The President Who Never Was
A Teen-age President in Search of an Adult Identity
Barack Obama keeps looking for a presidential identity not his own. In 2008, he wished to be JFK — whom he often referenced as a youthful and charismatic figure supposedly similar to himself. So we heard references to Obama’s father’s arrival to the U.S. during the golden Kennedy Camelot years. Caroline Kennedy herself came out of seclusion to assure us that Obama had the same Kennedy zest, and she flirted with a Senate run to help restore the lost age of grandeur. And at the Brandenburg Gate, Obama would have liked to electrify Europeans with another Ich Bin Ein Berliner speech. But even the left-leaning Germans sorta balked at that, and relegated the new Galahad to the Victory Column — a nice enough gesture that earned them a snub when a later President Obama chose not to go to Berlin for the commemoration of the twenty year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. (But flying ad hoc to Copenhagen to lobby for the Chicago Olympics is a horse of a different color.)
The New Gipper
Next candidate Obama channeled his inner Ronald Reagan. He reminded us that that he too had a sense of a new “trajectory.” His supporters swore that he had the same sunny disposition and eloquence. Obama liked that new persona. Soon he was talking about being the same “transformative” president, as long as we understood that Obama was going to be Reaganesque solely in the way he campaigned and soared with “hope and change” rhetoric — a sort of ironic payback to the Reagan Revolution as Obama mimicked the Gipper’s personal talents to undue his legacy.
Young Mr. Lincoln
That did not last long. When he won the election, Obama now referenced the Civil War, slavery, and the civil rights struggle as he became the Great Emancipator to finally bind up the nation’s wounds. So he was for a bit Barack Lincoln. I mean this literally and to such a degree that he chartered a slow train from Springfield to DC in December 2008, to remind us that it had been 148 years since a similar messiah had trained from Illinois to Washington to save the Union. Aides got copies of Team of Rivals, since Obama had long seen himself as a saintly Lincoln in magnanimous fashion bringing in former political opponents who perhaps were more experienced but surely less talented than himself. A Biden or Hillary as Seward or Stanton?
Hyde Park Redux
But when he assumed office, there being no Civil War, Obama of Chicago Hyde Park now channeled FDR of New York Hyde Park to meet the same crisis of yet another Great Depression induced by Bush/Hoover. The “100 Days” of 1933 were upon us again. Those were the glory moments, as the White House let it be known, when a new FDR would bookend Social Security with Obamacare. That did not last too long —given the fury over the health care machinations, the Tea Party, 9% plus unemployment, the horrendous new debt, and the greatest mid-term setback since Roosevelt’s own in 1938.
It has often been my observation that when the immature get caught doing wrong, they make excuses. When it happens to real adults, they make amends.
LOL@ “You’re in trouble”
There are no adults running this country into the ground right now.
Major clown car issues.
Great comment. I would also like to note the immature usually like to deflect blame to others for their wrongdoing while adults stand up and admit to it and will also attempt to make amends. even if it’s jsut to say “I’m sorry”.
Bets, anyone, on which dead president Obama will channel next?
Or, will he simply recycle through his list of faves?
Nixon
Bring us together.
To paraphrase FOX host Greg Gutfeld, “What do you get when you combine Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan..? Jimmy Carter.”
Biden?
History will record him as James Polk who did little to prevent the meltdown that occurred a few years after his watch or Taft or Harding who peddled influence while the economy systematically rotted to the core.
We may do better to contemplate the incoherence of Obama’s base of support. I suggested here that looking at the conflicted aims of the supporters of the Democratic Party might be more useful than focusing on multiple personalities and identities. The Obama mystery of his “identity” can perhaps be solved by such a study: see http://yankeedoodlesoc.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/is-potus-crazy/.
Let it be Willam Henry Harrison and let him walk his dog in the rain.
Jefferson Davis?
Papa Doc
July 4 1776 – The Declaration of Independence, John Hancock Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
December 6 2011 – The Declaration of Dependence, Barack Obama Osawatomie, Kansas.
Next: Jar Jar Binks?
Them as can – does.
Them as can’t – talks.
For some reason I’m reminded of T.E. White’s “The Once and Future King.” We have a man child in the White House as the once and future president. It must be a baby boomer thing to think one will live forever when failing to reproduce enough domestic grave diggers. Curious, Obama goes to Osawatomie, Kansas, where John Brown did his Pottowatomie Massacre, the first armed rumblings of the future Civil War. It was the site for the first Kansas republican convention in 1859, and also where the first insane asylum was built west of the Mississippi. Surely Obama isn’t channeling John Brown’s “…the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”?
Oh please don’t compare Obama to T.H. White’s charming depiction of King Arthur. In “The Once and Future King” we see the process of increasing maturity and acceptance of responsibility as Arthur grows up. Arthur makes the fatal mistake of assuming that Man is essentially good but on the eve of his last battle he finally has to admit that Man’s nature is flawed. I doubt that Obama has ever even considered the nature of Man, he’s too caught up in his own outrage over the lack of adoration from us, the unwashed masses. Your description of him as a “man-child” is right on.
The “rich” don’t make a fraction of what an 0bama spends. So who’s the pimp here?
– the 2003 Recall hoped for change with Arnold. 2006 Gubernatorial Election gave him four more years. By 2010, he and we were all miserable with each other and the state of the State. That is how it will be in the USA during the President’s second term.
Sadly, I have to agree with your prediction. The one that states Obama will have a second term. Even more, I have to agree that the people of the United States will see misery in that next four years. One can only hope that misery is the worst we see. We’ve handled misery before and we can do it again. Obama’s drive for Socialism however, will be more than misery for us, if he makes that foothold.
I can fully sympathize with Obama’s desire to be some other president. I wish someone else were president myself.
Well said, Buck O’Fama! ROFL!
Good one, Buck!
Malaise Redux
We cannot afford to be complacent!
This explains everything else.
Key Symptoms of Psychopathy
•glib and superficial
•grandiose sense of self-worth
•lack of remorse or guilt
•lack of empathy
•deceitful and manipulative
•shallow emotions
•impulsive
•poor behavioral control
•need for stimulation/prone to boredom
•lack of responsibility
•early behavioral problems
•adult antisocial behavior
So Obama’s personality fits the clinical definition of a psychopath. And what is the descriptive term for those among us (liberals) who are attracted to someone who exhibits such traits? Are they “psychopathetics”?
Works for me.
No, they are the blind who have been led by the blind. They are fools who love and embrace lies, rather than face facts and man up to truths that are hard, despised, and unchanging.
On another note; “What else can a man without an identity do, a president who never really was?”
He can declare martial law, rounding up all divisive “bitter clingers” who refuse to fall down and worship before the Greek columns of Hope and Change, which heralded the arrival of the “One(s)We Have Been Waiting For.”
Useful Idiots of course!
With a very expensive drone of ours supposedly setting in Irans domain…with Financial markets leaning heavily over the precipe…
I think Obama will become President Grant and we`ll all be the South.
It must keep the WH staff busy, keeping track of which former presidents he’s channeled, and which ones he hasn’t yet, but might be suitable.
He enjoys comparisons to other people because quite simply, he’s uncomfortable in his own skin. And, he does everything imaginable to alleviate that discomfort. But the discomfort is in his DNA since he shirks responsibility, blames everyone and everything else for any problems and cannot come up with any solutions except those from ultra leftwing sources.
He likes being compared to others because the B Hussein Obama is an unlikable, disgusting human-being. He knows that. It’s probably not too far of a stretch to imagine what his party members say about him behind his back. We won’t know about this for some time when someone writes the tell-all book about him and his “wife” during the years in the WH.
If I were President (and I have no plans) I would never, ever presume to compare myself to great men of the past. One cannot successfully stand on the shoulders of giants without first admitting that they were giants, and you are not.
Obama would be far better to compare himself to Louis XVI. The analogy be far more apt. And Louis at least had the sense to be humble… “Lord protect us, for we reign too young”.
The self-absorbed Teenager in Chief can’t even muster that.
And don’t forget his Janus-like face change when the Blagojevich scandal over his (vacated) Senate seat erupted. Suddenly, he wasn’t the highly experienced Chicago-area “community organizer”; he was this cool surfer dude from Hawaii, who knew nothing about Blago’s antics and in fact had never met the man.
As I said then, and still maintain, The One can “Do The Chameleon” faster than Woody Allen in “Zelig”.
The fact is that, as Gertrude Stein said of returning to her childhood home in Oakland to find that it had been torn down, “There’s no there, there”.
The One is not merely an “empty suit”; he is from all evidence both a narcissist and a sociopath. (His Osatawatomie speech being a case in point of both.)
And two important characteristics of these personality disorders is that those who have them tend to be both delusional- and pathological liars.
It’s not so much that he’s engaged in a desperate search for identity, as it is he really doesn’t want us peasants to realize who he really is. As Dr. Hanson states, he is an adolescent.
An adolescent bully, that is. Who imagines that he is God.
clear ether
eon
I think you’re right about the delusional part. He is the kind of personality who really believes his own lies. The man is seriously delusional.
And this delusional individuals story is far from over. After he is done being president, look for him to have a cult-like following and for him to set up a clique of “worshippers”. It will end and badly.
I’m thinking along the lines of Baltar in the reduex of Battlestar Galactica, without the restitution. In other words, he will become paralyzed by paranoia, obsessed with his own need for greatness and will probably flip out eventually.
As we say, “The boy’s not right”.
In the “flipping out” department, are we talking Howard Hughes (real) or Charles Foster Kane (fictional)?
Just wondering- my money is on Hughes redux. But Obama has spent so much of his life in a self-constructed fantasy world that anything is possible.
Down to and including General Jack D. Ripper in “Dr. Strangelove”. He’s already doing a superb impression of Captain Queeg in “The Caine Mutiny”.
/The book, not the movie.
cheers
eon
I think you miss the entire point of his presidency: He is moving us leftward and out away from being a superpower. This is what he always wanted and is being quite successful.
His only problem is figuring out how to get re-elected. All these personas are designed to fool the electorate into thinking he really isn’t a lefty.
I’ve said it before. Oblahblah is a front. A poseur, empty suit, cardboard cut-out, and malleable ideologue. From his youth raised to be as such by his mother and “relatives”.
He has no substance from which to form a personal identity. I believe his truest self may lie in his cocaine snorting, pot smoking past when he actually was on Hawaii.
Nothing goes with idealism like being stoned.
This indeed describes the man who no one knows. Obama is a nobody. His background and education are demonstrably superficial. Devoid of original thought, this stoner continues his hazy, dazy, long strange trip through a life punctuated by blatherings followed by long stretches of stoned disconnection from his now disillusioned groupies. Obama is lost and will never be found. We MUST put this dope to bed for good.
As “Shakespeare” to his plays, so is “Obama” to American politics.
