11. Obama promises to be a tax-cutter. So we know that vast new taxes will come through revised income tax rates, caps lifted off payroll taxes, Cadillac health care charges, and a variety of surcharges.
12. Obama warned that if another stimulus were not passed, unemployment would reach double-digits; hence, we were assured that the jobless rate would reach 10%.
13. Obama calls for bipartisanship and an end to finger-pointing. Of course, then, he will begin and end nearly every speech with attacks on George Bush and the prior administration.
I could continue ad nauseam, but you get the picture. So why does Obama serially tell untruths, mislead, and do the opposite of what he promises?
Here are four brief reasons. They are complementary, rather than mutually exclusive.
1) He does this because he can. Obama, from college at Occidental to Chicago organizing, has never been called to account. He was always assured that his charm, his ancestry, or his rhetoric alone mattered, while his record, actions, and accomplishments were mere footnotes. He channels our hopes and dreams and need not traffic in reality. We, the people, like the media, have tingly legs and believe the president is “some god,” and therefore need not question the charismatic face on the screen.
2) Obama is a reflection of an era of liberal academic postmodernism. There are no absolute facts; truth is only an illusion in the eye of the beholder. Reality instead is relative, and predicated on the basis of power. Ergo, what others say is true is simply a reflection of their race/class/gender/religion/cultural privileges. Speaking “truth” to power means simply opposing those who, you deem, have more advantages than you and yours.
3) Obama is a neo-socialist who believes the ends of social justice justify most means necessary to achieve them. As a philosopher-king who knows what is best for ignorant lesser folk, who can’t possibly appreciate all the ways in which he works and suffers on our behalf (Cf. Michelle’s “deigns to run”), Obama reluctantly must employ Platonic “noble lies” to achieve the common good: OK, we don’t understand ObamaCare and therefore fear it and the way it is packaged and sold; but once it is forced down our throat, we will come to love — what is good for us.
4) Obama is a narcissist, who believes that his reality is our reality, that his rules are our rules. If the king, the autocrat, the heart-throb, the prophet, or the messiah says something is true, then facts and reality adjust accordingly. Facts and corrections are boring. And if confronted with contrary evidence, the self-infatuated simply smiles with the assurance that the problem is others’, not his.
And it is, sort of.
Many of us have been ad nauseam with Obama for some time now.
And it’s as if the Scott Brown victory didn’t matter at all.
“It is as if “truth” is a mere problem of lesser mortals.”
That’s precisely how Barack Obama perceives the matter. He is truly above the petty demands of we lesser human humans. Obama is very similar to Woodrow Wilson. Henry Cabot Lodge considered the earlier president to be an outrageous liar. Both Wilson and Obama think they have a special calling. The Zeitgeist wants them to lead the common folk to the Promised Land—by hook or crook. What’s a few lies when you are doing so much good? After all, we probably can’t handle the truth!
The Progressive ideology of the early Twentieth Century has inevitably morphed into the postmodernist contempt for truth and rational thinking in our modern era. “Elites” refuse to listen to others. They are especially virtuous and intellectually brilliant. Outsiders are minimally ignorant, if not vile. Such people must be “nudged” as quickly as possible. And if that doesn’t work—stronger measures must be used. Do you really want to better understand Obama? If so, put the Saul Alinsky stuff to the side. The Chicago agitator was something of a second rater. It would behoove you to redirect your attention to Woodrow Wilson.
It also turns out that everything Joe Biden said about Senator Obama before the Democrat Convention is true and that everything Senator Reid said about President Obama recently is true also.
So, is that tingly leg thingy really good for us, or not?
Perhaps the real answer is that today, 1/28/2010, is the first day of Emperor Obama’s reign. Well, another way to look at things is that 1/20/2013 will be the last day of his reign.
VDH has his number due to encountering many Obamas in his years in academe and hearing from other professors about the Obamas in their classroom and some as assistant profs. For more you should google — “the empty black suit”
Many years ago, a young Barak was seeking his education, prompted on by some family members. His color and big smile came before him, to woo others that could offer a “leg up” and for some a mentoring status. He embraced these gifts and returned the favors by sharpening his natural skills.
Soon, the democratic party saw him and wanted to have this young man on their team. They groomed him all the while whispering to others “keep your eye on this kid, he’s got something special and he’s going places!”
Today, Obama rests atop the democratic party, where all those who helped propel him smile for their efforts. He is their best shot at achieving what they have dreamed about for decades! The American public has met some of these mentors and major supporters, only some.
Hysteria reigns in America! Not until it comes crashing “down to earth” will we give it the final “blow” such an energy always demands.
Till then, expect “all hell to break loose” in your world and mine!
#3. Doug Wright:
And on 1/20/2013, will the inner cities riot?
if this is a concern, and I suspect it is, is Obama doing anything to ameliorate that day?
I don’t pretend to be especially smart, but back in ’08 I was able to recognize a rat faced liar and thief when I saw one. All my liberal friends shunned me for my views at the time, now a few are starting to sheepishly admit they were suckered.
I’m pretty sure Obama is a one-term president,,, the problem is figuring out how to contain and minimize the damage until we can get some fiscally responsible adults back in Washington. My Senator tells me it a thousand times more difficult to repeal a bad law than it is to pass it. Obama’s agenda must be stopped~!
Essential vdh
It is not the fault of an AA, PC idiot when he gets elected. An idiot expects to see what he sees and to understand it all in his limited world context.
That’s why he is an idiot and or a fool. No difference between a fool and an idiot. Unless you believe the sometimes fools may unlearn to be foolish before taken out of the gene pool. Idiots cannot and will not learn. Anyone who follows and idiot is also an idiot.
What about those who vote for him, the BHO’s and their idiot fools. How is America creating the additional idiots that can replace America’s reality with BHO’s idiot reality. All who vote for BHO then must be idiots also.
What are you is a more important question to America that who and what is BHO. By now that realization should be sinking in. He will not change.
I have reached the point where I can’t watch him anymore. I just hope and pray we can survive three more years of this abomination.
I note that Senator ‘temp’ Kirk remains in the Senate and still illegally voting, and no one seems to care … The Senate is the last to know that Massachusetts had an election on Jan 19.
ZERO is nothing more than a cacophony of lies. I assess he thinks he is always talking to ignorant Indonesians.
It’s too bad that ZERO is the first president who has an Internet that is up to speed and you can have side by side video showing he lies.
There may be another reason, related to your no. 2, but yet even more cynical. In 1984, George Orwell describes the (supposedly) fictional technique called “doublethink”. As I recall it consists of mastering the ability to consciously will yourself to absolutely believe two utterly contradictory concepts simultaneously, and then immediately forget that you made the effort to do so. For instance FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and TWO PLUS TWO EQUALS FIVE. I have known quite a few fairly radical leftists, and have noticed that this tendency is disturbingly real. When you point out to them that their position is fundamentally contradictory, they angrily affirm it nonetheless and quickly move on. Apparently preferring to delude themselves rather than peek outside their habitual thought bubbles.
INGSOC’s (the ruling ideology in 1984) purpose in this, according to Orwell, was to break-down people’s ability to reason empirically, and to discern truth from fantasy, thus making them pliable by reducing them to immobilized consuming automatons. The end goal was to destroy hope in any kind of future except universal pain (the totalitarian dream is at its heart, sadistic – stamping on a human face, forever.)
The modern left too employs a similar technique (as J.W. Burke pointed out a few posts ago.) so not only are BHO’s continuous contradictions a reflection of his post-modern worldview, they are also a manifestation of the left’s attempts to uproot the American psyche (you see it reflected in pop-culture a lot too – the efforts to blend fantasy with reality on TV for instance.) The subliminal message: nothing is real, so focus on fulfilling your senses (and we will provide lots of exciting content, for a price of course) and let us worry about the serious stuff. As with the book, the end goal is oligarchy and an anti-human nihilism. The kind that Jonah Goldberg outlines in in Liberal Fascism, or Jamie Glazov in United in Hate.
The good news is that it backfired. It is the left that wound up trapping itself in contradictions, hence the nonsensical contortions which pass for policy that VDH outlines above. Also, because the Constitution is so empowering, Americans have a strong sense of ‘self’, which makes them hard to brainwash. The progressives, thanks to their rejection of objective reality, mistook American goodwill for submissiveness in 2008. They will come to understand that in November 2010.
