Obama Fatigue
Every President starts to wear on the public. But the omnipresent Obama has become wearisome in record time. Why?
1) Money: There is none. Every time the president talks of another billion for this, and trillion for that, the people sigh: “We don’t have it; he’s going to borrow it.” Unemployment is near 10%, so borrowing nearly $2 trillion each year makes more sense to Keynesian economists than to voters who don’t find hope by maxing out their credit cards when they lose their jobs.
Obama is weirdly oblivious to number crunching — as is true of many who have never been self-employed or had to scramble without a public salary. Yet even Hillary is now whining that her foreign policy is frozen by the fact of mounting American debt. Obama is the stereotypical great-aunt that sweeps into the Christmas dinner casually boasting about what she is going to do for this niece and that nephew, while most roll their eyes with the understanding that her credit cards are long ago maxed out — and more likely she will be hitting up relatives for loans. Americans don’t like magnanimity with other people’s money.
2) Style: Great orators get better in their rhetoric, not worse. It turns out that the people risked a blank slate in Obama in part because in his teleprompted hope and change orations, he sounded fresh and mellifluous. Voters assumed he would wear well. But in nonstop interviews, press conferences, and conversations, the impromptu president seems no more comfortable than was an ad hoc George Bush. And just as liberals were turned off by Bush’s cowboyisms, so too conservatives are tired of Obama’s professorial, condescending sermons. After a year, the people are tired of all the “let me be perfectly clear” psycho-drama, the “make no mistake about” pseudo-tough man pose, the straw man “I reject the false choice that some would…,” and the narcissistic “I have ordered…..my team…to.” The boilerplate is now recognizable even to the Washington press corps. But as important, it dovetails with more disturbing propensities: there are the periodic signs of inanity like “Cinco de Cuatro” and “corpse-man;” the constant fudging on the truth of multibillion dollar new programs really “saving” money; and the surreal bowing to dictators and emperors, with the relish of turning our misdemeanors into felonies and our enemies’ felonies into benefactions.
3) Laureate Warmaking: Utopians cannot get away with quadrupling the number of targeted killings in Pakistan and Waziristan against suspected terrorists and their wives. Twangy Texans who believe that we are at “war” against non-uniformed enemy combatants logically order Predators assassinations against what they see as a ruthless, bloodthirsty radical Islamic “enemy” in a “them or us” fight to the finish. But, again, not so Nobel Peace laureates, who want terrorists to be Mirandized, the architects of 9/11 to be tried in civilian courts in New York, and CIA interrogators to be investigated for waterboarding known mass murderers. So once you go down the path of our struggle against terrorists and jihadists as a criminal enterprise, with writs, trials, and prison sentences, then targeted killing and assassinating suspects, even from high in the sky, simply do not make sense. (Comparative morality argues that it is nicer to waterboard confessed mass murderers than to vaporize suspected terrorists.)
4) Saintly partisanship: Crass politicians can get away with the nuclear option or reconciliation. Hard-nosed Republicans senators once threatened to go nuclear with 51 votes in the Senate to get judges confirmed in the manner that once outraged liberal politicos who now are more than happy to ram through health care without 60 votes. But messiahs? Obama once gave a sermon on the dangers of mere majority rule, when he was a backbencher in the Senate and a favorite of the hard left. “Majorities” in his refined mind were then a sign of rowdy tyrannical populism. So such a parliamentarian really cannot now threaten to use a bare majority to smash through health care, not when he has assured us that he is no Harry Reid or Barbara Boxer, but rather a “no more blue/red state” “healer.” The wages of hypocrisy are usually more costly than mindless partisanship. And the more Obama talks of bipartisanship and reaching out, the more the law professor seems to go out of his way to be petulant and trenchantly “my way or the highway.”
5) The “Bush Did It” whine is over: Why? Two reasons: 1) Obama has copied Bush on almost all the anti-terrorism protocols that worked, such as tribunals, renditions, Patriot Act, Iraq, Afghanistan, Predators, wiretaps and intercepts. And to the extent he has not — a trial for KSM in New York, a witch hunt against the former CIA interrogators, Miranda rights for the would-be Christmas Day bomber, proposed closing of Guantanamo — the people wonder: what in the hell is this guy doing? 2) Obama turned Bush’s misdemeanors, like deficits, borrowing, and new government programs, into felonies. So in comparison, Bush doesn’t look quite so bad now: next time Obama plays the “Bush Did it” card, the public will think either “Thank God” or “Yeah, but not as badly as you did”.
6) Race is a no-no: We have variously heard that opposition to Obama is based on: 1) right-wing, tea-party know-nothing angst; 2) greedy Wall Street profit-making to ensure riches for the elite; 3) narrowly-minded partisanship of Republicans that only want power for themselves rather than what is good for America; 4) the clueless American people and their “broken” system that hasn’t yet fathomed what a rare chance they have with a prophet like Obama who can lift them out of their NASCAR ignorance. All of those tropes either did not resonate or backfired. Obama laughing about “tea-baggers,” his “fat cats” quip, his “partisans and Washington insiders,” and the notion that Americans will come to appreciate health care once he forces it upon them — they all failed. What is left? The race card. Some of his own supporters have played it; other losing politicians like Gov. Paterson tried it. Yet it is a prescription for turning failure into catastrophe. Every time Obama got near racial grievance-mongering — the Rev. Wright mess, the “typical white person” slur, the clingers speech, the Holder “cowards” outburst, the Skip Gates “stereotyping” whine — he sunk in the polls or had to backtrack big time. The population is so tired of racial chauvinism, so multiracial itself, so convinced that constant affirmation action bromides, entitlements and guilt will not ipsis factis remedy problems in the black community, that a charge of racism against the society that elected its first black president will simply boomerang.
Bottom Line?
Can Obama recover in the midterm elections? Compare the following ifs: if the economy grows by 5% (it could, given the massive government borrowing) in the third quarter and unemployment goes below 8% (not likely) in a natural cycle of rebound; if Obama kills or catches Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden (kills is the operative word); if the Democrats clean house of Dodd, Rangel, Pelosi, Reid, etc. and start using old time (are any left?) centrists as their public spokespeople; if Obama himself shows more humility, drops the “I”s and “me”s, weans himself off the teleprompter, quits all the bowing and apologizing, and, Clinton-like, starts talking about balanced budgets, well, then there is a chance of recovery. But note if he were to do that, he would not be Obama as he has been for nearly the last half-century. More likely, he’s going to Carterize it to the end, and end up at 85 writing op-ed responses why he really, really was a great president nearly forty years prior.
Personal Notes.
1) Chilean Earthquake. I was much relieved to hear from my daughter Susannah, who has been teaching in Santiago for over the last year; she called and is safe and now wondering how to fly home (scheduled over three months ago to leave on [now canceled] March 3 on an American flight to Fresno, to be reset I think a few days later). Let us hope the news of damage is not as grievous as first reported.
2) Makers of Ancient Strategy (the Princeton press edited volume on ancient precursors to our modern war on terror concerns) comes out March 31. The Father of Us All (rewritten, expanded, and completely new essays on warring between a postmodern West versus and premodern other), appears from Bloomsbury on May 3rd. The final version of The End of Sparta (the novel about the freedom of the helots and the end of Sparta power) goes to the Bloomsbury editors on March 1 for publication in Spring 2011. I am half done with the Savior Generals, and currently deep into Procopius’s contradictory accounts of Belisarius, and eager to start on Scipio Africanus.
3) The cruise down the Danube this May, as the annual military history tour, had both additions and cancellations and is just about right now at about 55-60 participants. We might have opened a very few new slots, but I am not quite sure. (contact the website ad for details). We will have lots of guest lectures from historians and journalists, like Bruce Thornton, Joe Joffe, David Price-Jones, and Anton Pelinka. The military historian Tom Connor will do the on the bus lectures; I’ll talk mostly about WWII and the Ottoman invasions. This trip has everything from talks at Nuremberg and a visit to Hitler’s Eagle Nest, to stops along the Danube at battle sites during the Ottoman invasion and visits to museums like the Vienna’s famed War Museum.
4) Very relieved to see all the rain out here in central California. Just checked the water table in an old well outside my front door on the farm, and it’s come up quite a bit. The snow at Huntington Lake in the Sierra is quite unbelievable and I’ve gone up there a lot to do nothing other than dig — dig the roof, did out the walls, dig the patio, dig everything. I need to remember that all this snow is due to global warming, just as the last few scant years were too — just as the current wet year in the Valley, just as the past drought years, were as well.
5) We are thinking of having a climb to Kaiser Peak in early June, a rigorous ascent over 10,300 feet. I think I’ll post the date and say something like “a political discussion on the top of Kaiser Peak” — and then give the day and time, and hope someone makes it up to converse with who knows how many who will show up. The Hoover National Security Fellows (colonels in the various military branches) promise to make it.
