm and the economy to prosperity.
Is he boring? Obama himself has no interest in policies or programs. Intellectually, he is ignorant and barren and lacks the curiosity and will to examine plans and policies. The pattern of his life, in every single venture he’s been involved in – has been to leave all work, all policies, all programs – to others. That’s the pattern whether as editor of the Harvard Law Review where he left all work to others; as community organizer where he merely exhorted them to ‘activate’; as Senator where he simply voted ‘present’.
Obama himself is the upfront Party Man, the perpectual campaigner, shaker-of-hands, grin and laugh, endless empty pontificating rhetoric…That’s all there is to him.
Question him? Never. He can’t answer questions with any veracity because he is indifferent to the policies. Criticize him? Never. He’s a clinical narcissist and can’t accept that you, the peasant, dare to critique him.
Add to that his basic anti-Americanism, his anti-capitalism, his predilection for inciting adversarial groups (ethnic, class hatreds).Add to his intellectual and moral emptiness – that fact that he’s a pathological liar, a man whose words have literally no connection to reality…and you have a situation deeply harmful to the USA.
ETAB – Excellent!!
Good comment, ETAB, but I think it is a bit more than that.
Virtually sll of “our” socialists have been Cultural Marxists. “From each culture according to its abilities to each culture according to its needs.” So the productive elements of our country were supposed to support the nonproductive elements. There was a recognition that there were people and cultures more productive than others; such elements were cows to be milked.
Obama does not think that any culture is any better than any other. So he sees no reason to try to keep the productive elements healthy; they are no better or more valuable than any other. Indeed, actual productivity being alien to his own experience, from his perspective the productive elements appear to be “the enemy.” And besides, it is just so unfair that they are productive.
Great observations ETAB. I think you have nailed Obama’s essence. What is worth further exploration is how in the hell did so great a number of our fellow citizens get bewitched by this poseur. As a matter of fact, I think that question has far greater import than whether Obama is an empty suit or not, because it shows a weak mindedness that invites, nay begs, further manipulation and deceit. I know that it is a combination of years of undermining our education system and the accompanying loss of critical thinking skills along with an almost criminally malignant media, framing the issues to insulate and protect their chosen one. This ability to hoodwink this many people scares me more than any particular occupant of the White House because it means that it can be done again. Just watch if Hillary ends up challenging Obama in ’12. I can see it now….”a historic vote for the first woman president”…and the lemming like reaction of the idiots who surround me. Ugh.
Undermining education is about 1/4 of it. Closely associated is control of the media. Even ignoramus liberals would eventually learn the truth once they are out of school, so control of the ongoing message is an absolutely essential ingredient of the takeover.
Part III is a massive, concerted undermining of the culture, including families, churches, small businesses, entertainment, even sports, and much more. When every cultural trend funnels people into the progressive pipeline of dependency, it is far too consistent to be explained by random events.
The fourth element is the most obvious. Payoffs. They buy their supporters, in hundreds of ways, ranging from cash exchanges for votes, to hidden welfare for gigantic corporations. The means are too numberous to mention, but rest assured that there isn’t a “progressive” alive who isn’t dependent on marxist largesse, direct from your pocket to the criminals’ pockets.
I don’t think that The 0 will be challenged – no sitting American president (who wanted it) has been denied the nomination since Martin Van Buren.
Ah, Pres George H. W. Bush, 1992?
He said NOMINATION, not election.
And the good news is that Joe is going to be the bipartisan commission head to fix the budget. The perfect man for the job, he’s been asleep at the wheel for 40 years in the Senate!
Roger, Obama’s ‘speech’, rebuttal to Ryan’s common sense approach, scolding, telemprompted temper tantrum, call it what you will.
Many portray Obama as an enemy of the state type of caricature.
I’ll double down and say Obama is an enemy of government independence, Econ 101 (perhaps 102 as well..) basics, capitalist-driven/free market functions and ideals (i.e. independently motivated people pursuing their own successes), and quite frankly, reasoning.
For this guy to speak of ‘..middle class Americans..’ makes my skin crawl. Obama’s never been, associated with or TRIED to relate to, ‘the common man/common woman’.
It’s all the more disappointing his useful idiots refuse to accept and/or can’t fathom such a deed by this poor excuse for a ‘leader’.
#9 commenter ‘Steve’ and ‘The Beatles’ put it very succinctly. A nowhere man.
If ANY Republican Presidential candidate can’t destroy this dude in vis-a-vis debates (seriously, there’s SO MUCH ammo in these 27 months alone to make Obama cower under his teleprompter stand), then the late Dandy Don Meredith ‘Turn out the Lights’ ode will have more meaning for me than ever!
Conservatives have a clear understanding of Obama, but the all-important Independent — AKA low information voter — still kinda likes the guy. Obama hopes to win enough of them to cobble together the 95% of the black vote that will be his to a majority of brown voters. Voila! Another four years on top of the two ahead of us.
Banjo, I’ve got to disagree with your take on the Independent voter.
I’m an Independent voter with strong Conservative leanings. I have been the 17 years I’ve been old enough to vote.
The overwhelming reason being the GOP is far too squishy/RINO-like, Democratic-bootlicker types selling their indifference as, ‘..crossing the political aisle..’ nonsense. Like some ‘Red Badge of Courage’ fiction.
Gimme a Goldwater circa ’64 type politician any day.
For the VERY concerns Goldwater addressed then is STILL, though expectedly worse, on the front burner today.
That alone should show the many Republicans, Republican voters the counterproductive tactics of the GOP.
I adore the many aspects of Reagan/Reagonomics, but his philosophy was distorted/abused and undone in less than a decade. ‘Thank you’ GOP!
The idea that a Goldwater type appeals to “centrist” is far-fetched. Because you choose to describe yourself as “independent” and that somehow translates into being part of the center, which any candidate needs to win, is…out there.
This Goldwater Republican is now a Tea Party activist. We need the swamp that Pelosi promised to drain, burned off. Corruption is so endemic in DC that its no longer recognized. Is it not corrupt for Boehner tp try to make us buy a GE jet engine the DOD says it doesn’t need, to save 1000 jobs in his district? Doesn’t anybody but me see this as corrupt? Wonder how much GE and those workers gave Boehner’s last campaign.
And when we’re hurting for money to run legitimate needed government projects, my own governer is scrambling after the high speed rail funds that Florida’s governor had th courage to reject. Disgusting.
It’s not the independent voter. It’s the “moderate” voter. The ones that can’t accept that politics is a battlefield, always has been,always will be, and while we don’t condone actually violence, it is a world of rhetorical combat. The moderate voters have been convinced that’s it better if everyone gets along. I understand the need for civility in ones own life. Most decent people would rather not have arguments with their fanatically liberal family member who make everything about politics, so they, like the Republicans in office who want to steer clear of bad press (the biggest detriment right now to our country that I can think, partisan journalism), thinks it is better to go along to get along.
