Obama Arrangement Syndrome
I propose the use of the following term for the tendency to make excuses for our new President: Obama Arrangement Syndrome, or OAS.
I picked up this felicitous phrase here, from commenter “Terry Gain,” who writes:
…at least six months ago I coined the term…OBAMA ARRANGEMENT SYNDROME . The syndrome requires that people interpret or ignore events in a manner that reinforces their preconceived, and rigid, notions about Obama.
Gain’s comment was offered in reference to this excellent article at PJ by David Solway, who was discussing a recent piece by Camille Paglia, one I also wrote about here. Solway notes that in Paglia’s article she:
…slaps Obama across the cheek with one hand and lovingly caresses him with the other. The article is a tissue of contradictions in which she seems to be writing against her proper grain, tramming her tapestry with ill-concealed unease.
I wrote the following about that very same Paglia article:
…[Y]ou’ll witness a person struggling with the clash of prior beliefs vs. present observations. If Obama is so smart, and good, and well-meaning, then why is he doing all these bad (or stupid, or destructive) things?…Paglia is like a wife who’s found the lipstick on the collar and all the little love notes to another woman, and is still so in love with her husband and so desirous of saving her marriage that she’s struggling against accepting the truth that she’s been betrayed by a stinker.
The phenomenon is extremely widespread among pundits who supported Obama. One can only imagine that it’s very widespread among non-pundits who supported him, as well. Why is Obama Arrangement Syndrome so prevalent, and why are people so inclined to make excuses for him?
I think it boils down to the following:
(1) Cognitive dissonance is extraordinarily uncomfortable. When any of us has a certain belief, and then more information comes in that contradicts it, the resultant anxiety and distress can be powerful. We tend to rearrange our perceptions and make excuses to minimize the conflict. The revision of an opinion or belief system in response to new facts tends to be slow to come, and to require unequivocal evidence of a dramatic sort. After all, it’s awful to have been wrong; “The anxiety that comes with the possibility of having made a bad decision can lead to rationalization, the tendency to create additional reasons or justifications to support one’s choices.”
(2) Then there’s the phenomenon of what many see as Obama’s likability and attractiveness. Although I seem to be immune to these charms (I see him as a manipulative and calculating sort, a humorless and power-hungry narcissist), there is no question that a great many people like him on a very personal level. This makes them even more predisposed to make excuses for him and give him the benefit of the doubt.
(3) Ditto for Obama’s youth and race. The former makes people regard him as vulnerable and simply in need of seasoning, and is one of the reasons we see so many articles giving Obama advice. The latter makes most people want him to succeed, since most of us are eager to overcome the legacy of racism in this country. So many people will bend over backwards to put his actions in a good light.
A recent Peggy Noonan article offers another example of a writer in the throes of Obama Arrangement Syndrome, although there are indications of the beginning of an emergence for Noonan. She starts the piece by talking, as do so many people with OAS, about the flaws of Obama’s advisers. The idea is that it’s not Obama who’s at fault; he’s just running with a bad crowd, a group Noonan calls young, untried, triumphant, and overpraised (Noonan somehow manages to ignore the fact that Obama chose these people of his own free will). She further adds that these youthful aides:
…[have] never been beaten up by life, never been defeated. They haven’t learned from failure because they haven’t experienced it. They don’t know what the warning signs of trouble are. They haven’t spent time on the losing side.
It is odd that Noonan exempts the President himself from this criticism, because her words could certainly apply to him. But she does go on to call Obama Faux Eloquent Boring, as as well lacking in humor and humility. In fact, she goes on to add, towards the end of her piece, that she has come to believe that he is cold.
Noonan specifically states that she’s arrived at that conclusion only within the last week. Till then, something appears to have blinded her to the very obvious fact of Obama’s coldness (and by the way, for those who wonder why I’m focusing so much on the opinions of Paglia and Noonan, I think they may be quite representative of a good part of the public who supported Obama, especially the women who turned out in droves for him). It was at Ted Kennedy’s funeral that Noonan saw this:
The president walked into the funeral and moved toward the front pews nodding, shaking hands. He hugged Mrs. Kennedy, nodded some more, shook more hands. He was dignified and contained, he was utterly appropriate, and he was cold.