6) Looking forward to the annual Blossom Trail blossom ride next Saturday, and a speaking trip to Alabama this week.
7) Remember — endless globally-warmed drought was not our preordained future here in California; Iraq was not “doomed” and “lost,” the EU was not the “ideal,” and “ a new permanent liberal majority” was never likely. Never give up hope…
“…if the economy grows by 5% (it could, given the massive government borrowing”
The typical purple and red state voter knows that that any economic uptick of roughly five percent is something of a dead cat bounce. And they represent the majority of Americans who will even bother to vote in an off year election. Our nation’s financial situation is similar to someone who is ninety five percent maxed out on their credit cards living high on the hog until the stuff finally hits the fan. Adam Smith once observed that all countries deeply mired in debt ultimately default on their debts. The Chinese and our other creditors are most assuredly well aware of this historical precedent. They no longer trust us to do the right thing.
Are you employed in the private sector? This may be the most important question to ask any voter. They have been targeted to pay for the big government schemes advanced by the Democrats and their “moderate” Republican allies. I am utterly convinced that the Democratic Party is no longer a national entity. It can only attract votes in solidly blue state areas. On a practical level, the Democrats have declared economic war on all red and purple state citizens. This will likely forevermore be the case. The Democrats have gone too far with their commitment to deficit spending. It is now part of their DNA.
In reviewing symptoms related to the President’s decline, VDH omits the more fundamental cause.
Candidate Obama was selected by the super delegates to be a congressional spokesmodel, without an independent agenda and power base. Essentially, they selected an empty suit to occupy the presidency so that the legislative branch could run wild, as it has.
Because he lacks an independent self in his utter selflessness, the President’s personal references (I, my) in speeches ring hollow. Obama lacks the personal characteristics that John Adams identified as necessary in the singular executive.
Obama can not recover because he need to do a clintonesque turn like 1994. For better or worse he is not a Clinton. Clinton was a natural cajoler and schmoozer. The be that you need to have a relative view on matters and morals, you are not that convinced of yourself and are more interested in getting what you need instead of worrying too much about how you get about it.
Obama wrote an autobiography when he was complete nobody, he is deep thinker, he wants to be right even if he needs to give up on the result, he is not into others unless others are a willing audience. He is about himself. He is not a sales guy or a deal maker, he is not about the customer. He will not bridge the divide, he is just too proud, too arrogant and too full of himself.
The “Bush did it” and “Race Card” have been beaten into glue-factory status.
People are now having to face the harsh reality of spending into oblivion and beyond. We have examples world-wide and in our own beloved country as to what happens when socialism eventually (as always) collapses and fails miserably.
On a personal note:
I’m relieved [too] for you that your daughter is safe. My daughter [only child] is the one person who keeps me going when I’m in my lowest, darkest place, as I’m sure your children must give you impetus to keep faith alive for them and our country.
Its an old observaiton (by now) but the most pertinent feature of Mr. Obama’s vita is his utter lack of life experiences in the real outside world. I know that is something of a cliche but it must always be remembered that we are dealing with a man who has spent most of his life in a series of almost hermetically-sealed environments (private school, Columbia and Harvard, Chicago politics, the Cook County Democratic Party, university lecturer etc.)Its almost like he was raised in an off-world space station by a tutorial staff of progressive elites and suddenly wound up running for President. One of my favorite tropes is Michelle Obama’s off-repeated assertion that “Barack could have made millions in private practice after Harvard but chose to work for the community.” I have always wanted to say to Mrs. O, “So What!” The private practice of law is bloody hard work whether you enter an established firm or hang out your own shingle and hustle for clients. No doubt Mr. Obama had plenty of offers from high-powered firms after Harvard. However those same firms expect you to bill hours and pay attention to the bottom line. One result though is that you learn the arts of negotiation, compromise and satisfying the needs of the client. “Going solo” is an even more educational experience since you have to convince people to let you represent them and become conversant in those areas of the law of most concern to the average Joes. In the first flush of Obama’s ascendency he was compared (sill is in some quarters) to Lincoln. We should never forget that Lincoln spent twenty years riding the rural circuit and made himself into a fine lawyer through hard-won experience and by taking every type of case that came to hand. Lincoln the speaker was light years ahead of Mr. Obama. Lincoln could scale the heights but mostly depended on homey eloquence and a language that spoke directly to the common man because he was “one of them.” Lincoln could do this because his life was filled with experiences (storekeeper, surveyor, flatboatman, Black Hawk war soldier, small-town lawyer) where he experienced hardship, failure and then success. It also gave his oratory a sense of humility – A quality to be prized in anyone in public life.
Glad to hear about Susannah. May your works and days continue to prosper.
Dr. Hanson:
A fine piece, as always. May I add a few embellishments?
(1) Money: In just over a year, Obama has so lowered our expectations of the POTUS that whenever he says or does something that would, pre-Obama, be nothing more than the absolute minimum expected of any rational president, he is praised, even by conservatives. So he garners praise when he says he won’t pass an Obamacare bill that raises the deficit, or when he suggests that he’s for limiting medical malpractice claims. But for him, it’s “just words,” words that mean whatever he wants them to mean at the moment, and that meaning never comports with what rational people understand such things to mean. The ability to warp reality to one’s desires must be heady stuff indeed.
(2) Style: Obama has worn so thin so quickly because he is not, in reality, a great orator. As a teacher of college speech, he would have rated no more than a C in my classes. He speaks with little vocal variety, dramatically dropping pitch, volume, speed and consonants at the ends of sentences. He speaks at length but says little, and his use of deception, misdirection, straw men, outright lies, anecdotal evidence to the exclusion of all other evidence, and an affected, pseudo evangelical style may fool those who want to be fooled, but not others. Don’t even get me started on the teleprompter.
(3) Laureate Warmaking: In the Army, a unit is considered combat ineffective if it loses 10% of its assigned manpower. The Army asked for 40,000 troops for Afghanistan, Obama sent 25% less manpower than they needed. For sending any at all, he was widely lauded, and this after taking three months to make the decision. Why three months? Probably because Obama has no idea how to make decisions and is very reluctant to make them, and because it took three months to be assured that there was simply no way even a radical socialist could just cut and run. Predator strikes? Any mistakes can be blamed on the CIA or the military whose personnel can be investigated and prosecuted.
(4) Saintly Partisanship: Again, partisanship means something very different to Obama and Democrats than to the rest of America. To a true socialist, any tactic is fair game on the road to the worker’s paradise and ultimate government control, so there is no hypocrisy, only those who stand in the way of the glorious, inevitable people’s revolution. “Reaching out” simply means “I’ll give the appearance of giving you the opportunity to do it my way.”
(5) Bush Did It: This whine will never stop. It’s too useful to a President who must, due to rigid ideology and debilitating arrogance, have an evil other to blame as a means of rallying the faithful. Insurance companies, drug companies, bankers, business, you name it, but Bush and Cheney are the ultimate socialist boogie men. Let’s not forget that Obama even insulted Nancy Reagan (!?). Politically tone deaf? Something no rational politician would do? Of course. But Obama and many of his followers are anything but rational. “Bush Did It” will be with us as long as Obama is in office, and probably longer.
(6) Race: Obama and his followers will never abandon the race card either. Obama has alternately been the Hawaiian president, the Pacific President, the Kenyan President, the post-racial president, yet his two (!?) biographies are full of racial angst. Eric Holder berates America for cowardice for insufficient whining about race. Race, like Bush bashing, is just too useful to the socialist. Americans would like most things, but particularly this, to be about character and merit. Obama and his acolytes will never allow that.
Bottom Line: We are left with a POTUS who constantly and blatantly lies, is hopelessly narcissistic and arrogant, spits on our allies and bows to our enemies, has a spine of jelly, thinks terrorists are shoplifters due constitutional rights and CIA agents and republican Justice Department lawyers should be imprisoned, is determined to achieve supreme governmental power over all Americans and is determined to spend America into bankruptcy and destruction. While I am optimistic about Americans and America, Obama can and will do serious damage (he already has) that will take generations to erase. It is a supreme irony that in the Obamacare debacle, America’s salvation rests on the slim hope that a handful of Congressional Democrats will behave like conventionally venal politicians more interested in saving their electoral hides than in multi million dollar earmark brides or pursuing the glorious socialist revolution.
More high quality stuff from VDH … thanks!!!
I wonder when the wheels started coming off the Obambi bus and I think back to the Nobel PP. The pro-Barry types I know just couldn’t bring themselves to defend his being bequeathed by the Wizards of Oslo, which was unlike their stubborn defense of other oddities this administration (and, BHO, the person) had undertaken.
On BHO’s tacking to the center … not a chance. I’ve long said that BHO will become–is practically pre-ordained–to become the next Carter.
Our man-child president, brought to you by means of Affirmative Action, and his equally immature supporters clearly still need adult supervision; the Woodstock concert is over. In addition, many other countries still need the supervision of an “adult” America for something positive to strive towards and so that they do not self destruct.