Obambi promises that he’s going to continue to fight for us, to “not quit”. Therefore, hopefully, he realizes that he’s been a complete failure and quits. The downside, of course, is that we would have probably the dumbest man to ever hold the office of VP take over as Prez. Still, Biden appears to be so inept he probably uses floor diagrams to ensure the gets the correct shoe on the correct foot each morning.
It is human nature that people keep doing what works. Obama knows that most of the US population are sheep and that the opposition party is impotent. Scott Brown was just a bump in the road en route to socialism. So yes, more lies can be expected although requiring occasional rephrasing. Now VDH our great observer- please provide a commentary of concrete solutions. Blathering, even if accurate, just becomes part of the background noise. I do appreciate your insights. Keep them up.
VDH:
This essay – along with your NRO Corner piece analyzing the tropes used by BHO – is just exceptionally good.
The Left came up with the mantra “Bush lied” about Iraq having WMD. Bush’s assertion was based upon spying. The spying may have been right and may have been wrong. But could we have taken the chance?
Our new mantra ought to be, “Obama lied.” Those deliberate misrepresentations about the Supreme Court decision might be the tipping point.
As a former law school teacher, Obama should have either known he was misrepresenting the decision or he is so arrogant that he thinks he can get away with the lying.
My sense is that Obama’s weakness is how was his campaign *really* financed. If we had a real media it would investigate his internet contributions by prepaid credit cards. That could be Obama’s Watergate or Whitewater.
How did Barack raise all that money?
So with the d nauseam . . . comes perhaps the bigger question . . . do we the people continue as in the past to lose interest and fade away as there is nothing that can be done? Do we continue to accept the status quo of a politic body filled with failures and disgust for the common man? Is the great correction really going to occur? Yes, we can say that 2013 is the a date that could represent the end of rule by the fool . . . or shall it be just another day of infamy when we are broadsided by the secrets of power?
Hilarious.
All the GOP has to do is play back all of this drivel in the 2010 election season. Those ads will write themselves.
BTW, I love the name-changing games: jobs bill = stimulus; energy bill = cap and trade.
To quote sundry 1980s action/disaster movie characters: “My God, what have we done?”
All true and well said. The Liar in Chief is becoming the most ignored president, nobody is really listening to what he says with any seriousness because he cannot be trusted. He has been reduced to pumping out propaganda and staging events to make himself look bigger than he really is, like the shadow on the wall Mr. Big in the old cartoons. The propaganda now comes from every direction in government. Now any reports put out by government agencies must be looked suspiciously after these agencies are attacked by the Whitehouse for not agreeing with the Liar’s lying words. The attacks will only increase. Is anyone suspicious of the 5.7% GDP report? Smells fishy. Bottom line is no one will deviate from the current path of hunkering down to weather the storm based on anything the Liar in Chief says.
What is it that gives VDH such insight? Growing up in the country and doing real work in the real world. He is the anti-intellectual intellectual-– the everyman’s intellectual. Today’s article is dead-on as usual.
It is really sad that our country would go from “great generation presidents” to the “60′s liberal Clinton” to “that 70′s kid” Obama.” Clinton was a great casual white liar, but Obama is sort of an institutional (Chicago) liar and has that 70′s arrested development liberalism–– the kind VDH explained a few days ago when he said Obama couldn’t articulate or analyze his beliefs–he just follows (and perfected) worship in the lib state religeon.
I hope for the sake of working people he doesn’t keep screwing up. Things are getting tough out there. I think it is wise to anticipate and plan for things to get worse. His “long arm of the government solutions” do not stimulate the economy, but that is his unchangeable ideology, so we may have to ride this thing out by going into American kick-ass, hard-work, long-hours mode.
Dr. Hanson:
Well said, as always. May I expand on the idea of truth? Barack OBama is our first post-American president, but more importantly, he is our first true celebrity president, in the most vacuous sense of the term. He is truly famous for being famous.
Like many “celebrities,” Obama has ascended on the flimsiest of qualifications. Of course, for the socialist, merit is utterly unimportant, and must always be ignored and attacked, so it is hardly surprising that Obama has no real qualifications or accomplishments. This is a man, remember, who has written two (?!) autobiographies (I’ll not bother to comment on the hubris and narcissism inherent in that) wherein he has admitted that he could not explain, even to close friends, what he did as a “community organizer.” So nebulous was the occupation that occupied most of his adult life, for which he prepared by attending elite universities (though his record of accomplishment there is also mysterious), that it had no substance even to Obama.
He ascended to his first elective office on the strength of being a community organizer, with a bit of help from the most legendarily corrupt political machine in America in the cynical manipulation of arcane election laws that cleared the way by erasing the candidacy of former mentors and supporters. The fact of his election to the Illinois State Senate–and his non-record of no accomplishment while there–was the basis for all of his subsequent electoral non-accomplishments. He was, in essence, elected to the presidency because he was famous for being elected several times before. Yes, he once gave a speech that stirred the hearts of leftists, but even celebrities famous for being famous can look the part (most of the time) and act the part (some of the time), but in terms of actual accomplishment, his resume was and is a gaping black hole from which no merit can be seen or escape.
No rational being gives credence to the lunatic ravings of celebrities when they deign to discourse on politics. “Honey, did you see what George Clooney said about health care?” “Nah. Pass the toast.” “Honey, Sean Penn is rowing around New Orleans in a row boat.” “That’s nice. Where did you put my blue tie?” No one expects them to be intelligent, capable, or to know anything about anything. Lies told by celebrities are as insubstantial, as ephemeral as honor in politics. We expect nothing from celebrities except that they be, upon occasion, entertaining and that they look and act the part.
As so it is with Barack Obama. In one year he has so devalued the Presidency of the United States that Americans expect that he is lying whenever his lips are moving. Leftists know that he is lying, but gladly accept it and chortle in delight at his smirks and barely disguised obscene gestures (presidential, those) because he is lying in pursuit of socialist goals and they know what he really believes and intends to do. The lies are uttered in pursuit of social justice and tricking the rubes; the elite know the truth and it will eventually enslave the rubes. For honorable Americans, the lies are infuriating, but they are so common, so continuous, so outrageous, that we sigh in exhaustion, and beaten down by over-exposure expect nothing better. We have greatly lowered our expectations, not only of the Presidency, but of all political discourse. After all, this is a man who ruthlessly attacks the former president (and/or anyone who opposes him), and moments later, piously pleads for political unity and an end to partisanship, all the while showing not the slightest shame. In this, at least, Obama is truly a leader. He has made himself and the presidency, like all of those famous for being famous, truly inconsequential.
And this is the ultimate danger. Obama has cast off the burden of representing and embodying the power and prestige of America. He has successfully made the presidency all about him, and in so doing has so diminished it that foreign leaders who wish us well or ill, like Americans, regard him as an empty, lying suit. Crossing America? Once upon a time, a dangerous ploy. Crossing Barack Obama? Any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Allies know that he cannot be believed and trusted and enemies know that he is as strong, resolute, honorable and determined as any witless Hollywood twit, empty shells whose appearance is attractive but are utterly empty and devoid of merit. And they will, soon, treat him–and us–as they would any empty-headed starlet who suddenly found herself, in scanty evening gown or bikini, in the middle of any Arab capital.
Good Doctor:
While your item 3 of the “Why-s almost touches the point, you leave out that prime self-declaimed motivation “to transform America.”
To do that by whatever means, however destructive, is the prime objective of that MEGALOMANIA which goes BEYOND NARCISSISM and drives all his perceptions without regard to realities of individual, social or political circumstances.
He “sees” and “hears” what he prefers and selects that can contribute to the fulfillment of that singular objective.
The result is incompetence in dealing with reality.
Say what you want about the man, but what he is doing works. He has all of the Democrats supporting everything he does. He can go further left and they would follow. That is the difference between the left and the right. The election of Scott Brown was a bump in the road.
He has four years to implement his plan in order to keep power and destroy the USA. I am more upset and the Congressional leadership who follows him. Any country can be hijacked by a nut case no matter how well intended our founders. What we cant prevent is the following that comes from men like Obama. Democratic Senators and Congress members should be ashamed and profiled for following Obama. They are more to blame for the current state of our country.
With his support, combined with a little tweaking of the laws ie amnesty for illegals, he will keep his majority.
This is not a war with Obama. Its a war with liberalism whose true colors are being shown. The question is will enough of America figure out that the Democratic party does not represent them and their anti conservative beliefs.
If we survive, we will be better for it. I still think something will be found out about Obamas citizenship creating a controversy unlike any we have seen. Its only a matter of time but we are headed for a big confrontation within our own country. It happened before. Its all quite fascinating to live in these times.