Obama always had a persona, that of a European socialist. He ALWAYS had it, although he couldn’t dare show it to the American people while running for president in 2008. The mask slipped a little with his “Joe the Plumber” moment and his statements on the “redistribution of wealth,” which is nothing buy rank socialism. But the American public was too stupid to pick up on it, preferring to believe in that “Hope and Change” nonsense. Well, like most socialists, Obama is leaving you with little hope and only a little change left in your pockets. The size of the Federal Government, the national debt, high unemployment, huge defense cuts, and Federal spending have all exploded under Obama, like they did in Europe. And now that Europe is about to fall into the toilet, maybe in 2012 people will realize that that is what our future is going to look like unless we stop Obama now. Perhaps reality will start to set in with the 2012 elections and people will wake up and do something about it, like throw this jerk out of office.
Obama’s true Socialist/Communist leanings were there to be known before he was elected, for anyone who looked. His mask slipped many times, not just when he was hinting to Joe the Plumber and Bill O’Reilly about wanting more redistribution. Despite the fact that Obama lied about who he is, and what he wants for this country, in true Saul Alinsky style, smart people should have been skeptical, and known not to believe such absurd denials, in the face of all the evidence.
Some cases in point where Obama categorizes his true persona:
- Obama’s own words in his book “Dreams from My Father,” where he reveals that he sought out only the “right” kind of friends and associates while at college, such as his Marxist professors. Also his tutelage by “Frank” (i.e. Frank Marshall Davis, CPUSA) while in Hawaii, etc.
- The symbolism of announcing his first run for the Illinois State Senate in the living room of Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dorn.
- His long friendship with and trust of the radical Valarie Jarrett, now his closest advisor.
- His professional connections with ACORN and other socialist/leftist groups
- His attendance at Jeremiah Wright’s church where “Liberation Theology” is taught.
- His attendance at Socialist Scholars Conferences in the 1980
- His public statements supporting the nationalization of the health care system.
- Let’s not forget that his wife slipped, too, when she said that his nomination victory was the first time she’d been proud of the U.S. The campaign handlers quickly quashed such genuine and heartfelt honesty, and we have probably never heard a completely true statement from the Obama’s since.
I realize that the compliant leftist press went along with Obama’s opportunistic denials of his own radacalism, and clearly there were enough gullible people in the uncommitted squishy center who bought into the lies and deceit, to the point where hope and change could be believed to be something other than socialistic transformation. But I say shame on the press for it’s complicity in deceiving the American populace about Obama’s true nature. And shame on all people who DIDN’T want a more socialist America, but who voted for Barack Obama anyway, believing him to be moderate or centrist; who assumed he was talking about a different kind of transformation. I hope these folks now know better, and that they’ll not vote for the Obama or Democrats again, as long as socialism, victim group identity politics, and Government unions maintain their primacy within that coalition.
those things on your list don’t matter to most people. they should matter, but they just don’t, that’s all there is to it.
obama will win because people agree with him now.
at the second inauguration he’ll swear in with his hand upon the koran, cup his balls at every flag ceremony and during the star-spangled banner, even in front of the troops, hug or bow down before every slime ball enemy of ours, stick his middle finger out at all of us openly and often, and do a whole lot worse, and people will adore him for it, that’s how low most folks have sunk already.
VDH nails it once again. I hope this will be his next persona:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=UocfPdeRIBw&NR=1
Brutal. Insightful. Merciless. Perfect.
Barack Hussein Obama is already a mask in and of itself. Tear that off and what have we got?
A hissing noise, smoke, and an obnoxious smell, as the cheap suit deflates. Similar to the Wicked Witch of the West, but without the plaintive, “I’m melting, I’m melting…”
Far more amusing it would be if Dr Hanson compared Obama to certain Roman emperors. Is he Caligula, or Commodus, or Elagabalus? Why not compare our recent presidents with the appropriate emperors? Of course, the chronology would be off.
Definitely Commodus, and in bad need of flushing….
I vote for Domitian
Yes, we are indeed going to attack Sardinia and Greece.
Bill? I thought they buried you in Spain.
I’m just a bloody drunk who drank rat poison by mistake. Sorry. Can’t accept the medals and honors, I “totally” (to use the current idiom of California’s Valleys) can take what was unearned.
Now, that man, Obama, Barry, whatever *his* name is, he’s quite happy to accept all sorts of unearned medals and honors. He’s a bloody Nobel Prize winner. You just have to respect that.
Speaking as the original thing, that is. I mean the original man who0 never was.
Lest they be read by The Boss I fancy there is someone in the White House whose sole responsibility is to erase or cut out from every computer there and from every publication all traces of the weekly verbal drubbings Victor hands out that are designed to improve and enlighten our beloved president. This beautiful piece especially will be expunged with an extra special expunger. That person, that censor, does Obama no favor.
I believe you want “undo” not “undue” in the second paragraph, last sentence. Sorry to be picky, but I’m sure you would demand the same of one of your students, Prof. Hanson.
I noted that as well.
Fa·bi·an (fb-n)
adj.
1.
a. Of or relating to the caution and avoidance of direct confrontation typical of the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus.
b. Cautious or dilatory, as in taking action.
2. Of, relating to, or being a member of the Fabian Society, which was committed to gradual rather than revolutionary means for spreading socialist principles.
Obama is a teenaged Fabian, a heartthrob to leftists who faint and get tingles up their legs as his groupies.
He appeals to the adolescent mind, he appeals to those who throw tantrums at delayed gratification or earned riches.
He hides totalitarianism behind a veil of populism. If he wins in November, the next president he will emulate…may not come from our list that preceded him…but, from elsewhere…whom ours defeated.
Fabian as in 1960s rock’n'roll star, or, as in Fabian Socialist?
Yes!
The premise was that if over $4 trillion in borrowed money had not jump-started the economy, someone should be blamed for not borrowing an additional half-trillion that surely would have.
Quelle prémisse !
The real Obama, capo di tutti
When federal regulation and oversight become intimidation.
A line I read recently, “The only thing significant about Obama’s skin is its thinness”.
And there were the millions more — with lousy credit ratings, and no history of discipline or thrift. But they “deserved” “home ownership” and so bought a house that neither their income nor savings, such as they were, warranted. They walked away. They were innocent “victims.” And they let others pick up the tab as others “should.”
I have heard recently that many of these highly unqualified credit risks received, for purposes of the home purchase transaction, instant credit rating “rescores”, bumping them up to a higher credit score.
A rating that reverted to its lower depths after the transaction.
The country will survive Obama. Perhaps it wont survive the morons who voted for him and and continue to adore him. They are like flies on dog droppings.
I disagree with Mr. Hanson about Carter.
Obama does NOT resemble Carter except in the depth of their fecklessness.
Carter had come from a poor family and become a peanut farmer. At least he knew what it meant to earn your own living producing a product. And as President, Carter’s stress on cutting deficit spending and deregulating industries like airlines and trucking showed that he understood when liberalism had gone too far. Which is why the doctrinaire liberals who would eventually support Obama enthusiastically, broke with Carter in 1979 and supported Ted Kennedy as a replacement. Then as now, any attempt to cut Federal spending by even one dollar was met with hysteria from liberals.
If there’s any politician whom Obama resembles most, it’s Adlai Stevenson II: A pseudo-intellectual egghead whose professorial manner attracted the college crowd of professors and students.
In the 1950s, Stevenson pioneered the new postwar liberal attitude of intellectual contempt, rather than admiration, for America’s working class–an attitude we’re seen from Obama and his supporters. And given their bios, it’s easy to see why. Unlike Carter, neither Stevenson nor Obama ever worked a day of their lives in the private sector delivering real goods and services (unless you count lawyering).
The Democratic Party doesn’t have a total monopoly on pseudo-intellectual eggheads with professorial airs. The GOP has one of their own: Newt Gingrich. I sure hope the GOP doesn’t nominate him for President.
Adlai Stevenson, in his time, was decidedly more credible than Obama.
Jimmy Carter and Obama share antisemitism.
Jimmy’s is biblically based, he wrote that pro-Palestinian book with “apartheid” in the title that cause so much of his staff in Georgia to resign.
Barack’s antisemitism is based more in the de rigueur posturings of a self-anointed élite.
Newt is far more approachable, and understandable (not to mention smart) than the majority of intellectual eggheads.
Barack’s antisemitism is based more in the de rigueur posturings of a self-anointed élite.
Not to mention the teachings of Jeremiah Wright and his mentor James Cone of Black Liberation Theology fame.
And, of course, the guy Reverend Wright admires so much, the despicable Louis Farrakhan.
Obama’s anti-semitism also stems, quite possibly, from his Muslim childhood and his parent’s and grandparent’s leftist socialism.
Leftism, which is a collectivist and elitist ideology, tends to be sympathetic to other collectivist elitist ideologies which are found in the tribal Islamic nations of today.
A key factor to note, always, about Obama, is that his psychological pathology means that he can’t handle Others, both individuals and nations, that are strong in themselves. He has to demote and denigrate them to reduce their power. Otherwise, he feels that they can ‘swarm’ into his emptiness.
We’ve seen examples of this in I’d say all his dealings with others; that need to demote and denigrate. That includes America as itself; Obama has, right from the start, demoted it and its people to ‘just like every other nation and people’.
Great insights, ETAB.
ditto tanstaafl.
He demoted Hillary; “you’re likable enough”
He demoted McLame; “the election is over”
He demoted Paul Ryan; didn’t respond, insulted him to his face
He demoted Netanyahu; make yourself at home while I find better things to do
He demoted Great Britain; we don’t need this bust of your greatest hero
He demoted the Supreme Court: to their faces, in the SOTU address
and on and on.
Very insightful observation, ETAB.
And as a followup, which of our two remaining candidates will accept demotion during the debates?
In reply to proreason’s question about how Obama will denigrate the GOP nominee..hmmm.
First, Obama’s need to denigrate another person/nation is a basic ‘first axiom’ in his approach to the world. He is, strangely, without a Self.
There’s literally no-one there – and the symbolic expression of this, is the lack of a public record of Obama’s existence. No birth certificate, no school records, no records of accomplishments, no analytic writings (his fictional biographies are: fiction). Mere voting of ‘present’ in Senate votes. No competitors in early Senate races, for his smear campaign tactics led to withdrawals of opponents.
Since there is no-one there, in Obama, he absolutely must prevent Others from engulfing him. Hence, his privacy, his aloofness, his inability to ‘feel’ with others (which is a form of interactive attachment). And his increasingly dominant need to control others – and its concomitant tactic of denigrating and diminishing the ‘individual reality’/power of Others.
So- what will he do in this campaign to the GOP nominee? First, don’t assume it will be either Gingrich or Romney. Sometimes the two front running horses are stunned by the horse coming up in the middle and taking the race. Could be Perry.
Obama MUST denigrate his opponents. That’s vital. He himself won’t smear them at first; that will be for his team to do – and it will be vicious, malicious and truth will be utterly irrelevant. It will be personal, unprofessional and dirty.
Then, Obama will step in, all innocent, and gloat over the ashes. He’ll make speeches about the failings and flaws of the GOP candidates AS IF they were true rather than smears. Remember, Obama lives in a fictional world that he himself writes. His Words are meant to manipulate you – and he’ll make speeches about the dirt first expressed by his team..AS IF..they were facts.