I like your (new, seems to me) “Personal Notes” section. It humanizes you. (not saying that you needed “humanizing” necessarily — in fact if anything, you are the most down-to-earth professor-columnist-blogger-author out there! :-)
Here’s a personal note from me: I’m embarrassed that I don’t remember more than a modicum of Latin from high school and am forced to look up many of your your Latin phrases. Shame on me for not studying harder!
Scipio Africanus: The Ulysses S. Grant of the Punic Wars!
“Reconciliation” will transform a Democratic Waterloo into a Democratic Stalingrad.
A lesson for the incumbent California Governor and incumbent President: When a hero enters the capital on a white horse, he better stay in the saddle, because if ever knocked off it is impossible to re-mount.
you have made a nice list of Obama’s good points.
ok he has no good points. it is surprising to find that there is nothing good about him or what he has done or wants to do. nothing … truly remarkable.
how did such a poser / fraud become the president of the USA.
I look at what is happening and can only think that it was a different race / group that put a man on the moon. the clowns I see now couldn’t do it.
Mike McD- great stuff. Your comments about BHO’s minor league speaking ability are very interesting (as are your other points too).
I suppose if you get a large crowd, the conclusion is one is a good speaker. Beyond the large crowds, the accolades were paper thin. The “ums” and “ah’s” in front of the Roman columns were comical.
Isn’t it great we have three more years of destruction. Full steam Captain Obama, the iceberg is straight ahead !
Dr. Hanson, I’m glad to hear your daughter is safe. I saw some of the footage on the news and the devastation in Chile is horrifying. Let’s hope your daughter gets out of Santiago and onto solid ground soon, and that there’s as much support for the people of Chile who have survived this natural disaster.
As for this week’s gem, what can we all say … right in the money again!
I will say that if the economy rebounds, 5% won’t be known till well into 2011, and that it’s expected that it will ge there based on activity in the latter part of this year, 2010. It’s doubtful people will get a sense of the economic recovery in their pocket books any time soon.
Between politics at 10,300 feet, life in the mountains – despite digging out, and that it does actually rain in California, lifestyle on the “left coast” sounds so good I’d almost consider giving up our gold medal hockey win and be a count of one to reverse the tide of population in your state.
When my two young sons are a little older, we will definitely be finding our way into the mountains. The first Kaiser Peak climb or some such other peak, possible, I will be there with the boys… sounds like a great time.
Let’s assume that spending by the trillions doesn’t make sense or we can’t pay it. Let’s assume the Republicans assume the next government wave, THEY will have to deal with the ‘mess’, just like now we are dealing with the Bush mess.
So, what’s new?
Dr Hanson,
As always, great post. For me it comes down to three characteristics that have by far exceeded my tolerance level.
1. Narcissistic arrogance. This very unpleasant trait seems to increase over time.
2. Continual lying. Clinton could lie and still come accross as a “loveable” rogue. Obama’s never ending cascade of half truths and outright lies have no redeeming features.
3. All pervasive incompetence. I can think of nothing the administration has done that has given a feeling of confident control. from franticaly passing the stimulus package to have it sit on his desk (unpublished on the internet) to trials in NYC to engagement with enemies while insulting our freinds, to just about everything else – the image projected is the gang that couldn’t shoot straight in very dangerous times. Not even the Twilight Zone could capture the thought of entrusting comprehensive reform to this crowd.
There has never been any doubts in my mind that Obama is only a figurehead of the forces that have for a long time planned the dsestruction of AMERICA.
They have, indeed, succeded in inflicting enormous, probably irreparable damage on your country.
Being only the figurehead though and whose mind have been thoroughly poisoned by delusions of his own grandieur (how typically for any wanna be despot) he was totally incapable of envisaging the backlash he generated would come so early and be so fearsome.
He has DAMAGED America, but not enough to destroy her and in that he has showed also a breathtaking ineptitude; he hasn’t fulfilled the task that has been ascribed to him by America’s enemies.
Slowly, he himself begins to realise that he won’t be able to achieve his (or rather his sponsors’) strategy and begins seeing himself like a cornered dog.
Hence his and his cohorts’ Pelosi, Reid, Rahm and others desperate attempts to ram their insane, destructive social hallucinations through the degenerate, communist dominated “congress”, regardless of the political consequences of such a move.
There is a chance that the TRAITIORS can be stopped so it is a high time for my American friends begin to ponder the appriopriate ounishment for them…
Appology for my English; it is entirely self-taught.
However, I have had the best years of my life destroyed while living under the whip of SOCIALISM and my heart weeps when I see your own communo-fascists drive your great country down to the gutter…
Dr. Hanson: Do you mock us lowly authors and our futile efforts at submitting manuscripts with your “I’ve got 3-4 books in the mill” juxtaposed with the I’m-a-farmer-climber-cruise director speakage? Heaven help me if I’m not totally blown away with your skill at the pen simply in the text of your arguments, but to PS me with your red-cape-waving is simply beyond the pale. Sheeesh, if you can’t tell, someday I hope I can live out my days in similar fashion. Keep up the good work. :)
Other than those few minor quibbling points, Victor, what do think of Obama and his administration?
Excellent post, very positive in tone. As to your closer, I’d amend it to, “Never give up” . You certainly should remember that Hope was the last thing to come out of Pandora’s Box and we’ve already had quite enough.
We are tired of Obama because he really isn’t that likeable and has little to offer. When he doesn’t get his way, the real guy shows up, as he did last week when Paul Ryan was speaking. BHO has spent his adult life agitating and promoting himself so I guess it’s not surprising that is how he is approaching the presidency.
We need to sacrifice everything for the
“Divine Emperor”
Nancy thinks her job is safe.
Where does an ex-congressman-woman get a job?
Nurse Nancy!
“end up at 85 writing op-ed pieces” I think not. This administration is going to end badly. After extensive auditing, a great number of the staff and accomplices will end up in Federal prison. With many facing stiff penalties the proof of corrupt practices and larceny will produce a distinctly different respite for the BHO.
Great to hear your daughter is safe!
History taught these wonderful people to build structurally sound,
earthquake resistant buildings.
Notice that most of the structures still stand.
Haiti,
unfortunately, was not as prepared.
Victor, well done and keep up the hard work. For many of us , our work, our churches, our families and friends is the salve through all of this current cacophony of chaos in our lives. This too, shall pass.
The “How can Obama save his presidency” is predicated on the problem not being Obama himself. He’s not going to fix that. He can get the best advisers in the world, he’ll still make the wrong decision. He can’t come up with new policies because he is a mindless leftist ideologue. The biggest lie the press pushed about Obama was his divine intellect. I laugh at the superior intellect.
As to Obama’s rhetoric, he was and sometimes still is compared to Churchill. I don’t see it myself but, alas, I do see a similarity between Obama and Churchill’s predecessor.
Dr Hanson,
I am eagerly awaiting your take on Scipio and Belisarius. I am currently finishing Ian Hughes’ Belisarius: The Last Roman General and find it interesting. I am not sure if Belisarius is of quite the same caliber as Scipio, at least as described by B.H.L. Hart’s biography of him in Scipio Africanus: Greater than Napoleon. Your opinion on the matter would be very interesting.
I am really surprised that no one has mentioned the White Elephant in the room in relation to Obama’s poor performance. Obama’s prior White House experience was nil. His Senate experience and prior Chicago legislative history was largely comprised of ‘present’ votes. Never before in American history has a president been elected with a complete dirth of real world experience. The US press is partly to blame for the lack of vetting. Can you name a single Obama girl friend or best friend from his life that has been profiled in the press? It is as if Obama just appeared on day and registered to run for president. We really know nothing about him since he refused to release his college transcripts and papers like previous presidents did.
Victor
Having traveled down the Danube a few years ago for my honeymoon, I can reccomend the Serbian military museum in Belgrade. Not sure if you are going that far of course :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Museum_Belgrade
Corpse-man. CInco de Quatro. 57 states with one more to go. THese are the less offensive ones.
What about “I had car insurance, but it wasn’t real insurance, didn’t pay for my car damage”. As if he didn’t know the difference between comprehensive and liability, and which applied in the case of the accident he discussed. I’d bet my LIFE that this incident never happened, that he made it up to make a ‘point’ that was actually inane and stupid but which he thought was clever and compelling. Not “real” insurance indeed.
What about the comparison between the post office and UPS/Fedex? That was supposed to make us want to put government in charge of things, remember? “the post office is the one having all the problems”. Or what about his assertion to Stephy that everyone has to buy car insurance and they don’t think of it as a tax, so they wouldn’t think that of health ins. either…..?
Of course, only people who DRIVE have to buy car insurance. Driving is a choice and a privilege. GOvernment health insurance would be NO CHOICE AT ALL. THat’s called a tax, especially when you’re fined or otherwise punished for not buying it.