My only dispute is the contradiction between the second and third reasons for Obama’s beahvior. Obama is a postmodernist product of academia, and nothing like a Platonic philosopher king. Plato’s philosophy is centered on the existence of Truth- big capital “T” Truth. Plato may be wrong about many things, especially in politics, but he is the arch-enemy of postmodernism and relativism.
No surprises, I am a big fan of Plato, an enemy of postmodernism, and a young academic.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
-John Adams, ‘Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials,’ December 1770
US diplomat & politician (1735 – 1826)
I hope eventually the American people will stop rationalizing Obama’s premeditated untruth’s and start to pay attention to his actions instead of his pretty words.
Which frankly I don’t find so pretty.
I think that tide is turning a bit, but his poll numbers are still too high to be so sure.
As Joe Wilson said “he lies”!
Always insightful VDH.
Containment is now the program, until we can deliver our boy-king to the U.N., or whoever his next employer will be.
@ David Thomson
THANK you! The excesses of modern liberalism, and the warped interpretations of the Constitution necessary to enable them, had their beginnings in the “progressive” movement of the very early 20th century.
The SCOTUS really began twisting the Constitution around the axle with its loopy interpretations of the interstate commerce clause dating from that era.
EXCELLENT ESSAY VDH
the obama has never been accountable and looks like that isn’t going to change any time soon.
..but on the bright side it is a pile of material there for comedy sketches and blogging.
imagine the minutia that you had to try to make an essay on before this.
Dear Professor,
You forgot that Obama championed freedom and human rights around the world. Hence he will continue to have open dialogs with the worst kind of dictators, mass murderers, etc. from the world.
mikemcdaniel: “Obama [...] is truly famous for being famous.”
So true. He is the Paris Hilton of politics.
#10, your observation is the same as mine. Why is Kirk still voting ? The next question is whether the bills he voted on are valid. Why did the Republicans not object when he voted on the debt ceiling ? I wonder.
Good analysis, but a fifth possibility occurs to me: his dishonesty is “taqiyya”, a Muslim tradition that allows Muslims to lie to non-believers. I’m not saying that Obama is a Muslim — he doesn’t have to be to accept a custom of the faith he was raised in or around. I think it’s possible he just plain thinks it does not matter that he is lying to Americans as they are non-believers. F
The linguists at Language Log have done analyses about presidents’ use of first-person pronouns, and Obama doesn’t use more of them than any other president, not even close.
I agree he sounds like a narcissist, but that’s not why people think so.
…”he has employed the first-person pronouns “I,” “me,” and “my” more than any prior president.”
Barack H. I-bama
It is the nature of a Back Hole to suck everything in its proximity into its vortex. Behold Obama.
“Bolshevik plot”?
Yes, Obama, only I would not call it “Bolshevik”. I know you did it to caricature the right’s fears and warnings about your policies. Clever, but contemptible. And it won’t dilute the charge. Mockingly calling it “Bolshevik” doesn’t mean it’s not Socialist. We’ll be calling it like we see it daily.
This should get very interesting.
Bill Clinton was able to pivot on a dime, seize the Republican agenda as if he thought it up, balance the budget that had the month before been estimated to be deficits far into the future and stay in the White House for eight years as a lovable rascal… though getting impeached in the process.
Obama simply cannot pivot. He doesn’t know how.
Reagan’s first year saw inflation and unemployment, but his policies brought prosperity.
Obama has put no policies in place that will create private sector jobs, help me want to buy a GM/Chrysler car or want to work harder so I can pay his onerous taxes.
Obama’s got no upside and a very long way to fall.
Good points. On the other hand, as George Stephenopoulus said, Clinton “kept all the primises he meant to keep.” (You can look it up).
VDH, I greatly appreciate your touching on the *why* Obama behaves as he does versus the *how* that you hear endlessly elsewhere.
One thing though. I keep hearing about the “Chicago way” and about Obama’s “Chicago” style, etc. I think this is overblown. To pick up on David Thomson’s point (#2 above), we have to look beyond Chicago to the real basis of The One’s actions and his ideological underpinnings. If they began and ended with His immersion in the “Chicago Way” and Alinsky they’d be far easy to resist. No, we have to look at broader and frankly more sinister, historical references, and leave the “Chicago” trope behind. Maybe start with Wilson. But I fear it goes beyond that.
To understand Obama read philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s _On Bullshit_.
I’m been recommending that re: Obama for over a year.
2 + 3 = “Western Marxism” and the Frankfurt School.
Obama tells us he sought out the Marxist professors at Occidental — and many of these folks would have been trading in Western Marxism and the Frankfurt School.
The same sort of Marxism / Post Modernism makes up the backbone of the Critical Legal Studies / Critical Race Studies that Obama soaked up at Harvard.
2) Obama is a reflection of an era of liberal academic postmodernism.
I could not agree more. The UC schools produce thousands of these types every year. These are the same frat-boys who voted Jon Stewart the most trusted man in America. These morons fill California State and local government.
I’ve been making the case for #2 and #3 for almost 2 years now.
David wrote:
“2) Obama is a reflection of an era of liberal academic postmodernism. There are no absolute facts; truth is only an illusion in the eye of the beholder. Reality instead is relative, and predicated on the basis of power. Ergo, what others say is true is simply a reflection of their race/class/gender/religion/cultural privileges. Speaking “truth” to power means simply opposing those who, you deem, have more advantages than you and yours.
3) Obama is a neo-socialist who believes the ends of social justice justify most means necessary to achieve them. As a philosopher-king who knows what is best for ignorant lesser folk, who can’t possibly appreciate all the ways in which he works and suffers on our behalf (Cf. Michelle’s “deigns to run”), Obama reluctantly must employ Platonic “noble lies” to achieve the common good: OK, we don’t understand ObamaCare and therefore fear it and the way it is packaged and sold; but once it is forced down our throat, we will come to love — what is good for us.”
And Obama talking with Republicans today says–hey, you probably look at my plans and think: this is a boshie plot!
Why yes.
Obama is his own worst enemy. His greatest hits from the ’08 campaign are the exact same things he is being hit over the head with today.
Everytime he speaks unplugged and many times when he reads off of his telepromter he sets himself up for a “words and deeds” comparison.
Never in his life has he ever been held accountable for his words with his deeds, never.
Let him talk everey night. Put it on the 6 o’clock news. He will not win any converts that way and since all of his policy ideas poll in the 30% now he needs converts.
Soomewhat OT:
VDH has, several times now, characterized our center-right country as it being “still” center-right, as in “for the time being,” which has an ominous ring to it, as if conservatives in the culture War, however just the causes (being on the side of Reason, for one, and perhaps first and foremost), are only delaying the inevitable loss.
Are conservatives fighting from the Alamo?
19. mikemcdaniel:
your comment is right up there with VDH’s piece.
I think Paris Hilton would make a better president.
regards
Some say Obamarang, some say liar. As someone frequently says on these pages, “If his lips are moving, he’s lying”.
“I am going to get even with Whitey if it takes the last breath I’ve got!”
“I will make Whitey the new BOND SLAVES, even if it kills me in the process!”
Two statements floating up there, just above the head of a guy who thinks “he is the one” we’ve been waiting for…yea–sure you are pal!
#6. Robert Winkler Burke:
Absolutely not, no civil unrest anywhere in the USA on 1/20/2013 when the new president will be inaugurated. We will be well into our post-racial age; well beyond such messy, untidy civil unrest. Recall that Chris Matthews has assured us that we are in a post-racial age; his tingly leg says much about this new age.
Of course, given how much our current president assures us of his own greatness, we’re not really too well prepared for whatever age we’re in right now. Personally, I’m hoping that on that future January date, a very sharp cold snap will settle in on the whole country, including our western most state, as lovely as it might be.
However, I’m more concerned about the state of our society on Election Date, 11/6/2012, and how civil we will be throughout the states. How many citizens will get to actually vote, especially in Chicago?
I’m just sick of this lying bastard. The thought of living through another three years of his deliberate falsehoods and displays of absolute contempt for this country is revolting. I’m already at the point where listening to his voice and seeing him on television triggers an automatic reflex to either leave or turn the offending input off.