I register independent because I don’t want those idiots with R’s behind their name thinking they have a lock on a certain number of votes. I am active and conservative, however.
not only is it the moderates (cant we just get along)
but the center (as agreed upon by the lefties) is already so far left that when the moderates begin whining about all the fighting “the center” compromise is in the realm of soft tyranny
until conservatives boot out the rinos (worse than the statists in many respects) things will be all messed up
in fact, the rinos would make fantastic democrats
the dems make fantastic communists
the conservatives would make fantastic republicans
then, the “moderates” can pick a la carte as they always do
I am a lapsed catholic but when I was seven years old I was busy in our living room playing the priest and conducting Mass.
Similarly Obama was a practicing muslim when he was seven and to this day regards the ‘call to prayer’ as the most beautiful sound in the world.
Though I am ‘lapsed’, morally I remain very much the good catholic altar boy with all the baggage that entails.
Similarly, I believe Obama is trapped by his early childhood and that, together with his early exposure to marxism, makes him a mortal enemy of the United States.
Samuel Johnson said, “Show me the boy at 7, and I will show you the man.”
Mr. SImon:
“What is it about Barack Obama that caused his vice president Joe Biden to fall asleep during the president’s speech Tuesday?”
It’s not necessarily what it is with the Undocumented President, but rather what is it with Joe Biden?
There are two answers to this:
The first is that Joe Biden cannot be fired by Obama, he is Vice President in his own right.
And the second is that Joe was showing that he was the “smartest man in the room”.
Scary thought, that, huh?
As to the Alleged Hawaiian, I ken that he would have delivered the chin-music all the same if everyone in the hall had gone comatose.
Methinks that Obama’s favorite audience member is himself.
7. taxistan
Listening to Obama is like droping a rock down an empty well and listening for a splash.
Good one!
In the picture I saw on TV showing the sleeping Biden, there was a black lady behind Biden who appeared to be dozing also. I feel better now that I wasn’t alone.
When obama gets thrown out of office (assuming the Republicans do not blow it again), it will be interesting to watch him self destruct.
what odds do i get for taking obama not leaving office and barricading his troupe like the hordes of dictators in the middle east?
Never underestimate the Republicans’ capacity for doing something stupid.
Remember Bob Dole in ’96?
Thanks for this article. I’m so glad someone watched the speech and reported, since I cannot tolerate liars (in my personal life, it’s easy to steer clear of them), and therefore cannot bear looking at that ugly face of Marxism that sold itself as non-partisan via ‘The Audacity of Hope’). It’s hard to avoid, since every newspaper keeps carrying the image on its front page.
As Scott Rasmussen has stated so well in his “In Search of Self-Governance”, our government has been corrupted by special interests (including big corporations) and operates as a dis-connected entity. The past 10 years have bankrupted the country, and now the vultures are picking the bones and trying to pass rotten flesh off as fresh meat. No one has bothered exposing the truth even though the U.S. Treasury report is online. Last month, (March, 2011), total SS, Medicaid and Medicare expenditures equalled 93.5% of total net income….If we aren’t nearing the end of our fiscal life, I’d like someone to explain…
emmaliza,
Awesome summation of the facts.There are plenty of Republicans responsible as well, the progressive fools.
I,like you, am physically incapable of watching this marxist ideologue prattle on with his bromides. Remember how smart we were told he was? How smart can someone really be when they pursue demonstrably failed policies like Keynesian economics? Economic growth this morning was downgraded from an estimate of 4% made in January, down to 1.7%. Yeah, I would say he and Krugman’s economic policies are working out super. If he was truely smart he would change course, but his ideology prevents that.
I also think his speaking ability is vastly oversold. Compare him to King, Reagan, Churchill, Kennedy or Roosevelt, he doesn’t come close to any of those people in oratorical skills. If you think him a great speech maker, you don’t really know much about oratory.
When you think about it, he is really about on par intellectually with many of the ultra liberal professors we can find on most of the college campuses in this country.
“How smart can someone really be when they pursue demonstrably failed policies like Keynesian economics?”
Ha. Can’t be his fault. The Republicans, or some one, maybe Bush, just would not let him spend enough to get us back to prosperity. Should’a spent $3 trillion in stimulus. Then it would have worked.
The facts are indisputable. It was the youth vote that put Obama in office.
If the Republicans want to win the next one they should ask Ryan Seacrest to run for President.
It was the women’s vote, especially the nubile ones, ages 18 – 44, that gave him 70+ % of their vote.. His opponents Hillary and McCain had no sex appeal to them.
So Ryan Seacrest would be an excellent choice for Veep.
Trump and Seacrest. I’m in.
No, not Secrest, but not some white headed uncharismatic geezer either.
p ryan said it best:
“obama is a pyromaniac in a field of strawmen.”
Obama is a leader in the same sense that Jeffrey Dahmer was a Chef.
Barack’s weird detachment was most obvious when, right after the shooting incident at Ft. Hood, he took time to give a shout out to some guy in the audience he was trying to kiss up to.
Barack (“you’ve got me”) Obama apparently thinks his mere presence should be enough for we the peasants.
He may be detached, even out of it, but the minions are working hard behind the scenes to erect the socialist infrastructure. As we speak, Kathleen Sebelius has legions of people writing volumes of regulations to translate the “healthcare” bill into everybody’s convoluted nightmare.
The idiotlogues with which Barack has surrounded himself, Cass Sunstein and his wife, Samantha Power, legal advisor Harold Koh, science advisor John Holdren, the gang of Czars, the heads of the FCC and EPA…are pushing every hour of every day to erect their own versions of an anti-democratic, macabre infrastructure.
Regardless of Barack’s own ineptitude and lassitude, all these people need to be removed from the nation’s capital.
You’ve heard one Obama speech, you’ve heard them all. He’s a one-trick pony. He’s boring as hell – you know exactly what he is going to say before he even opens his mouth. Imagine all the great men of history you could have a conversation with – Churchill, Lincoln, Reagan, etc etc – who in their right mind would want to spend an afternoon talking to Obama?
Chris Mathews!
You know he’s up to something when instead of delivering an address to the nation he speaks before a safe student audience and immediately begins by kissing up to them.
With regard to Obama’s quite disgraceful ‘appeal to pity’ argument that UNLESS govt looks after the elderly and the poor and the sick..THEN..they are lost, I have a question.
Why does anyone – and that includes Obama-who-does-not-think-or-analyze- why does anyone think that the govt should look after this sector of the population? If the govt would leave more money in the hands of the citizen, then the citizen could look after their own family members.