Obama seldom misses a chance to show how dull and uninterested he really is in what he’s doing. It’s still sort of shocking to see the difference between what his supporters thought he was and what he actually turned out to be.
Nobody yet has noticed that in the corpse-man speech, he called the young corpsman TWO DIFFERENT NAMES IN TEN SECONDS… his name was either Christian or CHristopher, so Obama hedged his bets and called him both. Or else, as usual, he wasn’t interested enough to pay enough attention to get that point right either.
Have we ever had a president in the history of our republic who within thirteen months of his inauguration caused a spontaneous, grassroots, mass movement in opposition to him and his policies? Only Abraham Lincoln comes to mind, but Lincoln and Obama could not be more dissimilar. One chose to unite the country and put an end to race slavery; the other uses race to keep the country divided.
The curious thing is that the citizenry of a republic is generally slow to anger unless provoked by a foreign power. Well, Mr. Obama’s weltanschauung is foreign, even alien, to traditional American culture and values. He must have been asleep in history class during the lesson on how America was founded in opposition to European despotism. It’s rather too late to offer him the remedial course.
The three great strands of American culture, Judeo-Christian morality, Greco-Roman philosophy, and Anglo-Saxon law, have deep roots going back millenia. Marxism is just “the latest fashion from Paris” as my former professor and mentor used to say. I think America is reacting as the Founding Fathers knew it would. The crisis is far from over, but the forces of righteousness are fully mobilized and on the field. Republics have remarkable recuperative powers.
And don’t forget the woman who died of breast cancer because she didn’t have insurance. Couldn’t afford it. Buried in an Obama T shirt.
THe woman was a long time leftist activist and lesbian who worked hard on the Obama campaign. She had insurance, having chosen to buy high deductible catastrophic-style health insurance in order to sink her resources into her new small business. Her choice, her right, but certainly a choice SHE made for which other Americans are NOT responsible. Then, when she discovered a lump in her breast, she CHOSE to do nothing about it for a YEAR!!! Denial. IN her own words she felt it was ‘her only option’. She made no attempt to find or raise or ask for the money for exams and diagnoses and treatments, which in the first year would have been several thousand dollars because of her choice of insurance policy. She did NOTHING, during which the cancer spread quickly, as it will do when you do nothing about it.
And she resorted to medicaid after she couldn’t work anymore, so she had insurance right ’til the end. At the end, her doctor proposed an experimental treatment which Medicaid wouldn’t pay for. GOVERNMENT INSURANCE would not pay for.
The entire story is phony, misstated and overwrought, right up to the ‘buried in an Obama T shirt” part… she was cremated.
As usual, David Thomson #1 is right. The private sector is expected to foot the bill for all this. But, and this is a big “but”, the contraction in the public sector is already underway. Union members who were assured of a secure financial future are losing government jobs at the state and local levels. School districts are outsourcing jobs, like bus service and custodial work, to the private sector. Universities, hard-hit by the contracting economy, are increasingly offering degrees online, no campus classroom attendance needed, in an effort to save themselves. Staff needed to operate buildings can now be let go. It’s only a matter of time before this reaches the federal level. Without a vigorous economy, those government union contracts mean nothing. Try explaining that to people whose votes you bought with promises you can’t keep!
One of the revealing moments of Obama’s speech making was his story about his car and the insurance company laughing at him when he tried to get his car fixed. He obviously knows nothing about auto insurance. When someone runs into the rear of your car, it is his fault and you call his insurance company, not your own. Obama doesn’t know that. If you buy only the liability coverage that is required by law, it is not the insurance company’s fault that you don’t have coverage for your own car. The fact that he doesn’t know this, and he is planning to completely replace American health insurance, is one more example of incredible incompetence. How do you get to be 46 and not know how auto insurance works ? Maybe he was raised in a bubble.
I think also that Obama’s intelligence has been highly over rated. He is really not that informed on things such as world history, language, philosophy, theology, or science and his speeches show it. Apparently his gang of Chicago thugs in the white house are not that well educated either. He has perfected the arrogance and know it all persona of a University professor while lacking any particular erudition. After all Political Science is an ersatz science which gives the student a sense that knowing absolutely nothing is a goal to be sought and skill in big city politics is no more than skill in being a successful gangster.
As usual, Dr. Hanson demonstrates the wisdom of an educated, gentleman farmer. Obama’s election will surely signal the end of the special privileges of American Blacks reflected in affirmative action and indemnification of racial and hate speech. The public at large is sick of being called racist after electing a black President and the Race business of Rev’s Jesse and Al may face a serious downturn. Only the established welfare class wants increased taxes and this is to exactly what Obama’s support base will shrink.
Obama economics is most clearly on display in his surprise and disbelief that his automoblie liability insurance wouldn’t pay to repair his old car after a collision. What competent lawyer doesn’t understand that? I think he was probably lying as insurance companies make you turn down comprehensive and collision insurance in writing when purchasing liability insurance because people have tried to play the stupid card before. The real answer is he thinks his audience is stupid and it shows through.
Why so quickly? Because we have all witnessed this before. In the private sector, Obama would be the classic All-Sizzle-No-Steak recruiting mistake.
The people working for this person recognize them to be a severe error long before the top executives. The underlings have to put up with the denial. The failure of the organization under this individual is blamed for the lack of performance and is demonized as being unsupportive. This is particularly true if the bad-hire is an Affirmative Action hire.
The bottom line is excellence comes in all colors and genders. Excellence (or the lack thereof) is becomes apparent quickly. Obama is incompetent. He is an unbending ideologue. He will go down as the most ineffective and damaging President in history.
The thing is, we expect Obama to behave as a normal person. That is, to think through policies, to listen to criticism, to work with the people. We expect him to be ‘one among equals’.
Instead, we are treated to someone who constantly reminds us that he is the President, who expects deference and acceptance of His Will, who lectures us endlessly on that Will and our incompetence. Who apologizes to the world for our existence and tells that world that now that He is in charge, we will not be allowed such bad behavior.
Who insults our allies, informing them that HE is ‘top gun’; who gives the Queen of England an ipod of His speeches and bows to those who insult us – thereby informing them that their insults were to the previous administration not to Him.
Obama is not psychologically normal. This is crucial in understanding him. It isn’t that he’s a narcissist which some can trivialize to ‘all politicians are narcissists’. Obama is a pathological narcissist and that is very dangerous in a situation where that individual has great power.
Obama lives within a ‘virtual’ world, a world created by him as Author and Owner. No-one else is allowed to author the narrative of this virtual world. He must control this world which means that he cannot allow the real world to intrude and affect its narrative. He probably moved into this world as a young boy and it’s incurable.
He deals with Outsiders to this world by three tactics: misinformation or constant lying, evasions, sidesteps, red herrings; and emotional manipulation using fear and hope. These are meant to subdue and overpower the Outsider who must bend to Obama’s Will.
Finally, if you dissent from him, he’ll attack, he’ll accuse you of bias, you are racist or ignorant. If you continue to reject him, you literally cease to exist for Obama. This is also the case for anyone who is outside of his reach.
Obama was utterly indifferent to the Iranian demonstrators for democracy. Why? Two reasons: they wanted democracy rather than Obama; and, they were outside of his reach to affect them and turn them into followers-of-Obama. Therefore, these people had no reality for Obama. They did not exist.
Obama will do the same with hardcore dissenters or people who make trouble in his narrative. They will cease to exist for him. That includes Americans who reject him.
Therefore, we see him constantly lecturing to us, each speech more misinformed and devious, and telling us that the reason we reject His Will is due to our Wilful Ignorance.
If you reject his Will, Obama can’t handle it. He can’t do a Clinton-turn; he can’t accept your Outsider intrusion into His world because that would put YOU in power. Obama’s pathology cannot handle anyone in power but himself. Therefore, Americans may not want health care but Obama MUST force it on you because he requires that he, in his virtual world, be in total control.
As for the ideologues, the radical socialists who run the policies of Obama, their agenda is to insert a statist socialist infrastructure into the USA. No people, of their own free will, choose to give up their freedom to an all-powerful govt. This is not a choice of Americans. It’s an agenda of a set of radical socialists who have govt power.
What we can hope for is the 2010 elections will weaken the socialist agenda, and that Obama will be moved to a situation where he is further cocooned from reality. That is, my hope is that he won’t run for a second term but will move to that corporation that lives entirely, completely, in a virtual world – the UN. There, he can pontificate and preach, sheltered from reality.
After reading Chait, Klein, Rich last week and hearing Krugman on ABC THis Week, I have come to the conclusion Obama has Dumbed Down America—especially these guys.
Obama ran on nothing more than Hopey Changey and a Bob The Builder slogan (Yes We Can!).
Since, the only successes have been a repeat of Bush Policy.
They can’t defend, so they make things up and target Tea Party and Sarah Palin.
Every time they try to defend Obama, they sound—–dumb.