What Professor Hanson didn’t say, but certainly thought, is that this fool couldn’t lead a bunch of hungry hobos to a free banquet. No one trusts him to tell the truth, no one trusts his judgement, and there is a very serious doubt, even among his erstwhile supporters that he can be credited with good intentions. One year in, the Right has long since pegged him for being the liar and phony he always was, the ignorant center are waking up to that fact, and even the lefties are getting “happy feet.”
Now, ask yourself how that translates into anything but paralysis if there is some incident where we really need competent national leadership. For all the mud Bush had thrown at him, in crisis he had both the Right and the military solidly on side because they trusted that he loved the country and would honestly do his best to make good decisions. What rational person would make the same claim about Obama?
We better pray hard that for the next three years there is no problem requiring strong leadership, because this affirmative action fraudster would make Carter’s responses to problems look like paragons of determination and efficiency by comparison.
Dang, you’re good! Never a wasted word and always on target.
In a very real- and very scary – sense, Obama , like Clinton and Carter before him, is incapable of lying. In order to lie, one must acknowledge an objective truth, founded in a fundamental reality existing outside oneself, whatever the hopes or desires of the moment may be.
But for this breed, the truth is whatever they want or need today, right now, this minute. And anybody who says no is a monster. And if circumstances change, and a completely different ” truth” is required next year or next week or five minutes from now, that’s fine. If you object, it’s because you’re a bad person.
How sad, to live in an Orwellian wilderness that is at the same time one’s own self. And how screamingly dangerous for the rest of us, when such beings have power!
In a very real- and very scary – sense, Obama , like Clinton and Carter before him, is incapable of lying. In order to lie, one must acknowledge an objective truth, founded in a fundamental reality existing outside oneself, whatever the hopes or desires of the moment may be.
But for this breed, the truth is whatever they want or need today, right now, this minute. And anybody who says no is a monster. And if circumstances change, and a completely different ” truth” is required next year or next week or five minutes from now, that’s fine. If you object, it’s because you’re a bad person.
How sad, to live in an Orwellian wilderness that is at the same time one’s own self. And how screamingly dangerous for the rest of us, when such beings have power!
(1) is in a symbiotic nexus (4).
The psychodynamics of people who are (2) liberal academic postmodernists, (3) neo-socialists, and (4) narcissists are heavily armed with defense mechanisms that are converted–often unconsciously, but sometimes somtimes consciously–as offensive weapons,
Prominent among those is projection.
Also, because the leftist, in Miltonian/Luciferian fashion, inverts reality to his liking (“The mind is its own place, and can make a hell of heaven, a heaven of hell”). Maybe there’s a connection with their narcissistic mirror-gazing–which sees an inverted reflection of reality–and how they see the reality which causes them to truly see things upside down (e.g. Terrorists insurgents were freedom fighters, the American military liberation force terrorists). That’s just speculation. But what is certain is that such mentalities produce not just lies, but goddammed lies, i.e. the inversion of reality that appears with the inverted projection.
That’s what Obama was doing.
Plain projection is when he projects his undesirable traits upon the opposition, which he–and hiis ideological ilk–seem to have on auto pilot.
The inverted projection is when he projects the truth about himself but for himself, but turns it upside down, which creates the whopping, 189 degree lies that VDH cataloguues.
RE: Philosopher King
Plato’s philosopher kings have been getting their fair share of abuse for a long time now (and excellently parodied in a TOS Star Trek episode, btw).
And the reasons for the abuse–e.g. an impractical fixation on the Ideal at the expense of the real– can certainly be applicable to the pipe-dreaming utopians on the left, particularly their Pied Piper, but this distinction must be made:
Plato’s philosopher kings were absolutists, i.e. believed in an absolute, concrete reality–moral and material–that would disqualify pomo relativists from ruling anyone.
#14 “My sense is that Obama’s weakness is how was his campaign *really* financed. If we had a real media it would investigate his internet contributions by prepaid credit cards. That could be Obama’s Watergate or Whitewater.”
Good point but who’s our Bob Woodward? Jack Tapper? Major Garret?
Andrew Breitbart? who?
Dr. Hanson -
Excellent as always. I would have started or ended with his DNC acceptance speech: “I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.” Naturally, we were already caring for the sick and he has presided over horrific job losses. Ocean rise slowing? Not so much. Planet healing? Well, the diagnosis is changing with new revelations daily of climate change malpractice. War ending? Again, nothing changed from Bush. Are we more or less secure? Not much doubt it’s the later. Restoring our image? Perhaps, if you mean being mocked by enemies and friends alike, after betraying our best allies.
#19 – perfect! right in every way. You’re post should be on the front page of the TIMES.
“Obama is a neo-socialist who believes the ends of social justice justify most means necessary to achieve them. As a philosopher-king who knows what is best for ignorant lesser folk, who can’t possibly appreciate all the ways in which he works and suffers on our behalf (Cf. Michelle’s “deigns to run”), Obama reluctantly must employ Platonic “noble lies” to achieve the common good: OK, we don’t understand ObamaCare and therefore fear it and the way it is packaged and sold; but once it is forced down our throat, we will come to love — what is good for us.”
Ahhhh, my dear cyberfriend, VDH…you are describing the “Obamunist Manifesto”
Bourgeoisie and Proletariats
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
Obamunist Redistribution of Wealth
“But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and the more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society, and to that extent, as radical as, I think, people try to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical; it didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers and the Constitution…. One of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think, there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways, we still suffer from that. You can craft theoretical justification for it legally, and any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.”
Proletarians and Communists
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
The Middle Class and Obamunism
Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).
But — so the questions you’re most likely to get about me, ‘Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What’s the concrete thing?’ What they wanna hear is — so, we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing — close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide health care for every American. So we’ll go down a series of talking points.
But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Communist Manifesto 10 point program
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
Anyone wish to make a 10 point list about the following:
1) Centralization of the banking industry
2) Heavy progressive taxation
3) Education combined with becoming a “state worker”
4) Establishment of “an army of labor”
5) “Improvement” of the soil, the air, the water through an environmental statism
6) Confiscation of property or wealth from “rebels” who resist the redistribution
7) Centralization of the “means of communication”, having the entrenched media become a centralized state mouthpiece
8) Centralization of credit, where banks are FORCED to lend to a selected group, not withstanding their ability to repay, forcing a mortgage meltdown and $15 trillion dollar deficit
9)Inheritance taxes, that wipe out the incentive to pass along wealth
10)Grabbing of auto industry, energy industry, insurance industry, health industry, making them an extension of factories and instruments of production…owned by the state.
Far fetched? Perhaps.
There are subtle differences to be sure. But take a good, hard, long look….and tell me there are no similarities. My dear cyberfriend, VDH…I apologize for such a long comment. You are able to do much better with this than I am…but, I thought it was worth the comparison…at least to visually …side by side…take a quick peek.
“It is as if “truth” is a mere problem of lesser mortals.” And so it is. The Left has long regarded the truth as an eminently disposable faculty. Jean-Francois Revel said it best:
“The great misfortune of the twentieth Century is to have been the one in which the ideal of liberty was harnessed to the service of tyranny, the ideal of equality to the service of privilege, and all the aspirations and social forces included under the label of the “Left” enrolled in the service of impoverishment and enslavement. This immense imposture has falsified most of this century, partly through the faults of some of its greatest intellectuals. It has corrupted the language and action of politics down to tiny details of vocabulary, it has inverted the sense of morality and enthroned falsehood in the very center of human thought.”
From “The Flight From Truth: The Reign of Deceit in the Age of Information” – 1991, Random House
So Dr. Hanson, author extraordinaire, when Obama ended his speech with rapid fire riffs of being no quitter,
can I assume something about his intention to serve out his term?
We can only hope. best regards, rach
Baltimore will be your Waterloo.
Mark my words.
Baltimore= Waterloo for you
He’s sort of a God, you know. Standing above the country, above – above the world.
The President does not act as Chief Executive, nor does he wish to do so, nore does he know how to do so. He is in a cotinuous campaign mode, but the execution of what he urges is left to others, (e.g. the “health care” bill) while he travels the country and the world to address problems unrelated to his office, the latest now being college football “championship games”. He does not know how to act as the President of the United States. Consequently he tries to hide his inadequacy by “tilting at windmills”.
President Barack Obama is not a philosopher-king nor behaving like one. The philosopher-king, in Plato’s Republic, is the closest we mortals can come to having rule by the Wise. Only the gods are Wise, and of course, in the Ideal State, the Wise rule. But mortals are not Wise, and the wisest of them, like Socrates, knows that he is ignorant. He seeks the truth because he realizes that he is ignorant. So the rule of philosopher-kings is the rule of those who know that they are ignorant. The Founders of the United States were such men, and fundamental to their love of wisdom is the First Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of speech.