How does one deal with such a pathology?
Obama is a smooth debater. BUT, since he has no connection to truth, I think one tactic has to be to constantly and I mean constantly, confront him with facts versus his fiction.
He’ll complain about this in a debate, when you confront him with facts. But I think that Obama has to be branded, now, as A Man Who Lives In A Fictional World. The GOP shouldn’t act as if they were dealing with a ‘real man’ but with a fictional man, i.e., someone whose Words and whose Policies can function only in a fictional world.
My reason for suggesting this, is because Obama leaves all policies and even dirty tactics, to his backroom gang. He presents himself as Above It All. He’s above Congress, defined as dirty, mean and ‘real’. Obama rejects reality; he can’t handle it. People who voted for him in 2008 still, in great part, see Obama as pure and with good intentions – even though he has no capacity for either. So – rather than redefining him as what he is, namely a sociopath and pathological liar, I suggest redefining him as fictional.
So- my suggestion in this vital election is to define Obama’s words and policies as fictional. Speak out constantly that his data is false and made up, fictional. That his goals are fictional and unrealistic. And that the GOP live in reality, accept realities hard facts, want to do something real to better our real lives…etc etc…and that we reject living in the wordy comfort of a fictional world. The GOP are courageous; they live in the Real World. Obama lives, alas, in a fictional world.
This also removes the stickier problem of actually defining what is wrong with Obama. It isn’t that he is an immature adolescent living in dreams. He’s a pathological narcissist and sociopath – and one never, ever, grows out of this. One just becomes more vicious and destructive. Obama will become both as he feels himself losing control.
Another thing – for someone as pathological as Obama – if he feels he can’t control you, then you literally cease to exist for him. You are no longer in his world, which is, remember, a totally fictional world. So, he’ll just write you off. He’s written a lot of allies off, because they are ‘real’ and he can’t control them. He’s written the rich off, because they DO things and he can’t control them. So, he’s trying to denigrate and destroy the wealthy so that he can control them.
Obama’s backroom gang might be socialists, but Obama is not, ideologically, a socialist. He’s pathological and his need is to denigrate and reduce the power of ALL around him. Totally destructive. Again, my suggestion is to REDUCE HIS POWER by treating him, not as ‘real’…which is what so many of his supporters do…but as FICTIONAL. Treat his words, his ideas, his plans as all Unrealistic and able to exist only in a Fictional World. That – will reduce Him!!!
And my most fervent wish is that in a debate with Obama, please, please, please, whoever is debating him – openly and brazenly and repeatedly, SCRATCH YOUR FACE WITH AN EXTENDED MIDDLE FINGER.
Whomever the candidate is, you must do this for your country.
if they really and truly mattered, he wouldn’t have been elected, ever.
The only way to beat him is to mock him, and mock him good, in every way.
Every word that comes out of his lying mouth you have to repeat, just as he said it, but with mockery.
He can’t stand up to that kind of treatment, and if you stick it to him, right in his face, he’ll fold, fast.
That’s when you hit him with facts.
He’s a punk, that’s all he is or will ever be, and that’s all he deserves. .
ETAB:
Do you sincerely believe that the republican party is possibly going to nominate a tree stump as its standard bearer or are you just having fun?
“Sometimes the two front running horses are stunned by the horse coming up in the middle and taking the race. Could be Perry.”
John Loftus once speculated that Carter’s antisemitism was something he learned in the Navy.
For the challenges America faced in the 1950s, Adlai Stevenson was no more credible than Obama is for America’s current challenges.
None of the following is a natural born leader of a nation’s people:
Stevenson
Obama
Gingrich
Woodrow Wilson, except that Wilson actually was an accomplished academic who hadn’t invented his own past. Otherwise, Obama and Wilson two are a close fit.
True, that. Both share the penchant for attempting to apply starry-eyed social engineering ideas in the real world, where they abjectly fail.
And when they fail – in keeping with ETAB’s observation, above – is when another round of someone being denigrated occurs.
Predictable red meat for the base here. Where does this get us? Presidents change their policies, try different things? I’m shocked, I tell you.
Presidents in my lifetime from Eisenhauer to Obama have always faced various crises and tried various things, some of which worked, some of which didn’t, but we muddled through.
The problem with VDH is that when he writes about Obama, I never get objective analysis of what has been done well, what not so well, but instead a new tapestry, spinning and weaving every thread into a new glib dismissal. And then you drool.
For the 100th time, it is like the libs and GWB; why bother with objectivity, when you know you hate the guy and his only purpose is to supply you with material to attack him? I can’t believe how folks fawn over this stuff. Oops, correct that, of course I can.
I think Victor forgot to mention here, the GWB impersonation where Obama keeps Guantanamo open and drones on with some impressive scalps placed on the wall. That would be the GWB who campaigned on a less aggressive foreign policy, ending the Clinton overreaching in the Balkans, etc. And then stuff happened.
What we need is a guy who can get us to slow down spending a little and raise taxes a little; that will be a start. Whether that guy is Obama, Romney, or Newt; who can say? Does Romney “know himself?” Does Newt? They are older and more experienced, I will give them that, but VDH, if he so chose, could write a similar column on each of them.
Ok D-White. Lame. Lame. Lame. Anyway, Let’s see how this works out with this Incurable Moral Relativism that is the essence of the Pick It Fence But mentality.
“Predictable red meat for the base here.”
Predictable Flacido D-White “centrist” here.
“…but we muddled through.”
May you did as Warden for the 9-12 Children’s Prison Camp. Others may not be “muddled”.
“I never get objective analysis of what has been done well,”
Then tell us about Mr. President’s achievements. And then you drool.
“I can’t believe how folks fawn over this stuff. Oops, correct that, of course I can.”
Pick It Fence But mentality defined. What will be the next D-White “muddled” “oops”?
“And then stuff happened.”
You mean 9-11? Or a much more world changing former Mr. President verbal gaffe?
“What we need is a guy…”
Hillary and Sarah and _________ and 50% of the population need not apply. Typical Modern Liberal paper bagism. Whatever. It’s ok for D-White to be “that way”, but not anyone else
“…VDH, if he so chose, could write a similar column on each of them.”
Moral bankruptcy laid bare. And remember, it’s always feels better to involve others in this. Then you can justify it, at least to them. Is your name Corzine II?
“The 100th time…” And Lather came foam from his tongue.
Dwight, yours is a strawman argument. No one is talking about Obama changing policies… because he never has! He has, however, tried many different narratives about himself. He keeps trying to sell himself to the public by relating himself to great Presidents of the past.
He doesn’t ever try to sell his actual policies. He does not tell us how doing ‘X’ he believes will get us ‘Y’ result… well, not since the disastrous sales pitch of Stimulus, when they promised us unemployment would remain below 8%.
So, why do you make such strawman arguments, Dwight? I mean, you do it a lot when you come here. What could possibly be your motivation for doing so?
You seem to do it in order to tell us how stupid we all are. Does that make you feel smart? The only purpose seems to be to denigrate us, to lessen us in your eyes, so you can feel superior.
Maybe that is not it. Maybe it is just how you have been taught to discuss things? I know others like that.
There is a guy in my gaming club who uses all kinds of arguments like this, and he is a Conservative. He uses passive-aggressive body language. He argues to authority. He creates strawmen. He argues ad hominem. He deflects and distracts. He uses every primitive, emotional-argument tactic. And yes, he is an unemployed lawyer.
Marc, I’d have to say that you and your buds are the ones who are blinded or obsessed by ODS. Go through the number of responses and note how many talk about a personality disorder (remember the lefties referring to GWB as the alcoholic?) or destroying the country or in general just the most extreme kinds of condemnation for the man. It is really a caricature of a realistic political analysis Apparently, it does not strike you as odd, because you share those extreme views. Instead, you go on about my “strawman” arguments. Did Obama change his tax policy…or not? Did he back off from closing Guantanamo…or not?
Occasionally we get into some real political analysis, or at least make some decent points about other things, but much of the discussion is just bombastic Obama-bashing, as if he were literally demonic. Seriously, you would think people would be embarrassed to spout such over-the-top stuff, but instead they get encouraged…and I’m the one who is being…unreasonable?
And we have several now voting for death, going not so much for the straw man, as the hangman. Is there something the matter with me for noticing this and pointing it out, or you for accepting it?
Dwight – you are giving us an invalid argument. You are suggesting that to critique Obama’s personality is akin to suggesting that Bush was an alcoholic and not a ‘realistic political analysis’.
First, analyzing the capacity of an individual for political office is most certainly a ‘realistic’ and indeed, is a necessary task. We must consider that individual’s history not only of ideas and policies, but his capacity to interact with others, his integrity as an individual, his nature as an analyst, as a policy-maker, as a leader.
Therefore, analyzing Obama’s personality is a vital task – and, as you can see from the many comments here, which outline his behavior to others over the past few years – many of us consider him having a psychologically damaged personality and, as such, unsuited to a powerful political position.
There are his lies or you may prefer to call them ‘misinformation’ where he mistates facts, ignores other facts, contradicts himself in various speeches on different days. His open denigration of others both Americans and allies – well documented. His habit of identifying people within groups and setting them up as adversarial to each other. His empty promises, his constant self-praise and self-identification with famous leaders; his thin-skinned aversion to criticism, his hidden past and non-existent records. All of this and more, must be examined under the heading of: ‘Is this man capable of being a leader’?
You would, after all, examine the behavior of any applicant for a CEO position; you wouldn’t just want to know their ideology but, would want to examine HOW they propose to carry out their agenda. Obama’s open contempt for Congress, his statements about how much easier it is in a dictatorship, his constant indifference to the results of committee work…in a CEO, this type of behavior would mean that a company would not, and could not, hire such a person.
Therefore, we must pay particular attention to Obama’s relations with others, both internally – in Congress, his relations to the States; and, his relations with our allies and our non-allies. All of these relations have been shown to have serious problems, and we must therefore consider Obama’s psychological nature and analyze his relational problems.
Oh, and by the way, Bush wasn’t an alcoholic. He DID have a drinking problem when younger but as president, he didn’t drink. So, you couldn’t validly define him as an alcoholic. After all, I know people who can only drink a half glass of wine before they become dizzy. Are they alcoholics if they therefore either refuse all wine or limit themselves to that half glass?
I part company with this.
Psychoanalyzing any public figure from a distance–like you can conclude someone is mentally disturbed just from his *speeches* and votes–is a favorite kind of political smear tactic.
I didn’t like it when it was used by liberals against conservatives.
And I’m not going to use it against Obama.
Is Obama a doctrinaire liberal? Absolutely. He’s never claimed to be anything else. So is Nancy Pelosi. If she were President, she would pursue exactly the same policies Obama is pursuing. Is she mentally disturbed too?
Don’t borrow from the Communist playbook and claim that someone’s political views make them ipso facto mentally disturbed.