It’s a theme that needs to be picked up on—-because it’s true. Can you imagine? The smartest Presentency (misspell on purpose) evah—–making people dumber?
FROM POWERLINE: You really shouldn’t read the New York Times. It has lower editorial standards than any other newspaper in America, and if you read it enough, it could make you stupid. Like Frank Rich.
http://powerlineblog.com/
chambers:
Excellent points contrasting Obama with Lincoln.
cabeza de vaca:
The fraud Obama became president because too many people get their information from the MSM, which finally completed their abdication of their responsibilities and went into the tank for Obama. Righting the ship includes joining Andrew Breitbart and others in attacking schlock journalism.
I guess it’s good that we have all survived to the point where naming his fraud-based personal characteristics and listing his disqualifications for leadership are making more and more sense to more and more people. However, it’s depressing as well because the list (very well done by VDH) is usually nothing more than the details of what normal people suspected and were instinctively horrified by no later than the summer of 2008.
A chief reason for Obama decline is that he is a unending scold.
He is the nagging spouse. Neverendingly nagging about the supposed “faults” of everyone around them while he hides in the corner toking on a cig and swilling too much booze. Now some of the adolescents who make up the left love having a nanny constant berating them but the grown ups in America hardly need a man of such limited real accomplishments telling them how to live their lives.
PS. What do you think the MSM would do to GW Bush if his doctors had told him he FINALLY needed to stop smoking and to moderate the amount of alcohol he was drinking? Bush’s entire agenda would have been derailed because the MSM would have hounded every interview, every speech and every newscast with constant charges of a hypocracy that healthcare messiah is unable to control his own health.
Another good article. Glad your daughter is okay. Would love to hear you speak and meet you when you come to Alabama–but maybe you can write a little note about it. Have had a good, cold winter this year (thanks to global warming!), not long before all the plants start ‘greening’ up and will be pretty here–again–thanks to global warming. I’m wondering–and I’m way off subject–just wondering if global warming will help me wash the clothes, vacuum, etc.
One other thought–this is just wishful thinking–IMPEACH!!!
I find it more disturbing that the few people who are left that actually support him, find his utter contempt of the average American so fantastic.(no matter what race, etc., uh, we are ALL Americans)
I have never met a Man or Woman with less class and composure and maturity as TOTUS.
I can only hope that 2010 and 2012 will be a full clock cleaning and for once and for all; put the Woodstock crowd to bed! If not, then charges of Treason will be the order of the day.
ENOUGH!!!
What drives me nuts about Obama is that he stands up and says, “I’m going to freeze spending on some programs, something that will save this country about $25 billion a year.” Then, right after that, he will propose spending about $100 billion to assist people facing foreclosure and then billions more on additional “stimulus,” excuse me, “jobs” bills. And he never seems to want to say where the trillions of dollars will come from for healthcare and the trillions more if “Cap and Trade” is passed. Does he really think people are that stupid in this country? Remember, this is the same guy who held a news conference last year promoting the fact that his “task force” saved the American tax payer a whopping $100 million (that’s right folks, he said MILLION) dollars by buying stationery in bulk. That won’t even pay the interest on our national debt for one week! Well, I think the American public is finally getting wise to what Obama really is, and that’s a cut-rate used car salesman, pushing the same old far-left liberal policies democrats have always pushed, only with a new face. This guy really needs to be voted out of office in 2012.
This doesn’t fit your narative VDH but most leftists consider Obama to be a craven centrist in the mold of Lieberman or Nelson. His alleged liberalism is only skin deep and found in the eyes of his ultra conservative detractors.
Normally I enjoy reading vDH but this one falls flat. Obama’s evident narcissism, contempt for peers, shallow experience have nothing to do with socialism or its western European cousin social democracy. Instead Obama is doing exactly what the banks, defense contractors, generals want him to do. Obama’s end game? The source of his obsequeous behaviour toward his alleged natural enemies on the right? Answer: A multi million dollar advance on his book deal. He’s thoroughly capitalistic in all his descisions.
#5 – “a man who has spent most of his life in a series of almost hermetically-sealed environments”
I am certain one could run wild with “The Truman Show” metaphors if they had the mind too. Whatever they might be I doubt it is going to end with millions cheering him on at the end.
If “Americans don’t like magnanimity with other people’s money”, they sure have a funny way of showing it the last 50 years.
“Hard-nosed Republicans senators”? WHAT? WHO?
You mean “leader” Howdy Doodie McConnel? Pretty boy Beaner (sic)? Bozo McCain?
Time the GOP grew a pair by replacing the whole bunch with copies of Joe the Plumber.
“wages of hypocrisy”? Where? When? No American in life public or pubic has ever paid a penny for their hypocrisy.
“a charge of racism against the society that elected its first black president will simply boomerang”
No it won’t. Not for the dumbed down public. Obama’s already begun a Cold Race War, now murmuring in the media.
As he fails, he’ll ramp it up to Hot.
#4 Delia: “We have examples world-wide . . . what happens when socialism . . . collapses …”
Yeah! the Left brings out their guns and forces you to see it their way (Stalin 40M, Mao 70M murdered with their own uncollectivized tools of employment).
Don’t fool yourself that they’ll go “gently into that good night”. The Dems and their Mad Left will take us all the way down to Mad Max territory.
And they still, like Gemma Carter, will not relent.
Arrogance: The new president went on a world wide tour to apologize for American arrogance. In his health care debate where he was president, moderator, and advocate, he demonstrated continually the heights of his own arrogance. Now with reconciliation on the table, another pinnacle of arrogance is in sight. Will the president take an apology tour of the U.S. to beg off his own outrageous elitist attitudes? Who else would try to spend their way out of debt?
. . . and the relentless chorus of criticism, earned and baseless, from the right wing media machine
” greedy Wall Street profit-making to ensure riches for the elite”
This is just WRONG. Wall Street profit hounds are DEMOCRATs. The notion that Wall Street is conservative or republican is nonsense, and can only be held by those that have never worked on Wall Street.
So when are 20,000,000 of us going to travel to DC and make ourselves REALLY heard by these sonsabitches?
We could have one hell of a torchlight parade.
Today, TOTUS is going to ‘speechify’ us with his valuable thoughts on the subject of High School Dropouts.
Perhaps, this would be a superb moment to release his H.S. and College transcripts to prove how ‘important’ education is! I am sure there are MANY kids in our country who would appreciate how hard he worked, etc. and see the amount of work and blood, sweat and tears that put him where he is today.
bwaaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaa!
Oh, never mind….we don’t need any more stinkin’ community organizers!
Another great VDH piece with a glaring mar, the ‘whining’ label toswed at Hillary for no reason.
So she tells COngress the deficit is a danger, as every conservative would agree, and VDH lables her as ‘whining’
-sigh-
These expositions are clarifying and nurture the hope that electoral change in 2010 may blunt the worst of the Obama, Pelosi, and Reid socialist agenda; and perhaps even mount something of a reversal or course correction. Nevertheless, we live with great uncertainty and the precarious possibility that things could get very much worse very quickly.
A few years ago it was fashionable to characterize G. W. Bush as a buffoon cowboy president. This was more a reflection of popular derision that actual fact. However, in President Obama, we have a genuine incompetent who at best will be the equal of Jimmy Carter, and at worst, could well precipitate the greatest down-slide this nation has ever known.
It is not enough to expose the problems we face or fret about the consequences. Anyone of means and productivity should be planning now for a long hardship and anticipating extreme events.
cabeza de vaca wrote “how did such a poser / fraud become the president of the USA?”
More specifically: how could so many voters be fooled into thinking there was any substance to Obama? It’s our education, that’s how. Social studies classes only teach the liberal point of view. Repression of minorities & women, Japanese internment, American aggression in foreign lands, Watergate — all are what it means to be American, and we must atone for our sins.
Too bad our high schools and universities are so good at churning out well-meaning-but-vapid nonthinkers.
Anyone out there miss me yet?
I always enjoy the professors articles and am never surprised by their insight since the intellect that I recognize from his books is a given. I am, however, consistently surprised by some of the comments. There are some very gifted and intelligent folks that participate in these forums. #5 and #41 today were remarkably insightful and well written. btw, professor are you trying to outwork WFB? If that is your objective, were he still here with us, I would imagine he would be looking over his shoulder with an encouraging grin.
Obama’s chief problem is that he is less than mediocre.Hired by the globalist plutocracy (Soros and Wall st.) to turn the US into a clone of Mexico,the little Chavez wannabee is simply not up to the task. He was unable to mobilize the hysterics who elected him to destroy dissent by re-imposing the fairness doctrine,making it impossible to mobilize the opposition.He failed to shut down Fox,ban guns, and use National Security as an excuse, to persecute conservatives.He assumed that the average American would stay as stupid as his base,and that the Obama lickspittle media was still “mainstream”and therefore able to indoctrinate the nation in Obamaphilia.It isn’t and it couldn’t. Obama is a failure,and so is the affirmative action fixation of the leftist millionaire scum who hired him.watch for the imcreasingly desperate,increasingly irrational president return to his crypto Stalinist roots,as he attempts to govern against the constitution. This is going to be fun.