Think about it. When the govt takes so much of your money, the money that you earned and worked for, you are left incapable of looking after family members. Does the govt spend this money wisely? NO. The larger proportion of the tax money is NOT spent on the needy; it’s spent on the bureaucracy that supposedly administers these ‘Help Programs’.
So – most of the money, about 75% of it, goes to support a healthy, robust bureaucrat! This civil servant, unionized by the public service unions, gets a higher salary than found in the private sector, with wage increases double that of the private sector, and benefits and pensions unheard of in the private sector..and..can’t be fired for incompetence or cause! So, the govt must tax more and more and more and more…because now, it is supporting not only those ‘needy’ (and that only at a minimal) but it is primarily using your tax dollars to support a massive bloated rich-cat bureaucracy!
If the govt had left you with your money, you could have paid for private care with a more direct, efficient and reasonable result.
So-when Obama tries his ‘Pity the Poor etc’ tactic, think about it. Under a govt tactic, most of the money goes to the fat-cat bureaucrats; only about 25% or less ever gets to those who need it.
And, like Parkinson’s Law, both the size of the bureaucrats and the size and description of ‘those in need’ expands and grows and grows…
Is this fraudulent bloated balloon the spirit of America? It’s Obama’s Balloon.
I think about this too, when every magazine I pick up, commercials on what TV I can endure, the radio ads urging donations and pledges, getting phone calls with appeals “for the (fill in the blank)” when they already receive earmarks/aid packages/grants/endowments.
I want to shreik, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH THE MONEY YOU ALREADY GOT?!
Er, no. A majority of the population would prefer that their parents were covered by Medicare, rather than having to pay their medical bills themselves. If you don’t understand that dynamic in 2011, then you don’t understand the current rules of the game. Obama does, and plays within those rules with some skill. About 2/3 of the fuming on this thread is frustration with the fact that Obama is, in the words of the immortal Charlie Sheen, “winning.”
We heard the same thing about the Republican demise after 2006 – “The Democrats will have control of Congress for the next 20 years”, etc. – a fantasy created by the news media. How far did that get you, even with help from the financial crises? Until 2010. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. What’s Obama won – Obamacare? That’s on the chopping block. Where’s cap and trade, tax the rich and everyone else, no budget cuts, Guantanamo still there, terrorists still tried by military, Patriot Act still in place, finally talking about SS and Medicare, war in Libya, Afghanistan, etc. This guy looks more Bush than Bush. And when he gives a speech he puts people to sleep. You can blame Bush for a lot, but he never did that.
First, prove your assertion that ‘a majority of the population want their parents covered by medicare’. And second, that’s not the issue. You’ve tripped up on ‘paying the medical bills themselves’. THAT’S THE POINT!
The taxes that you pay…go towards these medical bills. Do you seriously think that the medical care is FREE????
The cost of medicare, as processed by a government, is MORE than if it were processed by a private care system. OK?
The fact is – that most of the income for a government run service goes to the bureaucrats who run the system, and only about 25% goes to the actual service. Whereas, if your parent’s taxes and your taxes were lower, then, the cost would be covered..by your investing in your own private health care plan.
And Obama is not ‘winning’. Winning what??? He’s driving the economy of the US into the ditch. Perhaps you consider that winning? Do you think that his massive spending, his deficits, his increasing a bureaucracy..is actually a definition of ‘winning’? Whew.
I’m not saying that Obama is doing great things, because he is not, but he is positioning himself to be “winning” the next election; that’s all. He has his finger on the pulse of a majority of the folks a little better than you do. He has compromised (or appeared to) it amounts to the same thing.
In politics you try to pick and choose your battles and frame the issue as best you can. Given the fact that the Repubs do not currently have a strong contender to go against him and are seriously divided between the Bachmann’s(what a joke) and the Romneys (not a joke, but half the Repubs think he is) all Obama has to do is keep on keepin’ on to win re-election. There will be a Clinton-Gingrich type rapprochement with Boehner and the House, deficits will be reduced, bandaids will be applied. If we are “lucky” we get our new bubble.
If you think that the genie of medicare can be put back into the bottle, more power to you, but supposedly most Tea Party folks are counting on their medicare; they just are against big, expensive government, got it?
D-White, check out that stylish Modern Liberal leash with the tweed spiked collar around your Red Pencil Neck. Your obvious attachment to it and to your master have been reinforced by all the treats tossed your way over the years.
This may explain the need for the spikes. They are not so much there to protect the Red Pencil Neck, but to identify you as One Who is One with whatever new master holds the other end of the leash, and the spikes tell others, “hands off, he’s mine now”.
Barking from the Pick It Fence is good D-White. It lets Master know that all that is needed is another treat to keep the program is working.
Where the hell does Master get all these treats, anyway?
And you say, “Impossible”
As he hands you a treat.
Dwight – could you provide some evidence for your assertions? You have a habit of making ‘the majority says’ claims – but without providing any evidence that the majority actually wants what YOU say that they do.
Provide evidence that ‘Obama has his finger on the pulse of the majority of folks’. The polls, on everything from his health policies, his ‘stimulus’, his deficit-growth, his cap-and-trade, his foreign policies – all show that the majority REJECT Obama’s policies. Or did you ignore, as does Obama, the November 2010 elections?
No, ‘appearing to compromise and actually compromising’ are most definitely not the same thing. They may be, to you and to anyone who lives only in the phenomenological world of Words-Are-All-That-Is-Real..but we who live in the real world know that there is an enormous difference between the rhetoric of reducing spending…and actually reducing spending. Do you know the difference between fact and fiction?
Your red herring that ‘all Obama is doing is politics’ trivializes the function of government..to game-playing. Governance is a serious business, requiring that it be carried out with integrity and deep principles and a commitment to the well-being of THE PEOPLE. Governance is not about the selfish, self-absorbed game of ‘Will I Win The Election’? Will they like me? That’s for the shallow, selfish..and narcissistic..all of which criteria apply to Obama.
Oh – and yet again, could you provide some evidence that most Tea Party members are counting on their Medicare? And yet again – you utterly and totally miss the point ..which is about FUNDING health care services. Not about the existence of such services.
As I recall, one of the major objections to the new health care plan was that it was going to put MEDICARE at risk. Remember that? Do you deny that Medicare is now part of the fabric of our culture? In fact, for better or for worse, other health plans, such as my own city-sponsored health care forces you to default to medicare when you reach age 65, if you qualify. I did not, but my wife did and had to change. It turned out not to be a big deal, but it reinforces my claim that Medicare is now established practice for all citizens. You won’t see many giving it up because of principle, that’s for sure. Is there any question about that?
Maybe I should have said “plurality” rather than “majority” for the number of people whole pulses Obama can monitor effectively enough.