He is cold, like someone who is contained not because he’s disciplined and successfully restrains his emotions, but because there’s not that much to restrain. This is the dark side of cool. One wonders if this will play well with the American people. Long-term it is hard to get people to trust your policies if they think you’re coolly operating on some intellectual or ideological abstractions.
Something has changed in Noonan, because nothing has changed in Obama. Why could she suddenly see what had been apparent before but unnoticed by her? Why is she starting to reject reason #2 above, the perception of Obama’s personal likability?
My guess is that Noonan would never have seen this coldness if the way had not been paved by so many of Obama’s actions since his inauguration. His demonizing of the opposition. His pallid and almost meaningless statements about the Iranian protesters. His lies about the economy. These and so many more must have chipped away at her perception of him as a charming young man.
It takes quite a while to reach a tipping point, but then other perceptions, previously blocked, can be allowed to enter consciousness. After all, a mind is a difficult thing to change. But a mind is not an impossible thing to change.
During the primaries and the election, I was most impressed with political operators in Chicago, who mostly said the guy was an empty suit, and it would take about a year for people to realize that the guy is nothing more than a thug machine politician.
Seems like Obama’s right on schedule. Problem is, he’s still going to have 3 years after that. Lots of bad can happen in three years. See the 60+ years of the Daley machine.
never been beaten up by life, never been defeated. They haven’t learned from failure because they haven’t experienced it. They don’t know what the warning signs of trouble are. They haven’t spent time on the losing side.
I read that Noonan article too and that paragraph really jumped out at me. That’s one thing I have thought about Obama and his twenty-something speechwriters from the git-go.
Arrangement = codependent = enabler. The media are sniveling lapdogs who are like battered wives. No matter how badly they are treated and no matter what insanity goes on in this White House they will never admit it. That’s why so many of us rubes are angry at them and get our news from talk radio and blogs. I can’t wait for the MSM to go under. The press should go find a real job such as prostitution. Thanks Neo for staying on top of the news and providing insightful analysis.
Re Noonan’s realization that Obama is “cold”, it’s funny, because Rush Limbaugh has been using that very word to describe the President for months.
Time and again of late, we are hearing all those supposed knuckle-draggers’ prescient words echoed by the so-called “moderates”.
Mark Levin is right: these self-styled “moderate conservatives” offer mush; they stand for nothing. In this they represent exactly what the Left wants the Right to be: an ideology-free non-movement that cannot match the passion of the Left and so cannot inspire anybody.
His arrogance would not let him be careful and measured. He had to try to push too many things at once and in doing so – exposed who (and what) he really is and what his true intentions are. A lot of things might have slid by if he had been more restrained but now people are watching everything he does looking for ulterior motives and if they are there – they will be ferreted out. Misdirection will not work anymore. There are too many people watching on too many fronts.
Wake me when Noonan realizes she was wrong about Sarah Palin.
As I’ve said before, I have no interest in Noonan’s, Paglia’s, and others’ trials and tribulations with their cognitive dissonance about Obama. No, no interest even if they’re plight might be generalizable to others’. Of course, we might learn something about the many people who misjudged Obama. But, I know that healthy people do not generally experience cognitive dissonance about important things in their lives. The fact that these two have that condition now tells me that Noonan and Paglia are essentially weak thinkers and weak assessors of souls, including their own, despite their accomplished writing skills. That’s all I need to know to deal with them and with the foolish who are also now in dissonance. I have no sympathy.
Thank you JR Dogman. You are right on the money with this:
“Mark Levin is right: these self-styled “moderate conservatives” offer mush; they stand for nothing. In this they represent exactly what the Left wants the Right to be: an ideology-free non-movement that cannot match the passion of the Left and so cannot inspire anybody.”
And thank you too Dane. You observation is my observation:
“but now people are watching everything he does looking for ulterior motives and if they are there – they will be ferreted out. Misdirection will not work anymore. There are too many people watching on too many fronts.”
they’re = their
You’re welcome, JohnC… and I agree, it is hard to take these people seriously.
What’s amazing to me is how right Mark Levin is about conservatism: the ideology summed up by the statement, “Government is the problem”, is not only tremendous, is not only the ideology of our Founders and thus our Constitution, it is an ideology people would understand instantly, were it articulated clearly and with passion.