PBO is the crowning achievement of the ME generation–a liberal token. They have lead us from the pinnacle of post-war power to bankruptcy in one generation.
I believe voters are horrified at the rate of small businesses closing in a year or less. Everywhere I go I see new and used car dealers out of business, storefronts in pretty Litchfield county downtown areas shuttered, second home owners renting out their property for the first time, seniors depending on bank stock dividends wiped out, and on and on.
It’s more a case of Republican Fatigue: why do conservative keep voting in such bad, worthless people like Inhofe? And even before Obama took office, the signs were all out by the usual right wing numbnuts that every single thing he would try to do, regardless of merit, would be met with stiff, crybaby, <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/dday/voinovich-admits-gop-opposes-health-care-refo"moronic opposition and smear attacks by the right — who for the record, are *always* wrong.
I didn’t like Obama from the gitgo and since I make no claims to brilliance I can only assume that millions who voted for him did so by willfully denying what was obvious to them as well: that here was a prime example of a very common type: the arrogant fool.
I give you props, VDH. You’re willing to post opposing opinions, whereas most of the writers here are too weak-kneed and tentative to sustain any heat put on their assertions.
I don’t agree with you, but I respect you.
HOW CAN SUCH A PERSON INSPIRE SO MUCH HATE AND REMAIN OBLIVIOUS TO IT?OBAMA DOES THAT REAL WELL.
ONE OF HIS STAFF SAYS HE SEES PROBLEMS BEFORE THEY OCCUR AND CORRECTS THEM.SHE IS OBLIVIOUS TO WHAT IS HAPPENING.THE WHOLE WHITE HOUSE GANG MUST BE DRINKING SOMETHING OTHER THAN WATER!
60. George W. Bush: “Anyone out there miss me yet?”
We’d love to miss you, W, but considering Iraq and other work you started and left undone, you’re very much – too much – still with us. Mission Unaccomplished!
68. John Calomiris: “HOW CAN SUCH A PERSON INSPIRE SO MUCH HATE….”
John, shhh! You’re giving the game away! Don’t you know the party line? It’s the LEFT that hates.
Hey George W Bush!!! I certainly miss you!
“28. Alex Bensky:
As to Obama’s rhetoric, he was and sometimes still is compared to Churchill. I don’t see it myself …”
That’s Wade Churchill, Alex … they meant Wade, not Winston ;-)
15.Anonymous … that’s me… touching the iPhone in the wrong place yields lots of mistakes and mistaken identity…
Hmmm, VDH, more disturbing signs that your muse is hibernating? ANOTHER bash Obama piece? And the sad part is that it seems to strike some around here as brilliant. Tsk, tsk.
The country does not like being in a deep recession and Obama has not taken us out of it yet, so he will hardly retain lustre in that scenario.
Anyway, try to picture GWB or Palin chairing the last sharing of opinions with the Congressional people. Obama is only human, for sure, but you guys have ODS so bad, that you are blinded to anything close to objectivity, BUT, obviously, your derangement, like that of the lefties several years ago with GWB, permits you one way to get up and face another difficult day. Carry on..
#32 & #34 posts by Dave in Dallas, that is absolutely scathing detail. How the media misses stuff like this is shameful.
I’d like to be able to say Obama is simply an embarrassment; an adolescent who rode a wave into a position for which he is entirely unprepared.
But the problem is that he isn’t just a kid on a joyride. The college gabfests have turned into meetings from which he directs events that control our lives and ruin our country. His risk game is now life-or-death geopolitics.
But he is still that dorm room impresario, as committed now to his adolescent fantasies as he was then, as angry now
about his perceived injustices as he was then, and as determined to get his revenge now as he was them.
What I’m experiencing isn’t even close to fatique. It’s fear. What he has already destroyed will take a generation to repair, and he hasn’t even scratched the surface. In 3 more years he can wind the country politically back to the 1760′s. And that isn’t even the greatest danger.
1. Obama doesn’t seem to understand that, even if he loses a battle or two, he still could win the (political) war like Clinton did. He needs to jettison the medical-insurance scheme, because the money and the political capital aren’t there for it. He needs to forget cap-and-trade, because the economics don’t work and the already-dodgy science behind it has disintegrated completely. After this, he could re-tool and still come out a winner. I don’t think he’ll do this, but I would like to see him try instead of continuing to double down on stupid.
2. Most presidents score points with the public by relating personal anecdotes – Truman and Reagan were famous for it. Obama, on the other hand, shouldn’t do this. Obama’s personal anecdotes have a kind of “Huh?” subtext to them, and just leave people scratching their heads. The car-insurance story was one example; does Obama really not understand that, if he was rear-ended, the other driver’s insurance should pay for the damages? Or grasp the difference between liability, collision, and comprehensive coverage?
3. To a certain extent, the president’s friends and allies in the media have done this to him with their doe-eyed overreporting of his activities. I realize that most things presidents do are newsworthy, but, ee-gad… it’s possible to be overexposed, even for presidents.
An excellent analysis. There has been too much of him,’ I, me, I am the President, I got elected.’ What is so strange is that he lied while campaigning about not being partisan and that he should bring change. Yet, he was a real radical leftist socialist pacifist from his Chicago days. He has never been a centrist as IBD wrote today. He has always been a lefty and his agendas will not be compromised and prayerfully, he will lose big time in Nov. Tired? You bet. Like the latter days of FDR, Clinton, Nixon, LBJ, the last year of W, people may just turn off and tune out. And Americans are doing this now because Obama has simply left the American Way while he promised another way when campaigning. The most radical Prez in my 71 years and I am sick and tired of not only him but every Dem elected official: in state legislatures as well as Congress.
All the way back to comment #1 by Mr.Thomson: This is so very right. The Progressives have no choice but to continue to double down and enlarge deficits. They almost have to continue on to full blown socialism at this point. Getting back to a sustainable deficit level is not possible without sacrificing pet causes, reversing programs and public employee levels and disappointing entitlement constituencies. And you know that this is not something they will or can do.
And speaking of the private sector, Mr. Thomson is right on again. Government growth comes at the expense of private sector health and opportunity. This is axiomatic.
When those of us not on the government gravy train get around to seeing how much we have been had by our bloated government and its greedy public employee unions – the only politicians that will be electable will be those promising to reduce government dramatically and commit to the long fight to unravel and reverse its course. That will be the new “hope and change” for coming elections.
Every person reading VDH will be somewhat in agreement on the present and future of the Obama presidency. I believe even a large number of the Elite Political Class understand the Obama Mistake.
What remains a mystery to me is the MSM.
Media types like Paul Krugman are still protecting Obama, the person. You couldn’t shut up Ron Brownstein on NBC Sunday, with his talking about the Obama Health Care and his genius on holding the meeting with the Republicans, And, how Obama just run over all of the Republicans. Obama is just too smart and beautiful. Same for Mara Liason on Fox, she just loves that Obama is POTUS and W Bush is out.
Boy, I had to turn it off, the Washington Inside the beltway group is still on board the Obama band wagon.
How long do we have to wait until the American Voter understands that Obama is in over his head.
Hopefully, we will have “Republican” Party give us a opportunity to vote for conservative, over a John McCain type federalist.
Obama Fatigue. Tired. All Worn Out. Weary. Sick of Trying. Before you know it, you’re Tired of Living. But What’s-His-Name, Li’l Old Barry Obama, He keeps Rolling Along.
Wake up! Ask for his I. D. at least.
Bill Katz at his terrific blog URGENT AGENDA made these observations about our president…
1. He has no sense of humor. I worry about people with no sense of humor. As an old comedy writer, I know that they generally are fearful and take themselves much too seriously. Lincoln had a great sense of humor. So did Teddy Roosevelt and his cousin, Franklin. Truman was devilish. JFK – fine sense of humor, although he was otherwise cold. Reagan had a wonderful sense of humor.
That doesn’t mean you can’t be a good president without a sense of humor. Eisenhower wasn’t a barrel of laughs, but acquitted himself well. However, looking at the list of the standouts, it seems to help a great deal. One of Nixon’s problems was that he was humorless. Mimic Rich Little did an impression of Nixon, in front of Nixon, and Nixon wouldn’t even smile.
2. Nobody seems to like him. Have you ever heard a warm story about Barack Obama? Have you ever heard of him doing a personal favor, without a camera present? People talk about him in the most distant terms. I have a feeling that, if I had a beer with him, he’d ask me my grade-point average. When he first came in, people took to him because they admired him. But like him? You just don’t hear that, even from those who are presumably close.