Obama is ignorant but thinks he is wise, which he is not. He is a tyrant, according to the scale in Plato’s Republic.
I agree with much of what Dr. Hamson says here, e.g., Obama lies early and often, fails to appreciate reality, and single-mindedly pursues ends and ignores means. But I have to disagree in part with the thesis. I believe there are some things that Obama is brutally truthful about. First, if Obama accuses you of being his enemy, he means it. He is completely honest about who he wants to hose. Second, yes, he lies about philosophical points (e.g., “with all due respect to separation of powers”), but he is completely honest about who he wants to help. If he announces that you are a Victim Group, and therefore deserving of Other Peoples’ Money, he means it. He never saw a dollar he didn’t want to spend, and what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine. He vomited other peoples’ money all over assorted Victim Groups throughout the campaign, and those he hasn’t spewed money over, he just hasn’t gotten around to yet. And third, I think he’s completely honest when he says he doesn’t quit. Now, if he were a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne or something, I might find this trait to be praiseworthy. But in a politician, it is a direct reflection of his complete divorce from reality, and it borders on obsessive-compulsive. Perhaps, as a silver lining in an otherwise very dark cloud, this mania to tilt at windmills literally to the ends of the earth could lead to the death of the Democratic Party – a laudable goal. Or it could end in Gotterdammerung. What will happen when it comes time for Obama to surrender power willingly? Hmm.
who the heck wrote that speech ? WTF
“…it’s not about me” WTF ?
the language of that speech ..the lies, the halting diction.
if that was high school it would get a failing grade. did his kid write it ?
Same old predictable comments toward the president from someone whose political views are already quite obvious. First of all, Obama is a politician, doing what all politicians do, trying to strike a balance and remain popular. Interesting to compare the video of Governor Arnold S. visit to Stanford on Jan. 19. Even as a republican he believes in global warming and the need to take action, and he admits that our capital is an “insider’s game” that does not work the way it should (alluding that the special interests always carry the day). Back to reality at Wal-Mart and trying to keep this place from collapsing…!
Richard Gregg
Are you all sayin’ he won’t pay my mortgage.. or my gas??
>>* head explosion *<<
This is outrageous!!
Dr. Hanson, I enjoy and appreciate your commentary which is always right “on the button”. However, we have a Marxist SOB in the White House with three years left in his term. The best we can do is LIMIT THE DAMAGE HE DOES to our economy and security.
Dr. Hansen, no offense sir, but you are just now figuring out Chicago politics?
This is normal. It’s a local argot, if you will.
What’s said, isn’t. What’s accused of others, is being done by the speaker.
Nothing new. Welcome to Chicago.
Thank you for writing this clear and enumerated article.
I had noticed that whatever he said, one could count on the opposite, way back during the campaign, and have been writing about it in comments on various blogs —
Your article ought to be pampletized and dropped by helicopter all over our media-deficient country.
58. cfbleachers:
You write the most amazing comments — thank you.
I look for and wait for them as I do some of my most favorite writers in PJM, NRO, etc.
Tonight iBama knows Hillary will defeat him in 2012.
AQUA, thank you. However, anyone who reads VDH, already knows how humbling it is to try to write anything in his comments section…that doesn’t pale in comparison.
I’m lucky to have this privilege of getting to attach any of my thoughts…in the space beneath his essays. I truly mean that…and again, thank you for your kind words. I appreciate them.
I wonder what this man (Obama) thinks when he is alone. What does he really want to do? I don’t think Cap & Trade will happen, Pelosi’s Value Added Tax, Health care, etc.
Thank God it seems Americans are truly rising up. This huge shift in the electorate is indeed wave like and is only beginning to crest.
And I don’t think most of these Americans believe the answer is in today’s Republican party. We’re in for one hell of a ride.
Sorry, VDH. This article was, indeed, well-written and incisive, but there is a fundamental misunderstanding that you as a decent person suffer from. You cannot intuit this yourself, being too decent. It is why so many Americans still support this tyrant. They are too decent to recognize this one truth:
“There is no Truth. There is only Power!”
Read the text of his speeches. There is no theme. There are only poll-tested phrases. This is why they seem so disjointed. He is simply scoring points. Some debates are about scoring points, not making a solid case. If you score enough points, you win, even if you argued against your own case. Weak-minded people fall for this stuff. “Y’know, he made some really good points….”
The tyrants seek to fool some of the people all of the time. They don’t need them all, just a bare majority. The knaves become dependent on the government largesse dispensed by the greater knaves. The other supporters are fools; what Stalin called, “Useful Idiots”. Knaves and Fools.
“There is no Truth. There is only Power.”
This is the phrase that must be put out there to allow the decent folk to see the tyrants for what they are. It’s my phrase. Feel free to use it.
Once again, VDH has his finger on the pulse of right-minded thinkers across the land.
The only point I might add would follow the basic premise of the “Narcissist in Chief.”
As VDH noted in a previous article, Barry Sotero is a polished thespian. Barry Hussein is therefore relegated to “The Puppet” of all sorts of collectivist, socialist, marxist, Black Liberation Theologians et al.
The President of the United States of America is a smooth talking mouthpiece for every kind of radical liberal dream weaver that has come crawling out of the woodwork and he serves them all… to his ultimate demise. Contradictions be damned!
He makes Slick Willy look like Mr. Haney on Greenacres!
The similarities between Obama and Mao are remarkable, really.
Obama will easily ‘win’ a second term.
ACORN and SEIU have 4 years in which to ensure he gets 3 million more votes than he really got.
Plus, Amnesty for illegals will also be done.
So the Republican will have to win 60% of the popular vote to actually ‘win’. Not gonna happen.
Is obama really an American, eligible to be the president.
We have probably all seen his on line birth certificate. Is it a falsified document or a real document. Well, anyone over 50 can tell this right up front.
What is the term that would be used on legal documents to describe some one of African heritage that is black? Hmm, could we call them African, not really, anymore then some one who is white being labeled American, as all races live in America as do many races not black live in Africa. So, why is the block for the fathers race labeled African. In 1961 the proper term would be NEGRO! Not African.
So some smarmy, wet behind the ears marxist kid fixed up this marxist document and put it out as fact and it appears that most bought into it. It is a lie, this is not a valid copy of a legal document.
Can we see the real document, or maybe we can prosecute an imposter for this.
I am willing to wager that the man who had an office of the president-elect seal designed so that everyone could see that he deserved respect will also (though entitled to be called “Mr President” for the rest of his life), before he leaves office, insist on having an office of the former president seal designed.
One hundred smackers. Any takers?
Mr Hanson
Once again you continue to be the most insightful trackers of our radical leftist president. For your next article however might we request that you provide a prescription of “what republican congressmen should do now?”
I am afraid that these pikers will start to do the old “reach across the isle” thing and once again get into trouble. 50 years of compromise has brought us the bankrupt state of our country. It seems to me that our representatives should resist this kind of compromise. I personally do not think we can compromise with the President and his party simply because they are the party of “really bad ideas”. It will take will power but perhaps the best thing to do is take a page out King’s philosophy and opt for “passive but peaceful resistence”, slow roll, debate and try and get his true nature into the public perception and just do nothing for the next 3 years. That or we should request that congress ONLY do work that has no NEW spending. How about working for the taxpayers now instead of the lobbyists?
Whatever advice you can give these guys the better otherwise I can see them being corrupted by the Obama machine “like the deficit commission” where because they were on the committee it is NOW bipartisian!!
All the Best
Tommy Gunn
VDH …can you write a piece on Obama’s photo op with the GOP?
personally I think it was a mistake for the GOP to give him a form to heap more lies on his other lies.
forum I should have written FORUM
…I guess that is why I don’t write the essay.
Thank you for another interesting article and insightful comment section…has it occurred to anybody else that maybe….just maybe…Barry is bedbug crazy?
What’s with the name change? What’s wrong with Barry Soetero for a name? What’s with the Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright associations? Who on earth would want to associate with the likes of THEM? What’s with marrying Michelle…okay, don’t go there.
Anyway, hasn’t history shown that there have been national leaders who were simply flat out nuts?
Obama’s simply ahead of his time with his level of intelligence.
The American People are just too darned over-educated for him.
In a couple generations of the continued American public education system, he’ll have his minions right at the level he can deal with.