In reply to sinz54- nope, you’ve got it wrong.
No-one is ‘psychloanalyzing Obama’ from his ideology. The fact that a person has a right or left political ideology isn’t linked, necessarily, to his psychological nature.
What we – and there are quite a number of people – are doing, is to analyze Obama’s RELATIONSHIPS with others and coming up with a psychological profile. This is a valid tactic, for his relations, how he interacts with others, what he says about himself, what he says about others, is a valid analytic area and most certainly describes his psychological nature.
Just a brief list – take a look at Obama and consider that he
-consistently denigrates others, particularly people who disagree with him; that is, he doesn’t focus on the issue but personally demeans and belittles them;
-consistently used his power to denigrate others;
-consistently lies about facts and hard data;
-consistently hides his past actions;
-consistently refers to himself as a superior being;
-consistently describes himself as a version of famous presidents;
-consistently defines other people within identity blocs and then sets these groups up as adversarial against each other;
-insults traditional allies of the nation;
-denigrates the American people, calling them lazy, incompetent, rednecks
-
Now, these are just a few facets of Obama’s behavior. Psychological states are NOT diagonosed using blood or tissue samples. They are diagnosed by observations of behavior and words. Therefore, analyzing Obama’s psychological state by observing his behavior, how he relates to others and his words to others, is a valid, indeed the only, method of psychological analysis.
Therefore, I’ll repeat. Obama is a pathological narcissist and sociopath. He is unable to have relations with others on an equal basis and must consistently denigrate and disempower others. Putting someone with that syndrome in a powerful position only increases the tensions underlying this behavioral syndrome and increases his need to control and disempower others. OK?
Well, one would not know where to start with Newt, eh? Apply your psychological strict scrutiny to him, but then he is OUR psychopath, not their psychopath! But once you throw in a religious conversion or two, you can wipe the slate somewhat clean with a certain segment of the population.
But seriously, can you say with a straight face that the current Repub line of contenders is less psychologically “odd” than Obama? Please!
In reply to Dwight, I’ll say that none of the GOP contenders are pathological narcissists and sociopaths.
Note that I say ‘pathological narcissist’; this means extreme and untreatable because the individual necessarily lives in a self-authored fictional world as a means of dealing with problematic relations. I’d say that Obama moved into this as a young boy.
Now – as for other personality characteristics, I’d certainly say that Gingrich is an egoist; that he manipulates, lies, deviates, slithers.
I’d say that of all the contenders, he is the one with the most neurotic personality quirks (that egoism and manipulation). But, he is not pathological; in other words, he’s not a sociopath, he’s not alienated from interactions and equal relations with others, he doesn’t need to have all other people in a state of adulation to him. He sees others are real people, not as potential agents of harm whom he must denigrate and control.
The others – are no more or less neurotic than any other human being.
I’m tired of Bachmann’s endless ‘I fostered 23 children’ ..heck, is she suggesting that she will be Mommy to all Americans?
I’m hesitant about Romney’s ‘eagerness-to-please’.
I reject Ron Paul’s ‘let them do what they want’ approach to foreign affairs.
I acknowledge Rick Perry’s inability to flip sentences off his tongue.
But, none of them are pathological. None of them are sociopaths who psychologically are unable to interact on an equal basis with others and must constantly denigrate and demean others. Obama has those characteristics.
None of them need to live in a fictional world that they self-author. This includes Obama’s ‘auto-biographies’ and his constant self-descriptions of himself as similar to various well-known presidential figures. That’s a strange need, to define oneself as another rather than as oneself. None of them hide their past and thus, control their identity and insist on its being one that they themselves author.
None of them denigrate others, consistently reminding others of their own hierarchical importance (I’m the president)…
The others will instead focus on their accomplishments. Not their hierarchical level.
None of them accuse Americans of being lazy, red-necked, ignorant, racists etc.
None of them show contempt for others, as Obama does for Congress, insisting that they pass His bills without reading them.
And – nothing to do with any pathology, but as an extra criticism of Obama, none of them are as intellectually shallow as he is – with his ignorance of history, economics and political theory – and his indifference to policy analysis and construction; he leaves all of that to others.
So- yes, Obama displays behavioral characteristics, in his interactions with others and in his words – of a severe pathology. Leave someone that pathological in a minor role in community organizing in Chicago and he’s relatively harmless. Put him in a powerful position where he can’t control everyone around him, and the stress on his need-to-control will increase that need and render his narcissism more extreme and result in a sociopathic need to control and..to denigrate and reduce the power of others.
You think he’s just fine and dandy and a healthy individual? That’s your choice, but, you fail to consider those behavioral characteristics I and others have mentioned – and choose instead, to ignore them. That’s your problem.
“Well, one would not know where to start with Newt, eh? Apply your psychological strict scrutiny to him, but then he is OUR psychopath, not their psychopath!”
D-White, it must be a case of “there is no there there”. Stating that Mr. President may have/has problems (don’t we all in one for or another, great or small?) in no way presupposes that no one else has flaws.
One is reminded of High School Prison Math Classes. It was puzzling that some just didn’t get Algebra etc. There it is, simple, an equation to be solved. No matter how much help was given, it just wouldn’t happen for some people. So one might think that such persons are dumb or lazy. Not to say that some aren’t just dumb and lazy…
No so, many times talent would manifest itself in other pursuits. Sports, Arts, English Lit, typing, you know this from your tenure as High School Prison Warden.
So anyway D-White, this “must” be the case with you. Oh yes, this is long distance analysis, but then again, that is what these PJM pages are all about. You defiantly miss some of the irony and the over the top blowing off of steam here. That is a feature of the human species, is it not?
It’s as if Modern Liberal, Leftists, Commie Mass Murders etc., can kill, despise, malign, and generally be quite uninformed, with more than impunity, and this disconnection is usually proudly worn with a badge of honor. And that is ok, right?
Yeah, that Stalin was one bas-ass dude. Just heard that last night at rehearsal, then the nervous giggling after the 20 million or so were pointed out. No big deal. Right?
Mention Mr. President and the 57 states, and you will be met with ignorant disbelief. Been there done it, as you must know, many many times. It’s like hunting deer that have lost their natural instincts. Too easy.
The Liberal Lockstep mentality is very powerfully negative. Very few in that world (that I have grown up in, lived and worked in, for many years) ever challenge it. It’s disheartening at times to see so many blindly buy into that mirage. And remember, this concept can include other as well! There you go, the Magic Wand Disclaimer.
“Conservatives” and so called “righties” are held to a different standard. And you don’t know that? My gosh get a divorce, or the two worst, be black or gay, and it’s over baby! Be black and gay and conservative? You might be ok in Modern Liberal eyes if you’re HIV positive. Victim status.
Either there is the “Math Non-Aptitude” factor (hence English as a career?) in the political D-White head, or just maybe all that Faculty Lounge Tweed toking has numbed your senses to portions of reality.
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is…
ETAB wrote :In reply to sinz54- nope, you’ve got it wrong.
No-one is ‘psychloanalyzing Obama’ from his ideology. The fact that a person has a right or left political ideology isn’t linked, necessarily, to his psychological nature.
What we – and there are quite a number of people – are doing, is to analyze Obama’s RELATIONSHIPS with others and coming up with a psychological profile. This is a valid tactic, for his relations, how he interacts with others, what he says about himself, what he says about others, is a valid analytic area and most certainly describes his psychological nature.
Just a brief list – take a look at Obama and consider that he
-consistently denigrates others, particularly people who disagree with him; that is, he doesn’t focus on the issue but personally demeans and belittles them;
-consistently used his power to denigrate others;
-consistently lies about facts and hard data;
-consistently hides his past actions;
-consistently refers to himself as a superior being;
-consistently describes himself as a version of famous presidents;
-consistently defines other people within identity blocs and then sets these groups up as adversarial against each other;
-insults traditional allies of the nation;
-denigrates the American people, calling them lazy, incompetent, rednecks”
—————–
—————–
But the point sinz54 may be making and even if he is not, I will, is that all of these things are POLITICAL statements said to maintain a position, gain a political advantage, achieve an agenda. None of them appear to be things which many past Presidents have not done and none of them appear to relate to his relationships with the people around him. It is understandable that a President would frame his current actions in the context of other Presidents, whom he asserts had to take similar positions. If when he is playing golf, he is constantly comparing his scores to Ike’s, Nixon’s, Bubba’s, GWB’s or whomever, or is talking to the pics of the past Presidents as Nixon did, that gets more toward character disorder. I haven’t read the Summers’book, but know that it is an insider’s view, critical of Obama, but I have not heard that there is anything supporting your extreme position. It criticizes his leadership and organizational abilities, I believe.
A significant per cent of the accusations around here involve the assertion that Obama thinks America and its past is no good. Now we have the assertion that he is wrapping himself in the mantle of these no-goodniks and that is pathological. He attacks his critics: Wow! Unbelievable; no President has ever done that before. Ditto for cool treatment of supposed allies, hiding past mistakes, or asking the American people to try harder. A lot of this is almost boilerplate political behavior, but it has sent you into a fever.
Clearly, you are obsessed by your diagnosis of Obama, and see it in everything he does. Be careful, or soon when people see you coming, they will take pains to avoid you, because they know what is coming.
And I will note that even Mt Lucky cannot bring himself to go with the Obama as psychopath meme. It is something about the fact that I take joy in pointing out some of the wacky and nutty things people say around here. Well you got me on that one.
But you are not privvy to my online interractions with my liberal former colleagues and students. They fear that I have gone over to the dark side. Now, since I do not interract them in a political forum such as this one, (which is just as well) I am more muted in my critique of their excesses. What that has to do with not getting math, beats the hell out of me. I was a decent high school math student, but certainly did not have the inclination or ability to pursue engineering, especially if I were competing with top level mathematical minds. So what is your point?
In reply to dwight – first, let me say that one shouldn’t move into personal insults in these discussions. I’m going to ignore your ad hominem comments that I’m ‘obsessed’ and that people will avoid me when they see me coming.
Now, let’s stick to the facts – and I’ll continue to critique and reject your opinion.
No, the behavior exhibited by Obama, such as denigrating others, lying, setting himself up as superior to all others, self-defining himself etc, are NOT political statements, and are NOT meant to support a political position. They are meant to self-define HIM as superior, and to self-define HIM as a powerful person. Not his policies and his programs. The fact that you can’t see the separation between Obama as a person and his policies – is the root of your problem.
Obama doesn’t talk about his policies and programs in any detail; all he says is: Pass them because I (the great one) want them passed and everything will be for the best. Indeed, the health care bill was passed because he insisted on it, but who was aware of or knew its policies? As Pelosi said, “we’ll find out about it once we’ve passed it’. Hmmm.
An individual who consistently denigrates others, as Obama does (Americans are lazy, are rednecks, Tea Party are teabaggers), who consistently insults others as Obama does (Ryan, Supreme Court), who consistently belittles and insults leaders of allied nations as Obama does – well, these aren’t political statements. They aren’t being done to bolster support for a political policy but because Obama needs to feel, psychologically, in control of and more powerful than them. Them; not their policies.