Are you hearing my assertion that Obama is “just OK” but not the disaster/demon creature, which is default position of most PJM commentators? The implication seems to be that if I point out that he is not a demon, but a rather pragmatic politician, that I am anointing him. It is obviously an either/or necessity for many here, but that is NOT how I see it; it is NOT how I experience history. A lot of people love drama in their politics; I love telling them how their drama is melodramatic. So it goes.
Dwight – your attempt to validate Medicare by saying that ‘it’s not part of our culture’ is irrelevant. Slavery was at one time part of our culture; vigilante justice was at one time part of our culture; rapacious free market thuggery was at one time part of our culture. Yet again, you are missing the point. The issue is not about ‘having Medicare’ but in defining its nature: how it operates, how it is funded, who receives it.
The point is that a population which has released the majority of its members from contributing to the common well-being bank (about 45% and more do not pay income taxes) cannot support that majority’s common needs by taxing the remaining half of the population. Got that? That’s simple algebra; the result of such a formula is a negative amount in the bank. The deficit.
The second point is that the simplistic answer to this – the Obama Answer – which is to simply ‘tax millionaires’..and Obama defines this as anyone making over 200,000 a year is economically ignorant..I’ll put it more bluntly; it’s stupid. Why?
Because an industrial economy operates by growth; it has to generate surplus wealth, so that this surplus is then, not hidden in a sock, but INVESTED into more businesses, which create more jobs. Simple. If you reduce the ability of your population to INVEST in more businesses and more long term projects…then..whoosh…your economy is dead. And it won’t come back either. Get it?
So, Ryan’s plan about ‘entitlements’ tackles Medicare; it doesn’t affect those now over 55, but it does acknowledge that the current ratio of taxing and funding..is irrational and economically ignorant. The taxation release of almost half of the population has to cease, the nature of Medicare has to change, the funding base of Medicare has to change. You don’t seem willing to deal with these issues. Why not?
“A lot of people love drama in their politics; I love telling them how their drama is melodramatic.”
Precisely D-White. The slow grind against individual rights has made its mark on you. The ability to view what was against vs. what is contains the variable time. Your choice is range on the moment, what is now and what will the (undefined) near future be, based on what you feel, now. This is classic Modern Liberal thought. Hence, say, the slogan, “The Last Eight Years”. Mr. President has tossed much of that thought under the limo, and is further poised to talk mean but surrender more if it means another 4 years. Mrs. President will see to that. Great example of flash in the pan leadership. Oh, a “Killing Me Softly” centrist, one should say.
There are people who determine the basis for their conclusions using a much longer time span (Reagan). Call them what you wish. They do notice the incrementalism and are very aware of the present/future consequences of it as they do not randomly discount something on a whim because it has been happening, for example, Medicare, over a 40+ year time span. Read the projections of the cost when that program was brought on line, and compare it to now, where the cost now is a part of what is destroying the very culture is was designed to protect.
You’re saying essentially that people wish destroy themselves. Apparently, some do. Some don’t. And “so it goes”?
That’s drama Pick It Fence But, and there is no joy in letting you know.
Beware D-White, politics has consequences.
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you.
ETAB, I am not opposing Ryan’s plan to look at Medicare funding; I have responded to your assertions about how the church and family should do it. We DO have to take a tough look at the funding, OK? That is different than saying that Medicare is an abomination to traditional values.
Then on to Mr Unlucky: “There are people who determine the basis for their conclusions using a much longer time span (Reagan). Call them what you wish. They do notice the incrementalism and are very aware of the present/future consequences of it as they do not randomly discount something on a whim because it has been happening.”
Now THAT is humorous. Ronald Reagan was a very good politician for the MOMENT IN TIME when he became President, but to ascribe any long-term thinking to his actions requires a bit of a belief in the tooth fairy. Was Iran-Contra long-term thinking? Was the Marine barracks explosion any kind of thinking at all, other than “Let’s get the hell out of here.”? Reagan did have a tooth fairy belief in SDI, pushed it, and the tooth fairy left him the fall of the Soviet Union under his pillow.
But like almost any two term President, RR got out while the getting was good, God bless him. I made educational history in my school system by teaching Reader’s Digest to reluctant learners and RR made Presidential history by regularly citing Reader’s Digest as his source, so we are kind of soul mates, but the long-term thinking side of RR…has escaped me. He did think outside the box, I’ll give you that. His musings on a nuclear missile free world seemed fairy tale like at the time, but circumstances swung that way for a couple decades.
Look, if one thing should be clear it is that I do believe in the yin and yang of American politics and Reagan is a hell of a yin. Most people here think that yangs are traitors etc., but they aren’t. They represent half of what we as Americans are… and/or want. What could be more clear to anyone who studies our history, meaning what HAS happened, not what belief system is being massaged or mangled at any given moment. Or maybe, the fact that both periodically get messaged then mangled should tell someone like yourself, who purports to be a long term thinker….something.
No need to yell D-White. Citing Reagan’s comparably long view is not an endorsement of his policies.
Damn, toss out a Red Ping Pong Ball and The Tongue That Shook a School District goes… Ping!
Check out some Reagan’s speeches from the late ’50′s onward, the GE spokesman period, right up to when Alzheimer’s appeared in force. There is a consistency and knowledge of events that is nearly extinct with the intellectual class at this point. Relativism is the new coin of the realm. Your piggy bank is quite full.
“They represent half of what we as Americans are… and/or want.” And that “half” can get it wrong, and take the other “half” with them. Simply because a person exists does not make his choices right.
So Pick It Fence But, which way is the wind blowing today? You do remember the wind, don’t you? Didn’t it blow down the Pick It Fence once?
D-White, is your lameness a feature? Or a refuge?
You’ve been with the professors
And they’ve all liked your looks…
“If the govt had left you with your money, you could have paid for private care with a more direct, efficient and reasonable result.”
ETAB, you are cruel and heartless to even think that the government can’t take care of the needy as well as you. From the socialist point of view it’s much easier to say, “It’s for the needy, the children, and anyone who doesn’t agree, like the Republicans, is heartless”. The Republicans have no good response to the “heartless” label. Yes, they can explain it like you did, but it takes too long and appears too defensive on TV. It’s catchier and easier for the Democrats to say, “It’s for the children”. It’s Marketing 101. Such arguments suck in the moderate voters, in order to institute all sorts of expensive welfare programs. “It’s for the children and poor seniors, and if we have to create a new bureaucracy to take care of our people, so be it”.
One minor issue with your comments, ETAB.
It is quite clear that we have move beyond a bureaucracy in this country.
What used to be a bureaucracy, which is essentially a non-activist organization implementing government policy, has been converted into a group of co-conspirators with the marxist revolutionaries who currently control the political process. These people are no longer the passive hands of the government. They are active agents of marxiststatist revolution. They aren’t servants they are parasites.
The proper term to use is Apparatchiks
I fully agree. The public service unions are parasites. On the workers, on the taxpayers. They are scum – who launder taxpayer money to fill the coffers of the Democrats.