Thank God I won’t be around to have to deal with any of it.
Marcotte #11: Americans are hard to brainwash?
Every film, every headline, every utterance in every classroom and every public forum whether visual or aural, oral or images have for the past half century milled the American public’s mind to fine pulp.
Nothing left to brainwash. Is that why you say it’s hard to do?
75. cfbleachers:
. . . anyone who reads VDH, already knows how humbling it is to try to write anything in his comments section…that doesn’t pale in comparison . . . I’m lucky to have this privilege of getting to attach any of my thoughts…in the space beneath his essays. I truly mean that
Hosannah . . gods plan dedum daloo . . . sinatus populus ke romanus . . . hopscotchikiss wonderfundamoon
We’re in the midst of a political Ponzi scheme backed by the MSM.
It’s going to be 3 years of pure hell.
#21
“He has all of the Democrats supporting everything he does.”
This is just plain false. A number of Dems won’t support everything he does. That’s why the sick care insurance destruction bill has not passed.
Interestingly enough, if you read all the points given, all of them could’ve been accomplished had Pres Obama been a dictator. So, my take on this is that the author is whining that Obama should’ve been more of a dictator so he could keep all his promises.
Yep, my guess, him acting like a dictator would have gone over real well with most of the folks here.
So what do you want, a dictator, or our current way of doing things in Washington, DC. Which is to have 535 other elected officials try to pass the best laws they can for over 300,000,000 people.
I’m just saying…you can’t have it both ways.
Today in the BBC (I know) the author of an article about the US can’t understand why we get in an uproar and go “against what is good for us”. Of course the article doesn’t state the Brits are having the same problem with Brown as we have with Obama. This article should be printed in the BBC or Guardian.
Hmmm, does the number 83% ring any bells here?
That is ostensibly the % of people in the CBS poll who approved of the speech. Hard to believe, eh?
Even in the Frank Luntz show of hands at the beginning of his session on FOX about the number of people who…I can’t remember exactly how he phrased it, maybe thought that the speech was better than you expected, a large majority raised their hands, but somehow, after that, 70% of the remarks were negative. Watts up with that? Somehow old Frank never followed up on the reason that first show of hands.
It is clear that a hard core of you hate Obama and EVERYTHING he says or does, so that any response you make is going to reflect that, thereby making analysis or even determining is this policy better than that policy impossible. We can call it ODS or the Sean Hannity syndrome.
Is it in any way valuable that Obama mentioned nuclear and off-shore drilling as areas that he will move toward. Does it matter that he named small businesses as the prime and necessary mover on an economic rebound. Nope, doesn’t matter, because he’s a LIAR!!!
VDH, can you come up with anything besides how bad Obama is? You obviously have a genuflecting audience here, but I can’t see the use of most of these diatribes. Can we find a new way to expose him,insult him, deride him?
The guy just walked into the lion’s den and gave and took with the Repubs for an hour and a half. What about that?
As a student of history, one would think that you would know that in American politics, there are always at least two ways of coming at the problems that face us. An historian is supposed to be objective and say, these are the forces favoring this approach, these are the forces favoring that approach etc. What we hear here is the fight between good and evil. And guess what, the President of the United States is EVIL…or maybe the anti-Christ. What the hell is this, a holy-roller church?
Anyway, don’t forget the number 83%. Undoubtedly evil b*st*rds all of them.
I will agree, that Chicago Politics,( I am guilty of pressing Chicago Politics too often), but power is accumulated through , snall pockets of organizations, ACORN< SEIU< BIG LABOR UNIONS< CODE PINK.
All of these satellite organizations are tied to the MOTHER ORGANIZATION.
OBAMA, with his community organization, ties to black panthers, muslim nation, radical college proffessors, racist preachers, muslim ties, etc–etc. When combined together , is his civilian army. He will use them to FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE AMERICA.
When people begin to focus,only, on 1 or 2 of these groups, the others are lost, or in the background. This is done by design, so the others can do their own dirty work.
OBAMA is an expert in this type of WARFARE.
One new crisis after another. Enough crisis, a new crisis every week, takes the focus away from the previous crisis.
Examples, Stim. package, health care, cap @ trade, jobs bill, climate change, on and on, every day or every week. It has been this way since day one of the OBAMA’S adm.
POINT—Every crisis is created from the mother organization, OBAMA’S ADM, and spread to satellite groupa to exploit, creating confusion.
This is one way , they think they con win this WASFARE against the AMERICAN PEOPLE.. WAKE UP AMERICA, TAKE YOUR COUNTRY BACK.
And the more he talks the more we gleen that he’s absorbed in his own words. He must have listened too often to the Bee Gee’s:
You think that I don’t even mean a single word I say.
It’s only words, and words are all I have, to take your heart away.
Well, the words have failed on their mission. Time to start thinking about quitting!
Dwight, lol. It was a CBS poll! And of course the speech was good, he doesn’t give bad speeches. Sham Wow gives great speeches, but I am not wowed by his sham.
And of course it appears he offers good solutions. But what he says and what he means are usually two different paths. He always talks the centrist pragmatic talk, but always walks his own ideological walk.
97 Cripes wrote “of course the speech was good.” Now be honest would you have gotten the slightest inkling that the speech was “good” listening to Fox or PJM. Er, no, it was flat, confused, contradictry, spiritless, blah, blah blah. You see, if you can’t acknowledge and start from something close to reality, but immediately jump to the put-downs, you never really get at what works for Obama.
Has ANYONE here said, “Let’s take Obama at his word and push him on nuclear, offshore drilling, and small business loans? It is as if you can’t really THINK about this stuff, but only yowl reflexively about the huge danger that looms over all of us.
Look, maybe the problem, or one of them is that a number of people here beleeeeve that we should go back to a limited government, strictly speaking, which would mean rolling back two hundred years our history. In the meantime, a majority of the country GWB included is trying to determine just how much more we should expand government. The disconnect is so huge, that for many of you all you can do is curse, grumble, bluster, and dream. Good luck with that.
All of this is true and well said, Victor. However you forgot the ill-begotten decree the KSM carnival would be entrenched in Manhattan. So there’s actually good news here: Presto! now it’s not.
Since my children and a grandchild are there, I am most happy for any such reveral this city, its people and I can get.
And imagine a small, limited government, when banks and corporations, national and international are so huge. How would that work? If you are going to regulate them, try to keep up with them, whatever, you can’t do that with Thomas Jefferson’s or even Andrew Jackson’s government. How about giving up this dream of the golden age and settling down to dealing with the stuff on our plate? Everyone complains about the bail-out in disgust,but who can really beleeeeve that we should have just let things take their course and pick up the pieces as best we could?
Hey, I will admit that bailouts make me nervous because you may just be prolonging the ultimate COMPLETE conflagration doom-sayers have been writing about for decades, but anyone with half a grip on reality knows that we are not going to just let the economy take its course.
Skeeziks always has trouble seeing the truth. Still does! Professor Hanson has shown anyone with 1/2 logic to be able to see the truth of what Obama and the Chicago Gang are lieing about every time they speak. The Obama Administration are strangers to the truth.
89.hmmm…our cautius little turtle is peeking it’s head out again.
been boning up on pharmacolgy and watching ‘nick at night’ for some new material?
one can only hope.
welcome back,here’s a video of your dear leader bravely putting those tea bagging ‘nutters in place:
http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/story/obama-at-house-republican-retreat-in-baltimore-full/
wow,what a GIFTED orater he is..and not a teleprompter in sight!
i can still here his soothing soliloquy in my head:na-na-need more pa-papaaa….PUDDING!
still excited about nov?
Rep. Wilson in Congress a while back cried out loud, “You lie!” to Obama’s face — but he was made to apologize for his truthful outburst — and just the other day Alito openly mouthed “Not true” in response to another Obama lie in the State of the Union speech.
It’s no secret. Obama’s a walking, talking Big Lie, and all of Washington, D.C. knows it. I believe the first person in politics to step up and call him out as a liar, loud and clear, and often, without apology, will become our next president.
Dwight, you did not–could not–refute anything in VDH’s list of lies and broken promises by the current occupier of the White House. All you came up with is “How dare you call our president a liar!”
VDH offered specific facts. You responded with generic insults (hard-core, genuflectors, etc.)–and you claim that VDH can’t come up with anything but “how bad Obama is.” Too funny!