Obama doesn’t discuss or debate policies; he leaves both policy development and discussion to others. Obama instead insists that people accept ‘his’ policies on the strength of their acknowledgment of Him as Superior. He has said as such; if they do not accept it – Obama refuses to consider the policy is flawed. No, the people are flawed – and they are ‘ignorant, or rednecks, or teabaggers or..’
As for Obama denigrating America, he most certainly does that and you are aware of all his apologies and rejection of the exceptionalism of the American people. The fact that he then self-describes himself as similar to famous American presidents is not a contradiction at all. He is aligning himself with Those Who Are Revered in America. That’s the point; that self-alignment with past presidents who are thought of as powerful, special and revered. It is those characteristics (powerful, special, revered) that Obama is self-defining as also characteristic of HIM.
These are not political acts; they are not about political theory; they are acts of someone who needs to control others.
My point is D-White, is that some people just don’t “get”, “see”, “understand” some concepts. Whether it’s math, political views points or the differences between the sexes, or whatever, there is no there there. In essence one would not see it as a defect per se, that’s just what it is. Can we all play basketball like Kobe? Sheer genius, coupled with an exploitation (dirty word!!!) of physical ability, and marketing. Math was used as a familiar example, with your competence in English used as an ironic counterpoint, illustrating something about mankind in general, and not necessarily something specifically about you. But if the Pick It Fence fits, it’s yours.
Whew, D-White, excuse here, but you seem to tax the obvious, and who cares if it is intended or not.
I’m sure you take flack from your “friends” but then again, the Modern Liberal seems to have a need to eat its own.
ETAB, has a point, why not analyze Mr. President in any such way you please? Evidence is presented, and it certainly gives pause as to why Mr. President has failed as leader. Notice leader, not politician, not yet at least. Maybe D-White, you are conflating “successful” political modes bolstered by a Cult of Personality with governmental success and/or failure. Why not challenge ETAB’s evidence, rather than just assert political aspects?
Would sinz54 and you exclude Putin or Wen Jiabao from such analysis? Do intelligence agencies routinely derive psychological profiles of world leaders (and nearly everyone, thanks Google) and not for fun and games, but because there are vital security issues involved? So ETAB does this, and once again, this function is valid only if performed by the Approved Credentialed Classes, and why? Because. Just because.
For better of worse our system have evolved from a legislative driven government (as originally intended) to an executive driven government. Congress has ceded power to the executive branch to point of where even Hamilton is vomiting in his grave. So there is a major public interest here, and Mr. President wanted this gig, so the scrutiny that comes with it. His lack of candor and job performance have seriously damaged his credibility with many and raised more questions then he has chosen to answer.
Is our system and culture promoting such behavior? Was Stalin a “balanced” person, or did his lack of some of the important human attributes played against the Communist system help him become “successful”?
The hell with a song line here
Then again, this could be one
ETAB: “take a look at Obama and consider that he
-consistently denigrates others, particularly people who disagree with him;….”
Every one of the things you’ve written in your list there, is part of the left-wing *ideology*. It’s not due to any aspect of Obama’s personality. You will find the exact same stuff from Nancy Pelosi, or Paul Krugman, or any of their supporters, or any of the other “New Liberals”.
All folks of all political persuasions believe that their own ideology and policies are more desirable. But the Left is unique in that they think that leftism is *inevitable*. They see history as a morality play in which the left-wing forces of sweetness and light are constantly fighting against the right-wing forces of reaction and darkness–and always winning in the end. Thus civilization moves inexorably towards democratic socialism–sometimes faster, sometimes much slower, but never in any other direction.
They have no reason to have a civil discussion with those who disagree with them, since they regard those who disagree with them as a dying breed anyway–a mere speed bump along the road that America always takes to the left, left, left, always left.
And when you say Obama thinks of himself as a superior being, all leftists think of themselves as superior by virtue of being leftists.
I compared Obama to Adlai Stevenson.
When Adlai Stevenson was running for President, an admiring commentator called him “the thinking man’s candidate.” Stevenson retorted “Perhaps, but I need to win a majority.”
And he’s not the only one. Most American leftists today don’t see themselves as having anything in common with their fellow Americans. Whom they regard as a bunch of ignorant hicks and superstitious rednecks and racists. Rather, they see themselves as having more in common with Canadians or Western Europeans, whom they regard as “sophisticated” and “humane” like themselves.
It’s not a character flaw. It’s an ideology which automatically leads to arrogance, because its alleged inevitability eliminates the need to sell it to anyone else.
In reply to sinz54 – that’s an interesting argument you are making.
Essentially, you are saying that the personality characteristics of Obama are not his as an individual but are an aspect of his leftist political ideology. I think your argument is interesting and that such attributes can be functional in political tactics but I’ll disagree that they are ONLY political and not psychological with Obama.
Leftism is, by definition, a utopian ideology and therefore is alienated from reality and operative primarily in words, in rhetoric, in hypothetical scenarios of ‘what might or more accurately what MUST be’ if we do such and such. The utopian nature of leftism, with its focus on an ultimate pure perfection of a societal state means that it must reject the current reality, and people, as ‘unacceptable’.Now, is Obama’s alienation from reality due to his psychological nature or his political beliefs?
I’ve seen no evidence that Obama is an intellectual socialist, no articles written by him, no analysis of it as a political theory. Nothing. Instead, all his rhetoric is based around the non-theoretical aspects of socialism, ie, attacks against the rich, attacks against realism (rather than utopianism), and his rhetoric has been geared to adulation of HIM – HIM as a person rather than his ideas.
I have therefore previously suggested that someone with Obama’s psychological need to control others, would, if he went into politics, gravitate to the socialist camp because it sets up an elite set of Rulers versus the Ruled.
I suggest that this is what happened with Obama; his psychological needs put him into the socialist camp. Again, I have seen no evidence, ever, of Obama having any intellectual filiation with socialism. To declare that ‘you are rich enough’ or ‘the rich must pay their fair share’ is not an intellectual construct of socialism but an articulation of anger against those who have fiscal power.
Certainly, SOME of the attributes listed can be found among the left; but they can also be found among the right: the manipulation, the misinformation, but I disagree that my list is indicative of left or right political tactics.
Again, the question then becomes: which came first – Obama’s psychological nature or his socialism? I stand by the former – I think that his psychological needs to control and denigrate others meant that when he moved into the political realm, he moved into the socialist camp. He MUST be a Ruler.
Damn. Rock On ETAB.
If we scale back the size and scope of the Federal beast, we are left without a reason to raise taxes.
Oh, that’s right. That’s not emotional enough nor quite the right note for the fence jockeys of the Fair Share crowd.
Another modest proposal then, if higher taxes are your bag, Greece beckons.
In Greece people traditionally avoided paying taxes. The bottom line of too many righties and lefties, each in their respective way, is that it is better for the country to actually go bankrupt, than it is for one side to give in and pay more taxes or for the other to actually rein in spending.
True, tax evasion was a national sport in Greece. Also, the gov’t had no budgetary watchdog agency operating within the normal gov’t structure, keeping track of what had been promised in terms of pensions, benefits, etc.
Hopefully you are not asking us to accept that the presidency is a valid form of psychotherapy for Obama. Train wrecks are fascinating and difficult not to watch, but survival and prosperity must overcome the pathos of this elected official and his audience. Need one question the rights and try to empathize the motivations of a skunk in a hen house?
I don’t think that Obama is a ‘healthy adolescent’ with the hopeful possibility that he can change/mature into a self-identified adult persona. I think he is so psychologically pathological, as a narcissist and sociopath, that he is personally empty.
That is, he has no morality, no principles, no beliefs. His focus is strictly only on controlling others and assuring himself that their adulation means that he controls their interactions with Him.
He ‘is’ a political socialist only because that ideology functions within a framework of Rulers vs the ruled. That is, socialism weakens the people putting them under the control of an elite set of governors. Obama must control other people or he feels personally threatened. That’s because Obama is, psychologically, empty. Totally empty. He has no identity, no personhood. Such a lack of a psychological identity makes him vulnerable to takeover by Others. So, Obama’s reaction (unconscious) is that he must control all interactions with others and, to prevent takeover, he must control them.
Then, lacking an identity and sense-of-self, Obama tries on numerous masks. That’s where all the various presidential masks come into play. He tries to imagize himself as some other person, from his earlier attempts at being his father, to Ayers, to Lincoln, Reagan, Kennedy, FDR, TR…you name it, he’ll attempt to be them.
But there’s something else. Obama has no self-identity, no sense of who and what and why he is. The only reality for him is a deep anger and hollowness. So, he hates America, hates people who are free and independent and not dependent on him.
And there’s another factor. Obama can’t connect directly to reality, understanding reality and other people as equal to him. That’s because he needs to feel he controls reality/other people. Or they could swarm into his ‘emptiness’. So, Obama, who can’t connect directly to reality, lives only within a virtual world. An imaginary world made up, by him, of His Words.
He’s disconnected to facts, hard data, real events. What he says is the only reality for Obama. And, he’ll change his Words according to his audience whom he needs to control. So- his pathological lying is not based on HIS knowing the truth and intentionally trying to hide it from you. No. His intention is to put you under His control. So, he tells you what you want to hear..and thus, he controls your beliefs and thoughts.
He’ll tell you his stimulus worked, he’ll tell you jobs are created, he’ll tell you this and that. Then, the next day, the Fact Checkers come in and inform us that his data was all wrong. Obama doesn’t care; his focus is on his audience of that day – and his control over them. They won’t read the facts the next day, and if they do and accept them and don’t believe Him…Obama will accuse them of being ‘obtuse, ignorant, stuck in red-neck beliefs, lazy…whatever.
Obama’s psychological pathology means that his basic rejection of the real world and its free interactions with him sets him up with a constant needs to control all interactions by others. If Obama had been left as an isolate community organizer he would not be as dangerous as he now is.
But put someone with that pathology in a powerful position, where he can’t control all people and all interactions – and he will slip into a ‘far-from-equilibrium’ state where he must destroy others. He must destroy their capacity to be strong.So Obama will try to destroy the wealth producing capacities of the US. He’s doing that with his class warfare, his attacks against the rich, his attacks against wealthy individuals. He will deliberately divide the population into adversarial groups; we’ve seen this in his racism, his ethnic attacks (go out and fight your enemies).
Then, there are his attacks against free speech, against FOX, Limbaugh, Hannity etc. His attacks against the states who oppose him. His attacks against free democracies, our old allies, and his aligning himself instead with dictators and non-democracies.
What’s next? Notice how, right from the start, Obama has denigrated Congress, which is the elected voice of the people. Obama rejects the will of the people. He has insisted that Congress pass His bills without reading or debate. He’s focused on unelected czars and committees (EPA etc) to do His bidding. Now, he’s openly defined himself as isolate from Congress, who are defined as The Enemy.