Heh – it’s always something to hear people insult the GOP by saying that ‘they are all for the big corporations’. Don’t these stupid people realize that the big unions and the public service unions are Big Corporations??? Unions produce no wealth. Nothing. They are parastic on others..they feed off the dues of the workers..many times these dues are compulsory. And unions are BIG donors to the Democrats. So, if you want to talk about which party is ‘all for the big corporations’..it’s the Democrats.
And again- the Democrats are all for these big corporations, the unions, which produce NO wealth for the country. Just wealth for the Democratic Party. How’s that for ‘looking out for America’?
Pick your poison; that’s about all you can do.
The only time Obama really got excited in the speech was when he was talking about how great it would be to have a tax hike on the rich.
Could it be that The 0 has not figured out that his household makes more than all but 1 or 2 % of all other households in the country? Or does he not care? My money is on the latter (which scares me more).
I really don’t think democrats give a damn what he can or can’t do, I think their most prized goal has been reached, that he’s black and he’s ours. The optics of reaching this moral high ground is far beyond any achievements he ever will or could produce. Now they can sanctimoniously scream racism for any slight of their objectives, unchallenged.
All I know for sure is that there would be far fewer democrats if all they had to eat is what they produced.
My faith in Joe Biden;s judgement has been restored. At least he knows when he won’t be missing anything.
OK. Every regular reader of PJM knows that BHO is an incompetent who is in way over his head. That is a problem that could be solved easily at the next election.
But the real question is, ‘What happened to the Democratic Party?’ Where did all the responsible adults go? I can’t think of one prominent Democrat who could challenge BHO and present a reasonable alternative to the American electorate. IMHO, this is the real crisis in American politics.
I weep for the future.
As far as I know, Zell Miller was the last grown-up the Democrats had.
I will do anything I can to help get Donald Trump elected, just so I can hear him tell Obambi
“YOU’RE FIRED!”.
I don’t know if ‘The Donald’ will be our next president but he certainly is steering the conversation. Nothing wrong with that but I think it will force some of the more RINO-like in the Republican ranks that might run alongside Trump to start defending Obama – and could deliver another 4 years to this bozo. And deliver us to the ash-heap of history.
I’m thinking much the same thing. Worse, Trump threatens to run as an independent if the Republicans don’t nominate him; which, of course, may very well Perot the election and hand us four more years of Obama.
I think it’s extremely useful to have Trump…trumpeting. I don’t think that his comments will force RINOs to defend Obama. No-one in the running or in the political realm seems to be commenting on what Trump is saying.
But what Trump is saying..is what the politicians won’t dare say. Trump is asking – why doesn’t Obama release his birth certificate; why doesn’t he release his school records? What’s the point of keeping them out of the public view? These are valid questions..and..lower the ‘magic’ and untouchability of Obama. And what’s great – is that it’s Trump who is doing this – a very wealthy, very public figure, who is NOT part of the political establishment! He’s doing the GOP a favor with these ‘hot topic’ untouchable questions.
ETAB says;
Exactly; Also doing a big favor for “We The People” by not letting Obama nor the Democrat/Socialist media or Party control the discussion.
The problem is that he isn’t saying nothing. He’s saying lots of things in a very boring way. I think that’s part of the strategy. If he can lull you off to sleep with the cadence of his voice–very reassuring and mellow–then you might not analyze what he’s really saying. I can’t listen to him because he does put me to sleep. Instead, I wait and read his speeches after the fact. It behooves all of us to understand what he is saying. He knows the cadence and timbre of his voice is his most powerful weapon. That’s why he carries the teleprompter with him wherever he goes because it’s only when he’s speaking spontaneously that he loses that cadence and people sit up and say, “Huh? What did he just say?”
We would have been far better off electing Tonio K.
Then we could all be dancing to the “Funky Western Civilization” instead of being mired in H. A. T. R. E. D. .
I don’t blame Biden for taking a snooze. After nearly six years I am still trying to understand why all the pundits consider Mr. Obama a great speaker. He simply isn’t. He is certainly a master of sonorous pseudo-profundity but once you look behind the curtain there is no “there there.” His style of speaking is something only a rather dim college freshman (liberal arts major) would find “eloquent.” There is always the undercurrent of condescension in his voice, as if he is doing us all a favor by allowing us to listen to him. He is totally without humor or self-deprciation. A light touch” is beyond him.
In his policy speeches he hectors rather than informs and complains rather than argues. His rythms and cadences are unnatural, as if they have been taken directly out of some “Introduction to Rhetoric” text. In short he is a leaden speaker. The continuous praise he gets for his oratory has more to do with the timber of his natural baritone than in anything in his speaking style. And of course his core audience would consider his speeches “great” if he delivered them through the use of smoke signals.
I am convinced that one of the reasons Mr. Obama sent the bust of Churchill back to England was that he did not want to be continually reminded of what a truly great speaker actually was. Churchill could soar to the heights of great oratory but he could also humor, cajole, and seduce an audience. Most of all he could inspire confidence because he never talked down to the British people. “Talking down” to us is the bedrock of Mr. Obama’s rhetoric.
I agree with all you’ve said, except for the humor and self deprication part. He has frequently prefaced his speaches or remarks with some humor, even though they are probably a stratagy for inclining the audience toward a favorable opinion of him. But I have never seen him insert any humor once he is well into his remarks, except when some accident disrupts his momentum.
Yes you are right. Mr. Obama does try to “lead with joke” on occasion but I have yet to hear any of those jokes actually “land.” Any laughter he gets is nervous and polite and not sincere. I probably should have said that his attempts at “lightness” are contrived and unnatural. They don’t come from any wellspring of natural humor.
Cut Joe some slack. Sometimes hair implants grow inward rather than outward, increasing intracranial pressure resulting in fluctuating levels of consciousness.
Looks like he, and quite a few other people in the crowd are, ah, “training to become air traffic controllers”. Perhaps he’s thinking of a career change next year?
“I submit it is something quite simple — he has nothing to say.”
my own view is a corllary:
you already know what he is going to say, and no one in their right mind takes him seriously.
this is a guy who went to war with libya, while on vacation, and managed to finish it out. most serious matters in the admin are addressed by people other than obama, and he is usually the last to know, or, understand.
Well Mr. Simon, first of all, thank you for providing the wonderful PJM website, a place to which thousands of people concerned about the future of this great country flock.
One thing you say in your latest essay is unquestionably a ray of hope. If the monster somehow lies his way to another term, it would be salvation beyond imagination if the country were merely to sink into 4 years of stagflation. That is absolutely the best outcome that could happen; short of the American people rising up with pitchforks and reenacting the French Revolution on these criminals.