And I love the insinuation that it’s wrong to find new ways to “expose” anything about this president. Your side of the aisle took the position that Obama should be shielded from the kind of exposure that is normally applied to politicians–sorry, I meant Republican politicians. We are all suffering because of unprecedented journalistic malfeasance with respect to the true background and character and beliefs of Barack Hussein Obama.
yes, those 4 reasons, plus his psychosis.
He got his heroine disqualified so he could win his Illinois House seat.
He broke into the sealed divorce records of his primary opponent to win the Dem nomination for the US Senate.
He broke into the sealed divorce records of his general election opponent to win the Dem nomination for the US Senate.
He had his backers manipulate the Stock and Money Markets so he could win the US Presidency.
As VDH points out, there isn’t a single thing he won’t lie about. The day after Scott Brown’s victory, he was lying about it. He will lie about anything at any time to your face with the truth crawling on the screen before your eyes. He will get up in front of Congress, the Supreme court and the entire country and lie though his ass about anything and everything, including a Supreme court decision made 48 hours prior.
So what is there to make anybody believe that he won’t take the next steps in his narcisstic climb to total power?
Agree with the appearance of narcissism, ideologue, even fool.
But I don’t think it’s safe to assume the appearance is real. Don’t know the correct terminology, but military risk assessments are based not on intent, but capability.
The big O has the capability to do extreme damage to the country. Already has. Whatever we think of him as a person, don’t minimize the threat.
Let’s not comfort ourselves with labels. Rather prepare for the worst possible scenario, and not need it, than assume the big O is an impotent ideologue and regret it. Already we have sustained damage that will last for a very long time.
Dwight: Here is the truth about what Americans think about the words of the Liar in Chief;
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/january_2010/deficit_of_trust_most_voters_don_t_believe_president_s_assertions_about_economyEconomy
CBS poll? come on Dwight, try harder.
Mr. Obama exhibitted his true persona during the SOTUS the other night. His attack on the Supreme Court was outrageous, unseemly,un manly, and ultimatley self-destructive. The cheering from the Democrat mob was an assault on liberty (what else could you call it?).
Mr. Obama’s jutting chin presents a somewhat darkened likeness of Il Duce. It is amusing that this icon of the radical Left is but a sad charicature of an authentic fascist. Of course, he is smarter than all of the rest of us. If only we were sentient enough to appreciate his wisdom. November, ah, sweet November.
I think Dwight (98 & 100) is right–most conservatives don’t realize how revolutionary the changes called for by our principles would be. Rolling back 100 years of progressivism would make this a very different country. That’s no argument against it–contrary to what Dwight insinuates, we would not end up with with huge corporations and banks facing tiny, isolated individuals: all kinds of intermediary, private institutions and modes of cooperation would emerge if the state were to get out of the way. But a lot of what would be involved in a return to a genuine constitutional government would seem as crazy to a majority of Americans as it seems to Dwight–so we should work on getting our arguments in order, and think about how to propose small changes with larger implications.
88. Pelaut “Nothing left to brainwash.”
Not yet. Not quite.
obama stands out as one of the more noticeable of the pathological liars that infest our political system. and that is quite an accomplishment.
Dr. Hanson,
Right on the money. And I would say there is particular truth to the first two reasons. Obama has never been held to account, has never had to work in the real world where there were real world consequences. Secondly, his lies typify what I would call the Left’s intellectual sociopathy. Today’s Leftist will say anything to “win” an argument, using scorched-earth tactics and twisting the intent of good people who happen to disagree with their agenda. A perfect example of this is the way the Left slanders the Tea Partiers, making them out to be a bunch of racist, red-neck nuts, rather than hard-working, tax-paying citizens alarmed by the growth in the federal government and outrageous spending. Oh, do a long for the day when they are forced to confront reality! The Scott Brown win was a tantalizing little taste of that!
Send the guy to Europe. They love him over here. He´d fit into any socialist lefty party (Genossen) commission offered here. Maybe France or Germany would invite him to take an office. When his career here is finished and the tax payers money is spent, he can sell gas to Europe, if the Russians give him a nice paying job further east.
But for real, that´s what each society gets, when it votes for the Left and putting impracticals and power-straving, narcissism-ridden, ideologists into their never-ending fake beaurocratic world of total government control.
Mikemcdaniel, “hey, there’s Sean Penn floating around New Orleans in a row boat”..”huh.. Where’s my blue tie?”, and #29. me, BObama is the Paris Hilton of politics… LMAO Very, very funny!
102 Frank Grimes wrote
welcome back,here’s a video of your dear leader bravely putting those tea bagging ‘nutters in place:
http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/story/obama-at-house-republican-retreat-in-baltimore-full/
wow,what a GIFTED orater he is..and not a teleprompter in sight!
Absolutely! I took about 15 minutes to read through the transcript, and it is damned interesting. The Repubs tear the poor, clueless Obama apart. Read it and you will see how inept he is; he can’t answer their questions, has no sense of humor, is obviously out of place in the presence of these great minds etc.
Actually, it is hard to believe that the Obama so pilloried here is the man standing in front of all those Repubs. And by the way, he DIRECTLY addresses the way he gets talked about here. “I get described as some kind of Bolshevik.”
Jeffrey #107
Your link does not work. I get to the Rasmussen site, but the module is not available/
I suppose we can either laugh or cry, so at least there’s some good humour going on.
That the issues are glaringly obvious and egregious, is it that most people are not hearing this debate and critique, or that they cannot hear it?
If there is any “hope” out there, it better be the former; and it’s up to all of us to be as effective as possible in communicating the problem (not ‘issue’), the consequences, how to contain it now, and implement solutions and influence all, for the better.
As I was reading the Sunday paper occurred to me that Obama should have a new tv ad: He wears a white coat and looks into the camera and says, “I’m not really the President but I play one on tv.”
I get so tired of reading these blogs and hearing everybody complain about our government, the politicians, and call each other names. I want to read about what you are doing to change these problems. The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence (I’m hoping some of you have read this document) it states and I quote “That to secure these rights (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness),Governments are instituted among men,deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” That tells me that if my government is doing something that is hurting me, it’s my respnsibility to get rid of this government and elect those who work to ensure my safety (national security) and happiness (no big government). It seems to me that New Jersey, (West?) Virginia, and Massachusetts have already shown us how to do that. Now is the time for the rest of us to take action.
Dr. Hanson
While this is an excellent summary of the president, but it does nothing to explain why Americans are so blind to political perdition. From many small towns to most large cities and to almost all states we have allowed the political establishment, no matter what party, to over-commit our financial future in exchange for present popularity. Pensions funds are bust but cannot go bankrupt. It is the taxpayer that must and will pay. Infrastructure does not vote so funds for necessary maintenance are diverted to ends that influence the electorate in one way or another. Only when the infrastructure collapses or becomes unusable is it fixed. Fundamental freedoms and moral values from liberty to personal responsibility are sacrificed for the “public good”, yet to the detriment of all. President Obama is not a new phenomenon, but rather the crest of a very large wave that has been building for the past century. As American citizens we need to have some introspection about our own failures and stop placing the blame on our elected officials. Democracies get the governments they deserve.
David Aholerod on Meet the Press reinforces the disengenuous nature if this administration.
The lies are blatant, shameless, and without any hesitation whatsoever – it really is the modus operandi.
Blame frame (KSM is the attorney generals decision); deny, deny, deny (the underwear bomber told them plenty despite giving him “the right to remain silent…”); and distort (the GOP has stayed on the sidelines for legislation of the past year).
Hey… I’m Canadian, and do struggle with the prevalence of firearms in the U.S., but I can actually see how the right to bare arms could be useful if this kind of coup d’état continues.
101. Tarbender:
Skeeziks always has trouble seeing the truth.
On the contrary, it’s my innate ability to filet the meat of your fictions from the skeleton of truth that disturbs you all so much. here, I’ll do it to Frank Grimes at 102:
Baltimore. The American people, roundly dissatisfied not with party or personality but with process, continue to seek safe harbor from exaggerated partisanship. They crave honesty. Instead they’ve seen lies. They expect cooperation. Instead they’ve seen division. They demand that progress be made on the pressing issues of our time. Instead, they’ve seen record filibusters by the party of no.
President Obama filled that vacuum with a stinging rebuke of the worst of Washington politics. And he did it not in some network studio or in a town hall filled with pre-screened supporters, as George Bush would have done. He stood alone in front of 150 adversarial Republicans. For 90 minutes the President systematically dismantled conservative talking points – dismissing them for what they are – disingenuous campaign-speak. In those rare moments when a valid concern was raised, he addressed it head on and took responsibility where appropriate.