Watdh him – he’ll move more and more to executive fiat; he’ll ignore electoral results and instead, use executive power to control.
Switching horses in 2012 is far more important than “just” politics.
The President has denigrated Congress? Oh my goodness. This has to be a first in American Presidencies.
dwight – your attempt to trivialize and thus ignore Obama’s denigration of others, including Congress, ought to be backed up by examples of Obama’s respect for and support of others. Can you do that?
Can you show us that Obama considers others in the political realm as equal to him and that he respects their input? I’d include Commissions in this set of others as well (eg, he rejected and ignored the views of the committee he set up to evaluate budget and debt issues).
Can you show us how he is seeking to enhance American individual freedom and powers?
Can you show us how his insults to the leaders of our allies (not ‘supposed’ allies as you word it, but REAL allies) are productive to the USA?
Can you show us how his class, ethnic and racial divisions of Americans into identity blocs, and his exhortations to these blocs to ‘fight the enemy’ etc, are productive to those people? And to those outside the identity group?
Can you show us how his consistent denigration of Congress – not just a once-only but consistent denigration of Congress, his open blaming of Congress, his insistence that Congress only function as a rubber-stamp – can you explain to us how this is a sign of a productive leadership?
Can you explain to us how his self-describing himself as similar to past, revered and exceptional presidents, is not a sign of self-glorification?
Can you provide us with a reason for his hiding of his past – his birth certificate, his college transcripts, evidence of any academic scholarship and articles?
Can you explain to us when, if ever, Obama has ever openly declared that opposition to him is ‘the right of the people’? And is not a symptom of ignorance, bias, bigotry or laziness?
Just a few responses would help clarify your support of Obama.
Well, Obama periodically pretends to praise his lap dog Biden. Does that count?
And thanks for pretending that Dwight can process information and writing these lively essays for his benefit. Dwight lives in a mental prison and will never get it but others are enjoying the lesssons.
“Obama has no self-identity, no sense of who and what and why he is.”
Are you sure?
Or is Obama just skilled at hiding his real identity, skilled like other politicians at telling voters what they want to hear?
I remember 1972, when ultra-liberal and Presidential candidate George McGovern told reporter Theodore H. White, “I could scare the hell out of Middle America.” IOW, he truly believed that the middle class would have to pay up to help the minorities and the disadvantaged. And the United States would have to disarm unilaterally in order to set a good example for the Soviets to follow. But he knew he would have to keep his mouth shut about those things, if he was to have any hope of getting elected.
May I suggest that you try reading some left-wing blogs for a change. Try reading the comments from Paul Krugman’s fans in the New York Times, for example. You soon find that all liberals are real good at keeping two sets of books: What they say amongst themselves about America and Americans; and what they say to the rest of us. That’s simple practicality. From their point of view, they can’t win elections without the votes of stupid Americans.
sinz54- I’ve read and read leftwing blogs. I find them very disturbing, not for their content, as much as for their utter indifference to factual reality and to logic. They function entirely in a rhetorical, a verbal realm, where words define reality and the objective world – which exists as it is no matter what you or I call it – never, ever intrudes.
I find that reading view existent in such an imaginary fictional realm, without the intrusion of facts or logic, becomes boring and irrelevant.
Now, with regard to Obama, you suggest that he does indeed have a stable and integral self-identity and is simply hiding his ‘real self’ from us. That of course suggests that his Real Self is so terrifying that we, the electorate, would run, run, as fast as we can, and hide from it. I think it’s up to you to provide factual evidence of this – both of the nature of this Real Self and his hiding this Real Self from us, and his intentionality in so doing. I don’t accept it.
I think I’ve provided enough factual evidence of someone whose psychological need is to demean, belittle and denigrate others. And, evidence of someone who self-defines himself as special, unique, as someone who can stop the rise of the oceans and bring peace to earth – and, thus, expects others to simply carry out His Will without dissent or question. I’ve provided evidence of someone who self-describes himself as akin to the revered and honored past presidents.
I think that those facts suggest someone who is a pathological narcissist. His inability to treat others as not merely equal but also as real moves him into a sociopathic state.
As such, this means that such an individual doesn’t have the integrity of a secure and realistic self-identity and thus must prevent the external objective world from moving into ‘his space’. This has nothing to do with hiding his ‘real self’ for political reasons. It has to do with his need to control how others interact with him – and this mode of behavior is longstanding, and can be found even during the minute records we have of his Harvard days.
“I think it’s up to you to provide factual evidence of this – both of the nature of this Real Self and his hiding this Real Self from us, and his intentionality in so doing. I don’t accept it.”
I assume that would be the point of hiding his records.
No, dwight, your suggestion that Obama’s hiding his records shows that he is ‘politically evil’ rather than a narcissistic sociopath is a ‘modus ponens’ fallacy, or, the fallacy of affirming the consequent. I’ll explain:
Take this statement:
If Obama is politically bad this will show up in his records, and therefore, Obama will hide his records.
Now – this framework of If-Then, can only be valid when you say:
Obama is politically bad as shown in his records and he’s hidden his records.
You CANNOT say:
Obama has hidden his records – and this shows he is politically evil.
Get it? You can’t reverse the logical connection, and say that the conclusion means that the premise is valid.
The common textbook example is:
If it rains, my car will get wet.
It has rained and therefore my car is wet.
You can’t ‘affirm the consequent’ and say:
My car is wet..and so, that means it rained.
That’s because someone’s sprinkler might have been on….
If the culmination of your argument is that you don’t assume that it has rained because your car is wet, because it MIGHT have been sprinklers, I will rest my case. Without calling you names I will settle for the opinion that you are clearly obsessed in proving Obama a narcissistic personality on examples common to many politicians.
We have driven Mr Lucky to talking about licking wounds and clown shoes, at least I think that is what he is talking about in his private system of images. There is something I apparently don’t get which is like not being able to do math, whereas I would say that my critique is that folks here do not use reason over emotion, which is sort of like being enthused and excited about one’s answer to a math problem, as opposed to getting it right.
No, Dwight, my argument is that your assertion that Obama might be hiding his records because they might show that his political agenda was ‘evil’ is a logically fallacious argument…a well-known fallacy called ‘affirming the consequent’.
I tried to explain it to you but you don’t seem to understand it. You can’t look at a conclusion (he’s hiding his records) and assert that this conclusion proves a premise (he’s doing so because his political agenda is evil).
That’s what you did, with your claim of “I assume that would be the point of hiding his records”. Fallacious format: affirming the consequent.
As for your use of the term ‘obsessions’ that’s another fallacy – both a straw man and a semantic fallacy. Using a perjorative term to describe someone’s analysis neglects to consider the arguement and diverts attention from the real analysis – which is Obama’s psychological nature and thus, his capacity to be president.
You reject my argument about Obama’s psychological state but, I’ve asked you in this section (32) to come up with non-psychological answers about his behavior – and you’ve failed to do so.
“There is something I apparently don’t get…”
1. A person’s genetic disposition creates a situation where a person possesses or does not possess certain attributes that others may or may not possess. This could be viewed as instinctual behavior as well.
2. A person through learned behavior is conditioned to possesses or not possess certain attributes that others may or may not possess. This can and will change with time.
3. There exists a combination in some proportion of the above within a person, in some cases reinforcing certain behavior patterns and in others negating behavior patterns.
No doubt wide generalizations, but in your case D-White you seem to not even get this generalized set of concepts. It’s not important on this level anyway, whether you agree or disagree. The point is to take your mind, and free it from past prejudice and/or disposition and allow a pathway to at least attempt to rationally compare differences, despite whatever conditions life has imposed upon you.
Having said this, no one is exempt from these conditions (accepted as wide generalizations). What would be one determining factor as to good/bad success/failure? How one’s thinking interacts with the wider world. Reality does not “care” whether you derive your success/failure from wherever you derive it. You live or die. Now or later. Based on human thought.
Many commentaries and bloggers on PJM are addressing our cultural situation on this level. Notice that cultural is used rather than political. The political situation at a given moment is but a reflection of the current cultural status. One precedes the other.
This is in part, what you don’t seem to get D-White, ironic humor aside. You have a great deal of company.
This is part of the core conflict between Conservatives and Modern Liberals. Many Modern Liberals possess the notion that their cultural viewpoint is unassailable. In a sense, they are very “old school conservative”. They are rigid and unbending to the degree that they have become unaware of playing a major role in their own destruction, dragging down everyone else along with them.
Most Modern Liberals cannot and will not recognize that Conservatism has evolved. The past is dredged up, and used as if this were the present condition of Conservatism. This is false thinking. But it does serve to justify their own ossification, and is used to deflect the painful realization that they are existing in and enhancing a mode of failure that they choose not to or cannot recognize. One can always fall back on Moral Relativism, and justify nearly anything. Learned behavior? But that will not change Objective Reality.
Why is this? Most people just want to be cool, and to be well liked, as least amongst each other’s group. The old paradigm of the Left being that only place began dying out our some time ago. There is now palpable desperation in that self reinforcing world.
Cutting edge Conservatism has become “progressive”, and the self proclaimed “progressives” cannot seem to escape the past. Incredulous? It can’t happen here? You have an aptitude for history. Check it out with a willfully different take.
If the shoes fit, they are yours.
ETAB You sound as if you can’t see the forest for the trees. You asked a simple “show me” and I answered it clearly. It was an odd question anyway, but you are the one that asked for an example, and then you started going on about covering an “evil side” that wasn’t even part of the original question. You have created a scenario by which the two choices are; Obama has an evil side which he is covering OR he is not covering up for an evil side; he is just evil. Hard to do much with that.
Mr Lucky, You have stated some obvious stuff about how one’s acculturation permits or forces one to see or not see certain things. This is so general, as you seem to know, that one can hardly argue against it, but what does it prove? The possibility that I am blind to x, that you are blind to y? Of course, and that is why we chat so amiably, but the fact that such a phenomenon exists does not advance anything that I can see. You are asserting that PJMers respond here based on things which they are seeing and feeling in the culture. OK, but what does this prove, that since they see and feel it they must be right, that I should not question what they see and feel, or what? Are you asking me to accept their and your, er, diversity?
A perennial adolescent, Barry will never grow up, that’s not news.
The question is: will the electorate that voted this problem child into office ever grow up?
Love it, love it, love it! Here it is — finally! Someone had the guts to say it:
” ‘They’ were also ‘us’ — the millions who jumped into a hot real estate market to flip houses and make thousands with little labor in an endless round of musical chairs with the music supposedly never stopping, the chairs never one short. ”
Tah-dah! Bingo! _________! (insert your own cliche here). But, oh, those greedy Wall Street types — we’ll get ‘em!
A lesson to us all: Parasites do best with a fat and happy host.
(And just for the hell of it: Get screwed, Barry.)
Who said he hasn’t tried Warren G. Harding yet?
Isn’t it ironic that Obama has tried to model himself on all those past presidents, when he made such a point during his campaign that some people wouldn’t vote for him because he doesn’t “look like” all those past presidents?
Right on Rebecca!