Because you are dead wrong that little lenin is bored, boring or disengaged in any way whatsoever. How anybody could look back on even a week of what he has done, no matter 26 months of incessant, methodical destruction of the government and social framework of the United States, is beyond me. Where have you been to even conceive of such a view.
I couldn’t have a more opposite perspective. After 26 months, what I see is an accelerating pace of mayhem: unions, spending, class warfare, attacks on business, demonization of patriotic americans, lies building on lies building on lies, utterly shameless, utterly without even a glimmer of morality, robotic in its unceasingly relentlessness, criminal at the very core of its every action. You accuse this creature and his gang of going through the motions, of boredom, of repetitiveness. Yeh, about as boring as being drawn and quartered.
Your view is not helpful. It’s dangerous to even suggest that this organized and relentless attack on this country is anything less than an all-out war on freedom.
IF ONLY the president is just ‘boring’, I would have slept more soundly at night, ever since the Americans voted this fake in.
The boring fracade masked the most dangerous president we ever had.
At every turn, he and his cable confiscated (is confiscating) our rights specified in the Constitution for every American.
Boring would be an improvement.
Perusing the stories today on PJM, I had to leave a message:
I’m quite, quite, quite happy that Barack Obama is our president. I am tempted to write more about the rhetoric, hyperbole, and intellectual “climate” in most of these “news” items, opinions, and blog posts, but it cerainly be for naught.
Best to you all. Please remember that we are all Americans. And that Barack Obama, whether you like it or not, is your President…and (looking at the list of Republican candidates), will most likely be your president for the next 5+ years.
Regards.
I’m not surprised. Single, white and politically obtuse females are one of Obama’s most faithful constituencies.
Really! Well first I would like you to cast your mind back about six or seven years to the “respect” given to President Bush. As I recall he was “our president” too but this didn’t stop him from being the subject of the most vicious, coordinated and defamatory campaign of “personal destruction” in the history of political discourse. All to the approval of our “elite” classes. I hadn’t realized that we were back to a “Respect him because he is our President” mode. Thanks for the update.
Also let’s not forget that Mr. Obama was the “outsider” in 2007 and was given no chance of gaining the nomination from the well-established Hillary Clinton. His performance over during his term has been “Carter-like” at best. As I recall the pundits were predicting a neck-and-neck and down-to-the-wire race between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in 1980. Reagan slaughtered him. We can expect the establishment media to remain slavishly devoted to Obama over the next eighteen months but that is an eternity in politics – Anything can happen.
He’s not my president.
He’s the criminal who lied his way into the white house.
Singlewhitefemale,
What is the intellectual attraction you have to this man? America wasn’t founded on progressivism, it was founded on free markets and freedom. Obama was intellectually dishonest to suggest otherwise yesterday.
When progressivism began to take hold around 1900 our government consumed 3% of GDP. It now consumes 30%. Back then we had the most innovative, vibrant, economy ever seen on this planet. You could come to America with the clothes on your back and make something special of yourself. You could even do it if you were Irish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Slavic and you were shunned by the powers that were at that time. 10′s of millions of people did this. Government created the conditions for this by being limited in size and reach due to the founders vision.
What people like you have done to limited government and a vibrant economy is pathetic. The welfare state your hero President so fancies is sucking the life out of our economy. We are no longer the world leader other, freer, economies are bypassing us thanks to progressivism. Your President’s policies, coupled to the welfare state created by Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Bush and Obama has permanently atrophied our economy and stunted our powers of self reliance and innovation. GDP growth this year has been revised down from 4% to 1.7%. We are insolvent thanks to you and your kind. You are not compassionate, you are ignorant and destructive.
If it was your intention to Cloward-Piven our country, congratulations, you have succeeded. Just don’t ever think that you are in anyway a moral animal, you are nothing more than a thief and you are consigning people to permanent under employment and debt through your hero, Barak Obama.
Hope your proud.
I bet you were one of those singlewhitefemales who protested at anti-Bush rallies with swastikas painted over his face….shouting loads of rhetoric and hyperbole no doubt.
“We” don’t really have a President. And I’m sure that I speak for many people, therefore “we” is a valid statement.
Obama is nothing but an immature punk.
He likes it this way, and he will be facilitated in his ‘punkness’ for the remains of his pathetic life.
Anyone whom seriously considers this punk an idol, of any sort, is severely lacking in comprehension of what minimal integrity is expected of anyone.
As I said at another thread: Obama can slump to any occasion.
I’ll pose them, although I’m sure the ex-liberal Simon will censor them, because they aren’t pc:
How many abortions have you had in your life so far?
How fat are you?
How ugly is your face?
Comment: YOU are responsible for the mess we’re all in today not the fraud in the WH.
So she is wrong? He is NOT the President? The things that one can learn on PJM.
C’mon guys, admit it; you have ODS…bad, and it pretty much stifles rational discussion. It’s sort of the modern equivalent of “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”
But then, it is important that we all can express ourselves.
It sank into my aged brain today that the MEDIUM of the internet encourages extreme speech, because in shared physical speech, there is an unavoidable pressure toward some kind of consensus, moderation, a bit of give on both sides, simply so that the parties can co-exist without physically attacking each other. Internet communication does away with 90% of that pressure. You and I can “communicate” so easily, say any ridiculous thing we want to, and there is little pressure to do otherwise.
But can’t you smell that smell?
Yes she is wrong, and so are you, wrong on every conceivable facet of what this country is about. Obama is not my president, nor can he realistically be considered anybody’s president after he lied and misrepresented his true motivations just so he could get elected. He is technically occupying a position, as an empty-suit puppet doing his masters’ (a la Soros) biddings.
You leftists can’t conceive of anything working that is not run by or filtered through an all-powerful government. You are so afraid of reality that anytime someone with more than $100 in their pocket or a new idea in their head tries to do something on his own, you go running to your nanny state screaming about terrible monsters coming to get you. This monumental phobia gets translated into the politics of progressivism. However you pretend to typify this value system, in actuality it is one based on mindless fear. The alternative is built on filial devotion, trust, true morality, and real community bonds of a primary traditionalist culture. If grandma needs help, then the first line of defense should be her family; if her family cannot do it completely, then the next step is her church, then next a local private organization in her community, then her community government itself, then possibly and finally her state, in order of each next higher level of organization, all buttressed by market-based structures. In spite of your narratives and attempts to rewrite history, this used to work in the past in this country, and it will work in the future if we let it by getting out of the way and/or leveraging it with incentives for private action wherever it may be weak.