Imagine a massive cultural shift in the US, resulting in Democrats and Republicans both running on their commitment to faithfully “uphold and defend” the Constitution, and wherein it is broadly acknowledged that the only way to do that is to follow that document to the letter.
Could such a shift happen?
Jr Dogman — no doubt that would be a wonderful thing. It’s truly a shame that our leaders have moved so away from faithfully upholding and defending the Constitution. It hurts me in ways that I cannot yet articulate. Faithfully upholding and defending seems like a simple thing to me, particularly here in the 21st century where we as a people have grown so much and have a become post-racial nation and post many other ills that caused cognitive dissonance at the national level for so long. I hope a full blown cultural shift will take place, but I don’t think it’s likely. Nevertheless, we can surely hold our political elite to the fire – to demand they be accountable to the Constitution and, of course in that way work toward the ideal. Seeing folks do that in town hall meetings has made me feel better than I have in a month or so. No doubt, the darkest part of the cloud has shifted away from over my head and I’m grateful.
One of these days I’m gonna write something in Neo’s blog that is free of errors. I haven’t met that goal yet. Forgive my mistakes in the above.
Following the Obama story these past few months has been like watching a glacier melt. It doesn’t slowly liquefy, it stubbornly holds its grandeur as it grows more brittle and fragile until here and there big sheets of ice split off and slide into the water with thunderous crashes.
The decisive sheet split off at that disastrous press conference where Obama gave his intended master stroke of a speech to drive health care home but it was clearly a soggy flop then he sealed the night’s fate with his own clever race-baiting by calling the Cambridge police stupid.
Since then it’s dawning on everyone this side of the Daily Kos that Obama is not a god, a healer, the new FDR or anything of the kind. He is just a machine politician with a clear leftist bent, his own set of tics, and much inexperience surrounded by some very unsavory characters.
He can’t be counted out but he will never recover his previous persona, which was his most potent weapon.
Well, everyone will have his own bit of Noonan’s piece that jumped out at him (I’m using “his” and “him” in the unhappily out-dated sense of the neutral pronoun, here, which I think is actually more correct than the current fad of using the plurals). The one that jumped out at me was her reference to the notion that every early administration will contain a certain group of “activists from the edges–flakes,” she calls them. She also calls them “aides,” as though they were just a couple of cuts above an intern. But Van Jones and the others of his ilk are the “czars,” exercising great power from within the White House and accountable only to Obama. Is she nuts? Is she ignorant? Is she in denial? What is up with this woman, anyway?
She also claims, btw, that these “flakes” are to be found at the middle and lower levels of the administration. Is she paying any attention? Well, I don’t know. I stopped being embarrassed on her behalf a long time ago. Maybe she’s coming slowly to her senses, but maybe not, too. Right now she just looks distorted and disfigured.
OK people, I’m going to give you the benefit of my vast experience in recognizing bad people:
I learned, the hard way, that one’s appearance is not an indicator of one’s character. The WORST PEOPLE I’ve met and worked with are those who seem to be attractive, perky, young, and caring. The BEST PEOPLE I’ve met are just average-looking and may even be crabby.
Too many people were fooled by Obama’s “youthful” looks. Those looks don’t mean a thing.
Unfortunately, in this era of TV, looks and presentation are much more important than they were in the past. We all need to guard ourselves against fancy packaging.
All of us need to learn to look beyond looks. Then we won’t be fooled over and over by Evil wrapped in a nice package.
Sorry for the lecture, but I think the obvious needs to be said once in while.
betsybounds: Until tonight the MSM had no coverage of Jones. But the dam broke an hour ago.
Washington Post is at last covering the Jones controversy: House Says Little About Embattled JonesWhite .
Jones is toast. Obama can’t keep Jones around anymore.
Jones is Obama’s Picture of Dorian Gray – the true image of himself that Obama can’t allow others to see.
It’s amazing how fast Obama is unraveling. He’d better have something really good next week in the big speech before Congress.
But I don’t think he will or even can. The pro-public option Dems are pushing just as hard from their side.
Is Obama cold? Try imagining him shedding a tear over a fallen soldier or anyone else for that matter.
There were 299 million more Americans better suited for this job.