3. He has about him a kind of numbness. I can’t imagine Barack Obama being moved by anything. I recall when his grandmother died, a few days before his election. It didn’t seem to affect him at all. He has a family beyond his immediate household, but there appears to be no connection. There may be a whole part of Obama missing, the human part.
4. He doesn’t seem to know who the First Lady is. I’ve never seen a more distant relationship between a president and First Lady, except possibly the one between Richard and Pat Nixon. Michelle Obama is out doing things every day. Have you ever heard the president thank her, or even mention her work? It’s true that Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt essentially lived apart, but Roosevelt mentioned his wife often, and made it clear that she was his eyes and ears. Obama makes nothing clear about Michelle.
5. He’s incurious. It isn’t only that Obama doesn’t appear to know much, he doesn’t seem to want to know much. He’s a very incurious man. Does he have hobbies? Does he read? For a man hyped as the greatest intellect since Aristotle, he never seems to exercise his mind. What is he interested in besides basketball? Does anyone know?
6. He doesn’t want to be there. I don’t think he likes the job at all. He liked getting the job. Basically, Barack Obama is an excellent applicant. You get the sense that most of his life has been one long application. There is no evidence that he ever liked, or even took to, an actual job.
7. Finally, he wouldn’t know what to say to any great man or woman in history. You have the feeling he’d sit down with Lincoln and talk about himself. He wouldn’t know what to say because Obama has no sense of greatness. Men with a sense of greatness always have a spiritual character, they express it freely, and they understand that history is greater than they are. There is nothing of this in Obama.
When you have maxed out your credit cards, and you don’t have any funds in your checking or savings account, do you sign up for another credit card at another bank because you want to buy a new (Mercedes, flat panel TV, etc, etc)or borrow money from friends(?)….that’s what Congress is doing with our taxpayers funds; you don’t outspend you capabilities.
“He can’t do a Clinton-turn”
It is foolish to think otherwise. This man is not another Bill Clinton. He is existentially incapable of accepting a half of a loaf victory. Obama will settle for nothing less than total obedience to his demands. I still expect him to resign before the end of his term. Obama will claim medical reasons—but it will actually be due to his ego not being able to handle rejection.
Earlier I stated that the Democratic Party is probably no longer a national party. A major reason for my optimism is due to the weakening influence of the MSM. It no longer appears able to dominate the narrative. The alternative media may even be on top! Purple state voters who earn a living in the private sector are the determining factor. They realize that Obama and the Democrats essentially wants to turn them into slaves of the welfare state.
VDH, you are a favorite of mine and I read everything you blog, here and at NRO.
But, I’m too fatigued to even respond much.
If Democrats use the reconciliation weapon to slap the faces of the American taxpayer, to wipe their feet on the Constitution, to shatter the delicate checks and balances necessary to self-govern this land of ours, we are no longer threatened by totalitarianism, we are in the eye of it.
Bless Drudge, he noted today that obama’s doc told him to ‘moderate’ his alcohol intake. Is bottled courage the source of obama’s disconnect from reality?
Whatever one may think of Obama’s policies, it is at least refreshing to have a well-spoken, erudite president representing the U.S.; George Bush just did not sound like he knew what he was talking about, even when he read from a teleprompter (which all presidents do). Bush had an unfortunate tendency to misspeak and garble, which made it difficult to take him seriously.
What does it mean when the MSM starts reporting that Mr. Obama has “health issues?” I’m leaning towards David Thomson on this one. An early call by David (if he’s correct) will deserve oak leaf clusters. Or at least a round of beers. We shall know soon enough.
#76 David Thomson – I think that Obama won’t go for a second term; he likes the prestige for it feeds his massive ego but not the work and criticism. But I think he’ll resign, not for medical reasons, which might be seen as a failure – although such a reason could be used to set up national pity and sympathy — but to take a position of ‘higher calling’. That UN position.
His contempt, and I use the word deliberately, with any who dissent and oppose him, is increasing as the isolate power of his narrative is threatened. He’s not used to such reactions. He has managed in his life to cocoon himself in non-accountable authoritarian positions, [and using 'race' as a trump card]such that he and his narrative have been left without confrontation.
Now for the first time, he is confronted with opposition, with people who present a reality of facts and hard data that his virtual narrative cannot destroy. He tries; he tells Rep. Senators that what they say isn’t true, he mocks the Tea Parties, he tells anyone who disagrees that he essentially doesn’t care – he’ll do what he wants anyway. He reminds everyone that he’s the president, a metaphor for asserting that His narrative is dominant.
But fighting to maintain the total power of his narrative, fighting against those who are trying to impinge and breach its walls – is not something that a pathological narcissist can deal with without great stress.
#83, Ron Kean, wrote in his point #4: “I’ve never seen a more distant relationship between a president and First Lady, except possibly the one between Richard and Pat Nixon.”
You’re mistaking restraint for distance. Nixon loved his wife, passionately. But he came out of a time and a particular strata of protestant culture in which you simply did not show affection in the presence of those outside the bond.
Good analysis Evie. So what if Obama is driving the country into a ditch, at least he speaks well. (!?)
85. Or perhaps medical problems caused by being rejected. People who can’t handle reality end up either suffering nervous breakdowns or hurting themselves.
37. John O’Neill:
“I think also that Obama’s intelligence has been highly over rated. He is really not that informed on things such as world history, language, philosophy, theology, or science and his speeches show it.”
Or medicine. I’m appalled at how little he knows about medicine – not even the things a parent would know.
32. Dave in Dallas:
Bingo! You nailed it, bud!
Obama is weirdly oblivious to number crunching.
This is my biggest gripe about Obama, even before his disrepect of his political opponents – and half the American populace. He seems to lack the intuition that numbers need to add up.
in the words of limbaugh ” i hope he fails “
I’m suffering from “Hanson fatigue” as I hear the same old predictable right wing criticism for the guy they love to hate.
I hope this old “war buff” enjoys his european adventure picking through the bones of all the dead warriors through the ages.
War can be so glamorous from a distance…so far away from the front lines. I’ll do my fighting at the retail level, not at some desk !
86. cfb: “But, I’m to fatigued to respond much.”
Don’t let up my friend, your posts are thought provoking and a pleasure to read. It is a favorite tactic of Dem propagandists to overwhelm all political discussion with noise. But it’s still vital to demonstrate that opposition to the progressive-statist policies of the left is alive and well, and to refute the notion that conservative policies are rooted in mere reactionary paranoia, which is their default charge against us.
We all need to state our views honestly and clearly, even at the risk of repetition (this is also a favorite tactic of the left, keep repeating the same message over and over until it eventually becomes and accepted part of the fabric of discourse). I know it’s tiring and time-consuming, but it is an important part of the battle against encroaching leftism. Indeed it is partly why the left has made so much progress in the last couple of decades. There is practically no-one left in academia or the MSM to consistently present the countervailing view. Just remember who your audience is: not the committed propagandist you are debating, but the undecided listener or reader who will weigh both arguments.
Dems pride themselves in their ability to bring subtle ‘nuance’ into high resolution, yet they consistently reveal a strange tendency to vastly oversimplify things. I think that this stems from the fact that they are always arguing in pursuit of a given conclusion – and that conclusion is that large bureaucratic and autocratic government is superior to small democratic government because it ensures a more even distribution of wealth and services to the population at large. As has been observed often here by yourself, VDH and elsewhere by countless other critics of the left, they cling to this conviction desperately, and in the face of all contrary evidence. Some do so because they crave the power that sits atop a vertical bureaucracy, others because they want the supposed security of a less competitive society, still more because they resent their inability to compete effectively in a free-market system, and want others to pay for it etc. I myself lead towards the view (espoused by Igor Shafarevich among others) that leftist is a kind of elaborate death-cult. i.e. that the left fears the chaos of life and seeks to control it absolutely by bending it to the power of the state. But that is another discussion…
Either way, modern progressive-leftism is an emotional need that over-rides reason altogether. Thus when you point out that leveling society reduces the incentive to take the various kinds of risk required to create new things, which reduces the wealth-creating potential of the market, which reduces the amount of excess capital required to pay for an expanding non-productive bureaucracy, which leads to an ever-narrowing spiral of increased costs for decreased services and innovation… they just shrug and move on (but not before labeling you a reactionary enemy of the people.) It doesn’t matter to them that their policies have been shown over and over to increase human misery, and lead to monstrous abuses of state power. (Another ‘hypocrisy’ at the core of leftist ideology: they claim to be primarily motivated to end human suffering, but consistently pursue policies that dramatically increase it!) They are, have always been, and will always remain totally immune to the lessons of history and the hard face of reality.