It is utter madness to start with the top down, because the top neither knows nor cares about grandma, it only knows about a faceless statistic, funded by forced egalitarian theft from other faceless statistics. And since as it stands now you leftists never stop screaming for even more funding of the current already massive government scheme, then that means your supposedly wonderful scheme is not working by your own admission. In point of fact it will never work. Not only does it never take good care of grandma, but it inevitably has horrible unintended consequences such as helping to destroy/undermine family structure and local community organizations over the long term. But you have ready-made excuses for all that, coupled with the kneejerk solutions to just do it again and more of it. Meanwhile such redistribution can only be set up in the first place by stealing through force from other productive members of society who have their own grandmas to take care of, which sooner or later drains all productivity out of the system so that nobody gets taken care of, so that ultimately everybody is simply beaten down into the lowest common denominator of income or education or medicine or whatever else you arrogant power elitists feel like redistributing. This is not morality, it is a tyrannical pretense at morality as redefined by fantasies and semantic games. The only thing that is assuaged here is your monumental, vengeance-filled ego.
THAT is the only fetid thing I smell.
Your “tradition-based” culture is trying to get a grip on a generation of grandmas who want the feeling of being independent for as long as they can and Medicare gives them that. They feel independent because of medicare, whereas you see them as dupes. Most of these grandmas have already paid into the system to earn (sort of) this coverage. The larger problem is that potential medical expenses these days have outstripped the cost so that none but the most wealthy could truly pay for them. Our expensive technology has not been sorted out by the marketplace. WHEN is it practical to get an MRI or cat scan and when NOT? There always COULD be something there. And these grandmas live a lot longer than they used to, causing expenses for everyone. So it goes.
As for my alleged vengeance? For what? You sound like the one who wants to take vengeance on the evil system which has replaced your “traditional” one. I, on the other hand, am flexible.
Ahh, that’s a new ‘reason’ for Medicare. According to you, Dwight, it, being a public government run rather than private (family, church, community) facility, actually makes someone ‘feel independent’…while the private care, I supposed, makes one feel ‘dependent’? What rubbish.
To be dependent on an institutionalized public care…leads one to feel ‘independent’ while to be dependent on one’s family denies such a feeling? So, should children be moved out of the family home asap to promote their feelings of ‘independence’ and moved into the care of the state?
Belonging to a family is something to be rejected, while relying on the care of the state is to be promoted?
That’s quite the mechanical Brave New Platonic World that you support.
Are you being intentionally obtuse? For an individual to have their own pension and or healthcare, whether from the private sector or the government makes them feel more independent than if they had to rely on their church or family alone. That is life in 2011 and I would be shocked if you don’t see and hear this view in your acquaintances, unless you live on a commune or in some church order.
Philosphically, I understand your point, but practically, in the world as it is lived by people today, they see it my way, not your way by a huge majority. You must know that.
Whether or not we can all pay for Medicare is a separate issue.
You are slithering, Dwight. Your original comment was to reject family and community care in support of Medicare as providing ‘independence’ for elders. When I critiqued you on this, you’ve responded with a comment that ANY medical insurance plan, whether the public Medicare or a private one – provides ‘independence’. But you didn’t make this claim in your original statement.
Your original claim was to pit family and community caregivers vs the publicly funded caregiver. Not the funder of the medical costs, but WHO is the caregiver: family/community vs state. I continue to critique your choice of the state over the family and suggest that an elder who must rely on the state..loses their independence while the same person in the care of family and the community – retains it.
As for costs, both are obviously paid for by the individual! The problem with Medicare is that our tax input cannot support Medicare output. You don’t address this imbalance. Why not?
Go back and reread. I have addressed everything you mention here.
And for the “not my President” thing. That is as lame as the left going on and on about how GWB with the help of the Supreme Court “stole” the election. No matter what those excitable types said, GWB was still their President. Ditto for all of you. Is a little common sense too much to expect?
Oops, question withdrawn.
Dwight, you know perfectly well what someone means when they say that a person is ‘not my president’. So, don’t try to move into equating the position (President) with the individual (Obama). You can and must critique the latter’s functioning in that role…unless, of course, you are either a sycophant or a supporter of Adam’s Sedition Act.
I strongly critique Obama – and that is not, as you suggest, ODS, but a reasoned, rational observation of his behavior in the role of President. In my view, and I’ve given my reasons before, he’s not simply a failure but harmful to the well-being of this nation.
Some of the posters responding to your comment may have been harsh and blunt, but honey you’re the root cause why Western Civilization is going the way the Roman Empire did.
If anyone here in PJM, a forum often addressing the parallel lines between US today and Rome of the past, then one must study you as a case study.
Not Nero or Elagabalus, but you.
OBAMA’S OMINOUS APRIL 13TH DEFICIT REDUCTION SPEECH
In a pervious piece I wrote that 13, the number of American colonies that declared independence in 1776 and defeated British tyranny, is a numeric symbol of liberty in US history. Being such it is an inauspicious number for Leftist ideologues who wanting to undo our revolution and spread the poison of state dependency and control-that soft tyranny which hardens over time-rob us of our rights and dignity and economic freedoms. And such has been the case of Barack Obama throughout his deceitful, ill-starred, freedom destroying presidency. For since the Senate passage of the stimulus recovery bill on February 13, 2009 the number 13 has been signaling the failing of Obama’s reckless agenda to remake and transform America. And yesterday’s terrible, unpresidential, duplicitous speech was no exception.
Indeed, coming just nine days after he launched his reelection campaign on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, Obama gives a speech on the looming debt and deficit crisis on a profoundly inauspicious day……..
Click my name to continue reading this widely linked piece which one commenter called: “the most interesting, out of the box article that I’ve read on the speech.”
DH and I have occasionally risked life and limb lunging for the remote. We will allow the atmosphere of our cozy home to be defiled by either the site of his person or the sound of his voice. Seriously. He makes my skin crawl.
“…if Obama were reelected we would be plunged into socialism.
I tend to doubt it. With a Republican House and, most likely, a Republican Senate we will be headed into four years of stultifying stagnation.”
That’s what socialism in pre-Thatcher Britain was, Mr. Simon. It was quite bad enough. But they were able to recover, at least until they lost their way again. I don’t think the United States will be able to do so because there will be no-one to help it by offering huge potential export markets and so forth. A collapse of this country will harm all others too.
The end?
Mistah Kurtz — he dead.
A penny for the old guy.
Another thought about Obama and His speeches. Didn’t he just give one recently supporting the US involvement in Libya? Didn’t he declare that ‘whenever and wherever there is suffering on this earth, that He (and the US) would come to the rescue’? Didn’t he say something like that?
And then, didn’t he withdraw from US involvement there? Does that mean…I know He-who-is-always-Wise hasn’t said anything..but does that mean that He feels that things are OK there now?
I’m not even talking about all the ‘suffering’ elsewhere on this earth that he has ignored..never mind how he said not a word about the Iranian demonstrators in 2009; and has does nothing about the mass killings elsewhere..and does nothing about the mass killings on the US-Mexican border..and..