Great article Victor. Spot on – even better than the usual very good.
You have a gift for pointing out the obvious that somehow escapes most of us. I had not given thought to Obama’s role playing, perhaps because I am so overwhelmed with Obama’s own vast ego. What better example of a shallow star whose only gift is to attempt in the impersonation of someone else?
And the end result is the ultimate blockbuster budget producing Hollywood’s biggest Turkey. The ultimate B-Class actor, ruling the White House with his wife Michelle Antoinette, starring in Cutthroat Island.
I don’t think people here don’t think of such things (lest we wouldn’t be here). But Doctor Hanson gives voice for us, in a way most of us cannot.
Well Allston, I wish we could all be as gifted with the word as VDH, and as wise as you.
Unfortunately for you geniuses of deep thought, I’m here and I hadn’t thought of it.
Tes, I thought it was obvious from the outset. Obama, with no real record to speak of, is the “Wizard’s Apprentice,” to be molded to whatever fit the moment.
President Gumby.
Is that Sorcerer’s Apprentice, starring Mickey Mouse?
I wouldn’t mind if the zerO rotated back to Lincoln. Perhaps, he could be encouraged to take in a little play at Ford’s Theater.
You have to admit that vdh has is the most imaginative and the most accurate basher of little lenin on the planet. This framework is more brilliant than the last, and the accuracy of it just makes your jaw drop.
But I’m afraid that if the liar to end all liars lies his way into another term that new personas won’t be necessary and we will get four full years of the real Obama. Not little lenin, big lenin, in bright red colors. We’re on the borderline now of even being able to recover from the first 3 years. One more term and out.
Meanwhile, conservative pundits spend their days bashing Romney and Gingrich. It just blows your mind.
Pro, do you mean “one more year and out”?
Not sure any of us would survive another full term, for precisely the reason you cited. If we think Obama’s a pinko-socialist now, we ain’t seen nothing yet.
I meant if there is one more term for Obama, the COUNTRY is out of options.
As ETAB says: Get rid of him.
I’m guessing Obama is going to resign between May and August 2012. Our (largely unelected) leaders seem to be following a bible template to make it look like the end of the world and stuff.
Of course it helps their act greatly to have full control of the Iranian government. CIA will probably stage another false “revolution” right here at home, like they’ve been doing all over the world for 42 years.
I tend to agree with you Baobo. I have thought this for awhile now. If the 0ne doesn’t feel like he is going to win I think he will dump us for warmer waters. He is really only interested in money and adulation. And as ETAB says if he is perceived as not living in the real world and ideas have no value he may just blow this joint. Then his lovely wife can stop pretending she likes us.
He is not going to resign. Where did you come up with that notion?
It’s more than a gut feeling. Obama has cheated in evey election he has ever been involved with. He is already setting up to win 2012 with election fraud. If it looks to him like there will be a landslide against him I feel he will drop out…..the wife is ill….the One is ill….the children blah blah blah. He doesn’t intend on losing and will walk away with the war chest. The man has no integrity. As Baobo said May to August he will pretty well know if he is going to pull off a win. Cheating is the game and Obama is the name.
Impeached and/or resign amid scandal.
It’s plain to see this is all being orchestrated. Frankly it’s an immense waste of our time, and a cruel play on emotions.
candide and baobo: I do not think it is in the cards that he resigns, although I would sure welcome it. Here is why, my reasons not in any order of importance.
1. People care about who ends up as their replacement and in his case it would be Biden, and I think he is contemptuous of Biden, just tolerates him and no more.
2. Resigning just does not seem to fit with what has become the “after Presidency” career arc of officeholders. Practically everyone on this blog has practiced some form of psychoanalysis on BO, so I might as well too. I think he likes the power sure, but I think he goes for the perks even more, and he has his eye on the connections and big money to be made as a former president. And, he knows those goodies will be diminished by a resignation.
3. I don’t think he would ever come to the decision to resign on his own. I think he is a too much a creature of those around him, who are there to give him advice. It is not in THEIR self-interest that he resign, quite the opposite. So they’ll keep things on track because by doing so they are really helping themselves.
4.
Interesting analysis, Third Party.
I’m unsure whether Obama would resign. It’s 50/50 frankly.
1) I doubt if leaving the party with Biden would bother him; Obama might consider it ‘just retribution to both the party and the people’ for not having supported him. Obama has a strong malicious streak.
2)Agreed, Obama likes both the power and the perks. But I think he’ll continue to have the perks after he leaves – at least for a while.
3) A key factor is that Obama will never blame himself for any problems. The blame for his failure to be re-elected would be placed, by him, squarely on the treachery of the Democratic Party and the ignorance of the American people. So, he’d keep his pristine narcissistic purity. That leaves us with the question – is there anything that would drive Obama to resign?
4) I have my doubts. Since he doesn’t blame himself and blames others, than, he could even see his failure to get re-elected as a blot on both the Dem.Party and the American people. Not on him. And he’d go on to other things, more suited to his Magnificence.
5) My conclusion, at this moment, is that he won’t resign… Maybe I’ll change my mind tomorrow..
What do you mean by “it’s being orchestrated”? By whom?
ETAB: We can dream.
Pursuant to your item 4: post resignation scenarios:
Time spent watching Biden self-destruct in news conferences.
Establishment of the BO presidential library, (actually a bookmobile).
Teaching post at some east or west coast university, maybe one of his alma maters. Nothing too taxing, mind you, and tight screening on enrollees.
Overture to Wall Street, “hey guys, all that stuff I said about ‘fat cats’, I really didn’t mean it… is there an opening on your Board of Directors, you know, with my contacts we could really …”
Approaches from every rent seeker in the US. (Ends up as unofficial spokesman for the US Solar industry).
A gig on MSNBC?
Perks: SecService coverage. “Uh, where’s my regular crew? How come these guys look so young… and sullen?”
ANOTHER autobiography? Of course, but ghostwritten. Ends up on the book table in Costco, 2 weeks after release, 85% off. Ironically, becomes the poster child for a new environmental/green initiative called, “Needless Publishing,” decrying the waste of (soy) ink and paper on books no one will read.
The Narcissist-in-chief may finally meet with reality when the cheering he finally hears is not laudatory of him, but of his own landslide electoral defeat in 2012.
I would hate to be around him when the sources of his narcissistic supply dry up. How sad and pathetic will be his existence then. In no small way, he will be like the washed-up prize fighter played by Marlon Brando in the film “On the Waterfront”. Unlike Brando’s character, however, Obama will reliably lack any personal insight into his own defeat. We can almost hear him lament to his post-presidential Secret Service guards (serving double-duty as consoling bartenders) about his having been deprived of a second term, “I coulda been a contenda.”
Pity those Secret Service guards.
There’s a David Bowie song called “The Man Who Sold the World”. The titla aptly describes Obama.
Well if Mr. Obama must assume the persona of past presidents then how about Martin Van Buren or Rutherford B. Hayes? They were one-term executives. We can all get behind that.
Keep trying to tear down, Obama. It’s your only hope. There’s nothing you can do to build up those bozos who are vying for the GOP nomination.
Getting rid of him is the goal of the 2012 election: the tool used to pry him out of the White House can be any one of a number of candidates, even a Bozo.
It is crucial for the USA – and even the world – to get rid of Obama this election.
I’m suggesting that a basic strategy of doing this is to start, now, to define Obama. Define him as: fictional.
That is, don’t treat Obama as a real person living in the real world. Obama is pathologically unable to live in and interact with the realities of the world and with real people. So – acknowledge this.
Treat him for what he is: fictional. Keep saying things like: But, with all due respect, Mr. Obama, such a plan can’t funtion in the real world; it can only exist in your fictional world. And, Mr. President – we live in the real world and must acknowledge its facts and strictures.
Constantly comment..such as: “Well, Mr. Obama likes that policy, but, we all know that such an idea can only operate in his fictional world. Not in the real world. Now, the plan that we, the GOP, are suggesting is rooted in and acknowledge the realities of the world. ….”
Every moment you can, bring up the image of Obama as living only in his fictional world…and alienated from the real world. Define the GOP as living in the real world and developing policies to deal with the real world.
Start doing it..now. Define Obama as capable only of ideas possible in a fictional world..and unable to deal with the real world…
And the GOP – as Real World People.
This would work because…eh-em…it’s the truth.
Nice approach. And use VDH’s article to highlight Obama’s points of departure from reality. It’s bad enough that he combines the attributes of a naive incompetent with a blinkered ideologue; but add to that a perpetual, adolescent identity crisis and you have the makings of what must surely be the worst president in history, by any measure.
Of course the problem is even more dire though. From the point of view of his leftist handlers and statist bosses he is the most succesful president in history – since their objective is the destruction of America as a society of free, enterprising individuals, capable of defending (and thus indirectly promoting) freedom abroad.
The danger therefore, as his term draws to a close, is that the final identity he will adopt will be Obama the Destroyer. I recently had a close encounter with evil, and the most disturbing thing about it was that the individual in question knew well the moral dimension of his actions, and yet embraced them. Indeed he could not conceal the sense of righteous power and even moral superiority he derived from the “purity” (his words) of his actions. He saw himself as a great redeemer redressing some cosmic injustice.
One way or another 2012 is shaping up to be a turbulent year. The leftists will try every trick in their playbook. So yes, emphaize the distortions, lies, contradictions, hypocrisies, fantasies and deceptions… And (it’s been said before but it bears repeating, every day, every hour): Stay alert, stay focused, expect the unexpected and keep your eyes on the prize.
Really? Those bozos? Can’t build them up? Sure, we tear at their flaws, because the flaws are where the failures begin… but bozos? Really?
I’ll start with the Lib Repubs, Huntsman and Romney. Both are accomplished men. Both can point to some accomplishments as Governors and as businessmen. If one is a Liberal Republican, they are very acceptable candidates, ideal even. Personally, they are without scandal, and they fit the mold of political executive. I hate their politics and that they pretend they are Republicans. However, no one can legitimately call them bozos.
Then there are the Libertarians, Paul and Johnson. Bozos? Paul has been delivering babies for decades, some 4500+ babies, even while serving in Congress. Johnson has created the largest construction company in NM. Cannot really call these guys bozos, can you?
Let’s try Santorum and Bachmann, the staunch Conservatives. Bozos? How so? They are educated, and very knowledgeable on the issues. They both have solid, honest, consistent records. They both think morality and character play the biggest part of the reason why our country is in such dire straits, because honest, moral people will not elect dishonest, immoral people to represent them. They are decent honest citizens who do not flip-flop nor misrepresent themselves. Are they bozos? Not hardly.
Then there is Gingrich. He is erratic, to be sure. However, one cannot rightly call him a bozo. He has a PhD in History. He has authored many, many well-selling books. He was a very effective Speaker of the House, one who forced Clinton to accept reasonable budgets and welfare reform, which Clinton now proudly points to as his achievements, but it was Gingrich, not Clinton who made it happen. Bozo? Not hardly.