He did it with a stunning command of the issues, with tremendous facility for debate, and without a teleprompter. One can only imagine how Sarah Palin would have fared in Baltimore.
Republicans and America heard the ring of leadership in all that Obama said. He now owns the high ground of civil discourse so willingly abdicated by birthers and tea baggers. Whatever attention these radical right wing obstructionists gained in 2009 came too early and too angrily into the public arena. Obama has pivoted masterfully, reclaiming the righteousness of our moral imperative to help America, not wish ill upon it for cheap political gain.
Obama was every inch a leader. The Republicans looked like schoolchildren wading into Waterloo.
Hey, Frank, you’re right about the Nick at Night thing. Never heard of it before you mentioned it. How DO you keep up with all this cultural stuff and still find time to be a political soothsayer?
105. proreason:
He will get up in front of Congress, the Supreme court and the entire country and lie though his ass about anything and everything, including a Supreme court decision made 48 hours prior.
Really? what’s the lie? And I’m afraid you’ll need a little more than blind assertions that marked your previous 4 examples.
Bleachers. Peepers.
They rime. Rhyme? Spelling concerns. I blame Catholic schools.
Bleachers. Loved your treatise. Treatise? Not an easy word to spell. On the other hand,
your writings are easy to enjoy. Regards, Rachel
As we can see from Skeeziks #121, Obama’s performance in Baltimore remoralized at least a chunk of his supporters. It’s still very strange, though–in a sense, Obama was “commanding,” or at least confident and assertive; but did he ever actually explain what the whole health care bill was about? How it was set up to solve the problems it was supposedly addressing? All he did was deflect Republican arguments for more free market proposals–the Republicans were very deferential, and put forth weak versions of conservative ideas on health care, and didn’t defend them when challenged. Still, all Obama really did was repeatedly refer to “experts” who had already supposedly shown that the ideas advanced by Republicans wouldn’t work. On the question of seling insurance across state lines, for example, all Obama said is that we would allow that but it would lead to insurance companies not fulfilling the state mandated coverage–well, yes, that’s exactly the point, to restore a genuine market in insurance, rather than reducing insurance to a public utility. (Why should everyone be forced to buy insurance that covers mammograms? Maybe you’re a man who doesn’t need them, maybe you’re a woman who would rather pay for them and other routine expenses and buy catastrophic insurance, etc.) Either Obama doesn’t understand that (which means he doesn’t understand what insurance is) or he is pretending not to understand.
In short, if you agree with Obama already, his performance in Baltimore encouraged you because it showed Obama on the offensive; if you disagree with Obama, it had no effect at all–he seemed as evasive and deceptive as ever.
121. skeeziks, if you think Obama is a leader, then you have no idea what leadership is. Integrity is the foundation of leadership, and Obama is unwilling to acknowledge this fact, even going so far as to call talking about integrity a distraction from the “real issues.” On the contrary, there is no issue so fundamental as integrity, for without integrity, you can’t be trusted on any of the other issues. Obama has no integrity, so no one has reason to follow him except to take advantage of him.
Furthermore, Obama lacks the bearing of a leader. He puts on a good act in front of crowds, but in situations that call for real leadership, like representing America to foreign heads of state, Obama’s bearing breaks down. Do you know why those cadets fell asleep when Obama spoke at West Point, despite the fact that falling asleep when anyone is giving a speech is completely unprofessional? It’s because every last one of them is better fit for command than Obama- he has nothing to teach them. In fact, they could teach him a great deal about leadership and being in command.
skeeziks:”Instead, they’ve seen record filibusters by the party of no.”
thank heavens.
“In those rare moments when a valid concern was raised, he addressed it head on and took responsibility where appropriate.”
he finally owned up-when he absolutely had to…having no other choice,it is usually referred to as desperation.
“He did it with a stunning command of the issues, with tremendous facility for debate”
HUH?are we still talking about baltimore?
“Hey, Frank, you’re right about the Nick at Night thing. Never heard of it before you mentioned it.”
if my statement was factually accurate,how could it be that you never heard of it?the cognitive dissonance must be really wearing you down.
look sparky:trying to prop up obama is a waste of time,he will either move to the center or become irrelavant.go back to skewering us,you were pretty good at it and your daily nitwittery was always good for a chuckle.
oh yeah….you should also return to your last persona.this “skeeziks” chap is wound a little too tight.
btw,alito AND joe wilson were right.here’s a clue:both answers lie(heh)in supreme court decisions.
122 Skeezoid: “They demand that progress be made on the pressing issues of our time. Instead, they’ve seen record filibusters by the party of no.”
Of course these record filibusters were led by those evil Republicans and their party of no. We all know that to be true.
But wait a minute, the progressives have had a filibuster proof majority for over a year, so where did all those record number of filibusters occur? I suppose the minority party with “no say” = “the party of no”? Is that what you meant? You talking about America aren’t you?
PRESENT!!! mmm mmm mmm
Where are the people who knew Obama growing up? Who went to class with him? Was he really such a great student? Who worked with him on the Harvard Law Review? Where are the articles he wrote? It is as though he was suddenly on the scene without a single past accomplishment except rumors that he was wonderful.
But wait a minute, the progressives have had a filibuster proof majority for over a year.
I’ll start with an easy one. How many months in a year?
Now the brain squeezer. When was Franken sworn in?
thank you (:
77. Marc Malone: You wrote about power – “There is no Truth. There is only Power.” That’s pretty much the way Eric Blair, writing as George Orwell saw it:
“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.”
“Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.”
“We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing.”
“All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods,but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.”
“They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.”
“We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”
“Power is not a means; it is an end.”
“One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;
one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.”
“The object of persecution is persecution.”
“The object of torture is torture.”
“The object of power is power”
Orwell, a former supporter of such regimes understood their motives all too well – and was ultimately repelled and horrified by what he saw lurking beneath the trappings of ideology.
I believe that it is no exaggeration to say that the same ideas that have animated the 20th century’s worst mass murderers now have a happy home in the White House. 0bama and his minders are worshippers in the same pew as Stalin, Castro, Mao, Chavez and Pol Pot. And they’ve said as much. They have said as much.
History teaches us that if we wish to regain our lost liberties and remain free, then there is only one way this can end.
Not a single word about Obamas similarity to every other Black
“personality cult” leader. Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Zuma of South Africa, Charles Taylor of Liberia, Aristide of Haiti, Marion Barry of Washington DC, Nagin of New Orleans, Kilpatrick of Detroit. The same pattern of pandering to ignorance, utopian fantasy, forced egalitarianism, race baiting and victimology.
Whats the matter Vic.. Political Correctness still working its
magic on you?
Mr. Hanson, I’m a French-Canadian living in the province of Québec and I wonder why there is so much opposition from Americans in general to a government or publicly sponsored universal health insurance program in United States. A lot of Western states have such programs, including Canada, and we would never go back to laissez-faire in these matters. Of course, these programs cost a fortune and there are abuses, either form users (regular folks) or providers (psysicians, among others) but the universal coverage is a treasured feature and we certainly don’t envy uninsured Americans who are ruined by health fees when they have to assume such costs. In all due respect to courageous thinkers like you, Hitchens, Thornton, Steele and others whom I admire. Daniel Fournier, Montréal, Qc, Canada
135: “Of course, these programs cost a fortune and there are abuses, either form users (regular folks) or providers (psysicians, among others)”
You answerd your own question.
“but the universal coverage is a treasured feature”
except by people rich enough to come to America for the treatments they can’t get in Canada
“and we certainly don’t envy uninsured Americans who are ruined by health fees when they have to assume such costs.”
Try to find one. I have a friend who had no insurance and was in a major accident that almost killed him a month ago. It’s a miracle he survived. He will never be able to pay off the bills, but he got the same treatment I would have received, and he was never going to be rich anyway.
It’s a myth that millions of Americans are “ruined” by health fees. The percentage who fall into that category is tiny.
The liberals lie about it to try to trump up support for their socialist schemes. America didn’t fall for the scam this time any more than they fell for it last time.
The way I look at it, we have been buying health care for the world, including Canada, for decades anyway. Canada and all other western countries have underspent significantly on defense because the US has been protecting Western civilization, and the money saved has been going to crappy health care in other countries.
If Obama gets his way, Canada will soon be increasing its military budget by a factor of 10, and then we’ll see how much worse your health care system can get when you are paying a fair share of the west’s defense budget.