But..is it really the case that Obama Just Talks? That there’s nothing more to what he says..than the words? Is it the case that when he walks away from the podium..and he waves to We-Who-Adore-Him…does it mean that whatever he said, vanishes as he does?
Obama has no connection to the hard facticity of reality. None. He lives in a Virtual World. Of words. That’s why he lies all the time, because to him, words have no reference to any reality, no reference to concrete facts. To Obama, words have one function only: to manipulate you. Now. Into a state of submission. That’s all.
Obama-the-Preacher, the cult-leader, the messiah…blathering on and on about virtually Nothing. We gave power to a voice without any connections to reality?
Let’s see… Disengaged, “empty suit”, bored with the nuts-and-bolts of governing…didn’t the Democrats say this about Reagan?
Biden was asleep for the same reason we all were, nothing new. Same as NO CHANGE. The president now has the dubious honor of driving the economy, number working to not working, either by retirement, youth or unemployed, to below a 1 to 1 ratio. Carter did it with his doom and gloom, we are not worthy rhetoric and Paul Volcher, back by popular demand to work in the white house on Pennsylvania Avenue that once was a place of prestige. Reagan had to deal with the employed to not working ratio because the economy continued to sink for 2 years after he took office. Folks we are already there and he is still in the white house. Is there a knight on the horizon that can save us? Do you see that person? Trump? Pawlenty? Ron Paul? A better man than Reagan will need to come out of nowhere to undo the damage.
A man with nothing to say and yet he drones on and on and on not saying it. He must not listen to himself talk otherwise he would have put himself to sleep by now.
Well that’s sad, it must be getting all to much for him. Too big of a job, I”m sure he will bounce back.
Has anyone noticed that The One will never look directly at his audience during a speech? When someone is talking down at you, the least they can do is look you in the eyes. Watching Obame give a speech, not that I do unless taken by surprise and I can’t get to the remote fast enough, it is like watching a stupid tennis match….left , right, left right, left right. I spend 25 years in Law Enforcement and the first thing a good investigator thinks when the perpetrator won’t look you in the eye is that he has something to hide and is probably lying to you. Need we say anymore about that empty suit. We had an old saying about guys like Obama: Crap floats!
When President Obama gives a speech he reminds me of those animatronic robots at Disney except that the robots seem more alive. The other difference is that instead of saying “Avast, me hearties!” Obama says things like “Libyan genocide” and “”The Republican agenda”.
I may have gotten this idea because Obama’s first name sounds exactly like what a parrot says just before it asks for a cracker although I’m pretty sure parrots are incapable of lying.
The President should commission Disney to make a platoon of robots that look exactly like the shiny chrome evil robot from Terminator and dress them up like Marines with red beams coming out of their eyes and then send them walking like marionettes into Taliban villages. That would be scarier than a drone and wouldn’t kill as many wedding guests cuz they could just use whatever somnolence radio wave in Obama’s head he experimentally used to put people within a radius of 20 meters to sleep during his speech.
Plus then Obama would have some nice golfing partners with a steady swing and they might be good with the kids and more amusing then the endless fascination they get from the sound a vinyl record makes when you spin it backyards which is apparently addicting and should be rated PG-13. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Secret Service searches White House guests for vinyl records or that Obama’s children cry for them more than their mother.
If they ever find Obama’s birth certificate it will probably say “Manufactured for the Tiki Room, Burbank, CA, 1982″
I’ve heard rumors that Obama sits at his desk in the Oval Office with his hands folded and doesn’t move for hours. He seems to have slowed down quite a bit and one wonders whether it isn’t a maintenance or hydraulic issue.
For a long time I’ve considered Obama to be “Chance” the President from the movie, “Being There.”
Are you saying Obama is an Angel?
With all due respect, I find “President Boring” an ideologically driven screed. There is, seemingly, nothing this President can do that will satisfy Roger Simon. He comes across here as someone willing to hang any smattering of disreputability on the slenderest of pegs.
Take this for example:
…Apparently, or so I have heard on the rumor mill, the troops inside the White House are well aware of this disengagement. They talk of how uncomfortable they feel listening to the president discuss sports for the first half-hour of a forty-five minute foreign policy meeting, seemingly unaware (or uncaring) of the urgent matters at hand. Perhaps this accounts for Rahm Emanuel’s quick exit from the administration. Surely, if he remained, bigger things awaited than even mayor of Chicago…
I defy anyone reading this little post to provide a competently sourced verification of this apparent tissue of sheer rumour and gossip. Absent that verification, this quoted bit is microcosmic of Simon’s inversion of journalism.
The real problem with Obama’s speeches is that apparently the only people who actually listen to them are the president’s critics. His supporters have no idea what he actually says. Who is Obama’s INTENDED audience? Does anyone know?
“That’s the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we’ve already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow. ”
Found this nugget at a site called Great Presidential Quotes, don’t know who assembled the quotes from all the voluminous possibilities. But in just this one example, look, Obama is saying that the United States of America can be made “perfect.” “Can and must!” Just rhetoric? Or, really weird possibility, could he actually believe such nonsense?
Can you imagine Ronald Reagan, sunny optimistic Ronnie, ever suggesting that the US could become “perfect”? It could be argued that Obama is just channeling the Preamble to the Constitution, “in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense,” but perfect in that sense connotes “whole” or “complete.” Anyway, skip ahead to “common defense” and well … need I say more?
Obama is mind-boggling, but evidently he really isn’t talking to anyone in particular. It’s “just words,” just some noise he makes while he alternately glares or looks cool.
We said he was an “empty suit,” but that my friends only scratches the surface. He is so much less! Not even one-dimensional, he has almost no reality at all.
Roger, you nailed it!
Dear Roger,
Is it too late to add a comment?
I’d say you nailed it too.
I have but one quibble. I think that Obama lacks something to say not because he is boring but because he is shallow. He is a salesman who has learned to “talk the talk” only sufficiently to allow listeners to read depth and to project their own views into his comments. It is what all good salesmen do and he does it extraordinarily well: he allows us to sell ourselves. Obama’s pitch is the perfect seduction. Americans want to find a black man with grace, eloquence and smarts, whether they are on the staff of Harvard Law Review, teach at the University of Chicago, or in the voting population. So they read into Obama whatever positive attributes the job requires and they hire him. He is a one trick pony and that is his trick.
This is not an unusual or even an unproductive human foible. I used to do the same thing with beautiful women I wanted to . . . hmm . . . date. We all do what works for us and Barack Obama’s m.o. has worked extraordinarily well for him. I find it difficult to fault Obama. Our President is, as he always has been, a man who gives the appearance of grace, eloquence, and smarts. That there have been many to read more into Obama than that, speaks not to the deficiencies of Obama, but to their own deficiencies. Caveat emptor.
Yours truly,
ThOR