Anyone can be painted as a bozo, if you focus solely on their flaws. These remaining candidates compare favorably to many candidates in past races, Dem or Repub.
Let me remind you of the Dem candidates of 2008: Hillary Clinton(wife of ex-Prez); Barack Obama (no accomplishments at all); John Edwards (kept his mistress on campaign payroll); Joe Biden (gaffe machine); Dennis Kucinich (kook!); Chris Dodd (Champion of Fannie and Freddie); Bill Richardson (corrupt deal exposed caused him to resign). The Seven Dwarves.
Compared to them, this Republican field is filled with Titans. Bozos? Not hardly.
So, Patriot, which one of these folks will you be voting for? Or will you be voting for Obama, despite his abysmal record as Chief Executive of our country? Who’s the real bozo, here?
Well said Marc. Bravo.
Patriot my ass.
“Anyone can be painted as a bozo, if you focus solely on their flaws.”
My point, exactly!!
Bozo…
Funny D-White, there’s no paint on you. What size are those shoes? And aren’t you flawless?
“My point”. No D-White, the points of the Pick It Fence you sit on are owned by OWS now. After all, 99% would include the center.
Did you ever get around to licking that wound?
You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
Now THAT’s what we need to hear.
Of the eight major, declared Republican candidates, the only one tainted by corruption in any way is Gingrich, and it was so politically motivated (80+ charges, 1 stuck and the IRS later ruled against it) that they are clearly meaningless.
On the personal front, the only two that are tainted by scandal are Cain and Gingrich. The accusations against Cain are highly questionable and in addition, he was a private citizen when the alleged legal behavior occurred. The man appears to be a bit of a misogynist, if that. Gingrich has apologized for doing what 50%+ of the country does (i.e., adultery), and converted to Catholicism since the behavior occurred.
As you say, Edwards, Clinton, Dodd, Richardson, Obama…comparing that deeply deeply corrupt and unethical gang to the Republican field is like comparing the Mafia to the girl scouts. And that doesn’t even get to the lying, and past joke candidates like Al Gore and John Kerry, or the piccadillos of Bubba, JFK, LBJ, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.
The title is accurate. The various descriptions/persona depictions are apropos. However, the MAIN fulfillment of “…Who Never Was” is the fact he doesn’t exist with any real documentation. A fraudulent usurping based on forged records describes “the never was” with greater accuracy. In attending a meeting with Joe Arpaio this week, the corrupt press, complicit CONgress, scores of felonious accomplices, and governmental levels of corruption covering up for barry soetero is THE story of millennium.
Obama is a perfect fit for the Elite Political Class, currently in office in Washington DC. Republican and Democrat. John Mccain , Richard Lugar, Tom Harkin, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, John Boener, plus all of the numerous
members of Congress that play the system by increasing their personal wealth.
We will need to take to the streets before they will change.
My plan is to not to expect any changes from the Political Class. We are not going to see anything from Newt or Mitt. Nothing. Make every effort to keep
Income Taxes low, Invest with special care. Downsize, No Debt, pay cash.
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, DO NOT EXPECT THE GOVERNMENT TO DO ANYTHING, BUT SPEND AND TAX.
Can B.O. be the next ‘dead president’ soonish?
No. Not by sniper.
I hope he dies of lung cancer.
Keep sneaking those cigs, you Commie bastid.
Well, he’s no Lincoln because he thinks he can fool all the people all the time.
He’s no FDR because he believes in tired worn-out ideas from the 30s. In the 30s, these ideas were, at least, new and hadn’t as yet failed.
He’s no JFK because he wants people to ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you.
He’s no Reagan because he’s fundamentally a negative, blame-shifting person.
He is a bit like Jimmy Carter — only Jimmy Carter on steroids.
I think Obama’s claim to fame will be as the ‘Worst President Ever’.
I think VDH just hit on the neurosis of the Obama voter – an entire worldview and several generations to boot.
Excellent writing, much too good for the USA. And let’s not forget that Jimmuh and Hussein also have their implacable hatred of Israel and the Jews in common.
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away…
When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door… (slam!)
Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away
William Hughes Mearns
The last emperor of Rome called himself Romulus Augustulus. Are we looking at a repeat?
In a word, he dreams to be White,
while hating the Whites for knowing he can never be their equal.
In the end, when all the masks come off, we’ll find even more lies: a marxist Kenyan citizen.
And Dr. Hanson publishes yet another microscopically precise article about the Juvenile in Chief.
Many have written about the petulant personality of Obama since first witnessing him speak during his campaign for president way back in 2006. How prescient they were.
And now, for a little more prescience: Obama does not get any better; Only worse.
He is very afraid to be himself. He knows how shallow a person he really is, and in acting this way, can displace blame on whatever persona he is imitating at the time.
His “imagination” is completely disabled. His dreams are probably in black and white; And mostly black, as is being revealed by his latest comments.
Obama’s legacy shall be to demonstrate how little a President can be educated, how aloof a President can be, how irresponsible and negligent a President can conduct himself while occupying the most powerful position in the free world. And what’s even more unbelievable is that he will be looked upon as a role model and emulated by many.
The very universe is conspiring to make us “happy”.
What does “happy” mean?
You are never in danger of knowing a single thing.
Really. Not in imagination.
As we live and die, we seem to be all about learning this lesson, but in Radiant Transcendental Being, it is always and already all about—
Discovering this truth.
Yes, there is no there, there, for Obama. And his life is quite a lesson for all of us, so to speak.
Don’t worry, be “HAPPY”!
The demigod Barak turned out to be an empty tank in which every evil perversion and fake ideology raised up against the knowledge of God had its turn. Such a whoring fool will be lonely in hell when he goes there. He was a pretender to the throne, a rebellious son spoon fed on hate and self importance, his roots in death always. His greatest achievement will be that of an assassin, a killer of men and he will have never actually pulled a trigger. There have been other evil men but never one so unanimously despised.
The opinion of several of you the Obama will resign before next November rings true. By that time, Obama’s corruption, poor performance as a leader, and freedom killing political bent will be evident to many disgruntled voters. He does not have the emotional stamina to face such an election outcome as a landslide loss and will resign, probably to do some nonsense for the UN.
Anticipating Obama’s interview on 60 Minutes and his Captain of the Ship analogy, he supposedly said, “Morale is to improve or the floggings will continue.”
Bubber: re: Warren G. Harding. I did an paper on him as a college undergrad. He was a man who could teach Obama a few things. He essentially admitted that he was unqualified to be president, spent an inordinate amount of time rewarding his friends, and presided over one of the most corrupt administrations in history. But, one has to admit, he maintained his appearance. With Obama, it’s all smoke and mirrors.
Seems to me that Obozo, our clown in chief, keeps channeling Bozo the clown, and his actions seem to indicate that he is laughing at we the people with everything he does.
That can start with telling us about shovel ready jobs, and laughing that they don’t exist.
How about telling us that he was going to cut the deficit in half, but expanded it.
How about his promise, with his economic plans, that unemployment would stay under 8%.
How about his loans to Solyndra, and this being the great green jobs of the future.
Or how about the joke, that we shouldn’t drill, but should take borrowed money, to loan to Brazil, so they can drill and we can be their best customers.
The question is: How do we get the lights to turn on for those who still swoon over his empty words?
Try “green energy”. Some mold glows in the dark.
Great question Sarah! I think that the best way to portray B.H.O to the general public is in the one word image: which is obvious, which he uses frequently to disrespect others, which he pretends most not to be, and that is the portrait of his nose in the air “elitist”.
The “elitist” is easy to understand by the folks to whom he talks down. It is not a word that requires linked understanding. An elitist takes a 17 day vacation to play golf. The rank and file union member gets no such priviledge. His being an “elitist is both his ego and his blind spot. OWS, his base, rejects elitism. Being an elitist puts him in with the millionares and billionares image. An elitist is undemocratic. It is a one word phrase, that for lowest common denominator sake is more simple than his winning meme of “hope and change.”
A POTUS by any other name… will do. ASAP!
Ohaha
Ogatcha
Obeyme
Odamnya
Obummer
Oblahblah
Obominator-in-Chief
Obama Kenobi Truthful
Obama-lama-dingdong
Obama: Bower to Non-US Power
Obama Wanna Be Emperor Palpatine
Jar Jar Binks loves how Obama Thinks
This vacuous, engaging man, so easily measured by his distance from reality, reflects so many of us as nation like no other before or since. But the image now seen in the mirror grows tiresome and obscure and must disappear. He will go, as if he never was, like so many before and yet in his place now looms a dark fate so long obscured by the tailors. Nowhere can we see that persona who can mirror us, now that our image seems so shattered. Many sense the dread that a long dark journey of the soul awaits us all and this Obama child seems nothing so much as the last thread of the emperor’s new clothes slipping away.
Obama, to me, isn’t a President. So what is he?
In three years, to me, he’s proved himself to be Adolph Hitler in sheep’s clothing.
The larger than life speeches.
The constant taunts and threats made by underlings for Jews to get a life.
The unceasing attempts to widen their sphere of influence.
The attempts to shut up media that doesn’t carry his water.
The attempts to stifle free speech.
The use of thugs at public functions to beat up people who don’t like Obama.
The list is three years long.
If it’s not politically correct to make Hitler comparisons regarding our own little Hitler, and it makes you feel uncomfortable, then get used to it. The Hitler comparisons will be coming. I call it Operation Fast and Furious.
Sorry, mainstream politically correct Republicans. But I don’t care a cotton pick’n minute how upset this makes you.
Good grief!!
Well, he has channeled a half dozen U.S. presidents during his first term, and during his second term, he will look overseas for historical “enlightened” despots to model himself after. Get used to it, he will be around for another four years. And also get used to the fact that after he’s gone, there will be more like him. The Democrats and their poor people have taken over. Start storing your lentils folks.
I feel like Obama is just some guy who won the be-the-president lotto.
ETAB
don’t forget obama got the muslim brotherhood the gig in Cairo .. Tunisia, Libya
Typo Alert: “to undo his legacy,” not “undue.”
Okay, let’s have some predictions:
- Where will Obama be on January 22, 2012?
Ahem. That’s January 22, 2013.
BO reminds me of a young boy trying on his father’s shoes and tie, and looking for someone to say “what a big boy you are!”
Except the father left long ago, and the boy never knew him.
Sad.
Obama already told us in his books, that he had no identity. He bragged he was a mirror, reflecting back what the viewer wanted to see. The same with socialism, it promises everything to everybody, bragging to all, it is too good to be true. And it is.
In the words of Gertrude Stein, there is no there there.. or at least no “there” that he or his handlers would wish to publicize. It is amazing that in this day someone could go to so many highly touted schools, have worked in government for several years and somehow manage to have little to no track record prior to becoming President.
Maybe the biggest reason for dismissing Obama’s own comparisons to other famous Presidents from history is that they all were men of action and men of accomplishments. In terms of accomplishments, he’s not even Jimmy Carter. Nor, I fear, are his policies and ideology as innocuous as Carter’s.