But it is still important to keep make the case…
As VDH points out, one of the common foibles of the left is to assume that we on the right are all motivated by power like them. The idea that we simply want to live in a just society that emphasizes individual freedom, small government (which thus is less prone to abuse of all kinds), and equal opportunity over equal outcome (in short, the US Constitution) is so foreign to them that they cannot bring themselves to believe that anyone would be so naïve or petty to value these ideals over raw political power. They suspect we are deceiving them (and ourselves) when we make this claim. They then go on to make the next logical claim, that we are doing so to hide our will-to-power, which for the right is usually associated with fascism (i.e. racism, imperialism etc.) And thus, for believing that small government enhances human freedom and thus human prosperity, and reduces the ability of any one group to tyrannize another we automatically become right-wing fascist ‘teabaggers’… Day is night, night is day, black is white.
And so, as has been said many times before, it is a fundamental clash of worldviews that cannot be resolved through discussion. The proof lies in the outcome. Societies that favor small government and free markets yield far more wealth and freedom. Societies that impose large statist bureaucracies produce poverty and apathy, and usually wind up murdering their own citizens. (A futile challenge at this point: can any leftist provide a counter-example to this general claim?) As your yourself CFB, and others here have argued, you will never convince a committed leftist of this because he or she is not psychologically inclined to accept it. That one view is based on commonly and objectively observable phenomenon in the real world, and another is based on hypothetical academic constructs doesn’t matter. For the leftists, these categories are mere artifacts of human thought that revolutionary progress will eventually prove baseless.
Furthermore, leftists further muddy the already murky waters of political discourse with Alinsky inspired methods to render disccusion meaningless. It’s worth reading Rules for Radicals if only to learn how to recognize these methods.
That is why I make the claim that there is a fundamental (if brutal) honesty in the conservative worldview, and a fundamental dishonesty in the progressive one. Progressives will simply reverse this charge without fathoming it, but that doesn’t matter. It is still crucial to keep pointing it out, which is why I’m writing this lengthy entreaty to encourage you to keep doing so.
Debating hardcore lefties is mostly boring to me because its so predictable. Their main weapon is to try and undermine your general assertions with a few well chosen exceptions. Again their insulation from reality leads them to believe that all choices are between ‘bad’ and ‘perfect’, when most of us adults understand that more often than not, your choices are between ‘bad’ and ‘worse’. That doesn’t mean that we conservatives don’t strive for what we believe is ‘good’, just that we are more prepared to accept that sometimes survival (or reality)requires making unpleasant choices.
In the end I’m a firm believer in the idea that in a free society, the truth will out, and that most people gravitate to truth because they know it to be intrinsically good (even thought its sometimes painful). In my opinion, that is why President Obama and his cronies in Congress are having such a tough time selling healthcare – because it defies our understanding (what we know to true) on so many levels, and why his numbers continue to tank. So it’s working! Keep spreading the word partner…
@alejandro sandoval: I’d say he already has.
Super majorities in both houses of congress, a media with its lips firmly glued to his rear end, 40% of the electorate still starry-eyed, and yet Chairman Zero still can’t seem to get anything done.
What’s he accomplished, besides loot $1.5 trillion from the taxpayers? Yank our troops out of Iraq? Ease our presence in Afghanistan? Capture Bin Laden? Make China, Russia, and Europe “love” us again? Close down Gitmo? Pass “comprehensive” health care reform? Revitalize the economy and bring back jobs? Stop the loss of American jobs to outsourcing? Arrest the slide in housing prices? Pass Crap N Trade to stop “global wormen-ing?”
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope and nope. And nope to any other leftist priority.
Instead, he’s managed to galvanize, energize and unite the opposition in ways the Bush could never have imagined, he’s watched several unthinkable off-year election returns already materialize, presided over an astounding number of Democratic “retirements” from the Senate and US House, and seen his precious Speaker Nancy calling on her left-wing brethren to throw themselves on their swords as they hastily (and arrogantly) try to pass the socialization of 1/6th the US economy. It will go nowhere. Even if it passes, the next Congress will de-fund it or repeal it altogether.
In 2010 he’s going to take the phrase “midterm Congressional losses” to new heights (or depths, depending on your perspective) and be paralyzed and gridlocked for the remainder of his term. In 2012 he will be ejected from office and replaced by Generic Faceless Republican Candidate, who is already polling ahead of him.
Oh, and he’s revealed the socialist mindset as an intellectually bankrupt governing philosophy.
Sounds like a failure to me. We don’t need to “hope” about it; it’s already here.
Another home run from VDH
Victor and Charles Krauthammer are the two men I rarely disagree with on any matter. And you both have 0bama pegged. You got his number! No one has better deconstructed his phoniness and fakery
Before Obama got elected I asked his supporters, “What is his track record? What has he ever done?”
Obama is now in a position to do things but prior to his election he was 100% con man. What is a con man’s most powerful weapon? Talk and his ability to cajole and con. A con man never produces or accomplishes. He just talks. This is the reason 0bama is always on TV talking. It’s the art of the con and Obama is addicted to it. The non stop campaign to sway people not by your deeds but by your big talk and big boasts
Cheers
We are tired of his far-left policies, and his arrogance, and his condescension, and his commie friends, and
Obama was wearisome while campaigning before the election. His endless ‘hope and change’ message had no content. His post election campaigning is no better.
How old is Obama. He sounds like an 18 year old, fixing all the woes of the world in the dorm discussions.Trying to hold his own with much sharper sophomores. All under the influence of the Timothy Leary approach and aids to knowledge.He has the singular fortune to be a member of the “correct” fraternity.HOW DID IT HAPPEN that this adolescent became the “leader” of the most powerful nation in the world. Harvard has much to answer for.
“Obama is weirdly oblivious to number crunching.”
This remark, I’m sorry to say, is itself weirdly oblivious to reality. How could Dr. Hanson, so mature and sensible a scholar, put forth such infantile, delusional nonsense?
Because the truth – that Obama knows the numbers do us harm – is too hot to handle.
Note to #5. I hate to see the words Lincoln and Obama used in the same sentence. These two are worlds apart in every respect. Otherwise good observations
Obama will be seen by history as an LBJ in reverse,the avatar of a new era of anti-statism.Afetr his one term,the welfare state imposed by LBJ will be dismantled by an anti-Woodstock generation,bent on limiting government,and growing the economy.
Skeeziks sends his usual dark and lonely missive. He must be cranky since the blizzard of 9 lies from his hero Al Gore. Al’s op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times opining that despite admissions of error and evidence of fraud by various agencies, we still face “…..an unimaginable calamity requiring large scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.” Scary scenarios based on flawed computer models and manipulated data to promote government action and control thats what it was all about. Now the curtain has been pulled back to reveal Al Gore shivering in the cold like the rest of us. No need to pay any attention to the man behind the curtain.
What is exhausting is Obama’s relentless use of relative logic. Like all progressives, Obama’s mental gymnastics are not based on any absolute standards. Instead we hear the typical and typically incessant use of semantic games, shifting definitions, over-generalizations, double standards, disingenuous rationalizations in one instance that are blithely discarded the next, postmodernist narratives as thinly disguised excuses for power grabs and might-makes-right, and cherry-picked symptoms mistaken for underlying causes.
These are only a few examples of the shifting sands that pass for thinking by progressives. Overlaying it all is a veneer of contempt, arrogance, and sneering sanctimony.
Listening to this nonsense is not only fatiguing, but any attempt at rational discourse is useless. No wonder most Conservatives ultimately conclude that progressives are clinically insane.
108. Anonymous:
Dark and lonely missive? And that refers to what? While you’re conjuring up that hallucination, consider your words . . .
“Scary scenarios based on flawed computer models and manipulated data to promote government action and control thats what it was all about.”
Sounds like WMDs to me.
How many lines per day is Obowmao doing? That is the real question here.
Nope, no registration yet.
reply to comment #91 ricpic : nice to see that not everybody has bought the MSM, “leftist elite” and “democratic” Party myth of R. Nixon as one of the villains of the 20th century. Villain in contrast to “saints” John, Edward and Robert Kennedy: All “SONS OF AN ALL POWERFUL FATHER” with plans to be ruler, through his sons, of the USA, i.e. the world. The biblical story as Comic book stuff but it almost worked.
Most overexposed POTUS ever.Zero foreign policy,our allies don’t trust us anymore.Zero economic policy,obsessed with health care instead of unemployment,cripplinge debt means prosperity??Great speeches,but heard them all,over & over,all hat,no cattle.
we’re tired and weary of his lack of knowledge, and the insufferable arrogance supported by nothing at all.
there is something very eerie about him. a deadness of soul and mind. that is how it seems to me.
Catch on, folks! Obama and company are out to destroy our economy as the rationale for surrendering our national sovereignty to his New World Order, controlled by the Devil, the Beast and the False Prophet. The latter is Islam, the Beast is the clique of International Bankers in control of the Fed, the Bank of England, and the economies of many countries. The devil, of course, is Satan, the enemy of God and the hater of mankind.
Lets, please, not pretend we believe that Barack Hussein O is stupid, ignorant or mistaken. His intent is to destroy our economy and then to surrender us to an islamic military and a global government controlled by the Rothschilds and other satanists. Will you wake up!?