If things keep going this way, we are going to see some emotion out of Obama and it won’t be cold at all.
SteveH . . .
“There were 299 million more Americans better suited for this job.”
What you said.
I tried to convince my son not to vote for Obama by telling him that he was much better suited for the job than Obama. My son didn’t listen, and since he’s younger than me (obviously), he will have to live with the consequences.
Maybe Peggy saw that photo of Obama striding on ahead while the presumably racist Officer Crowley helps Obama’s dear friend, physically fragile Professor Gates, down the steps.
Obama and ALL the Dems are helped by the media, but more by the failure of Rep politicians to lead by pricipled example, and to honestly criticize Obama’s policies while offering tangible alternatives.
The post-Vietnam War culture in America is sick: anti-war meant, in reality, acceptance of commie victory and commie genocide. The self-identified “morally superior” anti-war folk have never been called on that reality of supporting commie victory.
Killing Fields — the genocide my boomer generation voted for (in 1974 & 1976 Dem Party victories, ending aid to our S. Viet human rights oriented allies).
The Iraq war is not why Bush haters hated Bush. His tax cuts (pro-capitalism) and pro-life (pro-Christianity) policies are the fuel. It is reasonable capitalism, with bankruptcy for the investor/ speculators who risk and lose but profits for those who risk and win, that made America economically so great.
It is Christian values, supporting individual rights with social, cultural obligations, which made America so good.
Imperfect, but better than the alternative.
Obama epitomizes the anti-capitalist, half-anti-Christian alternative. (No big difference in Iraq or Afghanistan; tho Iran knows the US won’t stop it from getting a nuke.)
Obama: cold cerebral calculation in an attractive package. Palin: heartfelt straightforwardness in an attractive package. It was as clear as day from the beginning. Many ‘common folks’ have said it. As usual the fancy intellectual and artistic crowd were the most fooled. When will they ever learn?
all OAS is, is what i posted before but seen backwards from us to him, not him to us. I can tell no one follows my links cause they later talk about what i linked to. populism, “Charismatic authority” the effects of a “cult of personality”.
since we are not outside looking at another country, we invert what we see. after all if we were talking about another country we could not come up with such intimate reasonings as we can when we are the ones in the crowd in thrall.
so we assign new names to the same old things because this time, we are inside the whale, not outside looking in. an electron forward in time is a positron going backwards in time…
NNC
I’m pleased to see you adopting my term Obama Arrangement Syndrome. I believe this is a very useful short from to describe the media’s gross incompetence in reporting on this disaster of a Presidency. It gives this 62 year old Canadian lawyer some hope that the media’s enabling incompetence will receive the attention it deserves.
Why are people opposing Dear Leader?
On the issue of his speaking to all grade schoolers on the 8th, NBC says its because these children’s parents are too stupid to adequately raise them (and are, therefore, jealous?) (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2009/09/05/harwood-parents-objecting-obama-school-speech-arent-smart-enough-r )
On a related note, don’t miss T. Coddington Van Voorhees’ latest missive: http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/09/an-ill-wind-is-breaking-for-our-president.html
Tom Grey: You’ve hit some good points, but still seem short of the mark for this boomer ex-leftie.
Sure, we were against lots of things, but tax cuts and pro-life stands don’t quite explain it.
I’d say it was more visceral than that — like being against Lawrence Welk and for the Rolling Stones. It’s practically a cultural thing affirmed by knowing who you are with and who you are against, and not really thought through. “We’re cool; you’re not.”
This explains IMO much of how Obama walked off with the nomination then the election without saying much of anything concrete. He found ways, often non-verbal, of tapping all those boomer triggers which also work well on the young of any era.
There are books to be written about this.
Even on a three-day weekend the Obama watch maintains excitement.
Looking for a quick and easy boost in the polls, President Obama has decided to go to the one place where merit bears no relationship to adulation: the United Nations. On September 24, the president will take the unprecedented step of presiding over a meeting of the UN Security Council.
No American president has ever attempted to acquire the image of King of the Universe by officiating at a meeting of the UN’s highest body. But Obama apparently believes that being flanked by council-member heads of state like Col. Moammar Qaddafi — who is expected to be seated five seats to Obama’s right — will cast a sufficiently blinding spell on the American taxpayer that the perilous state of the nation’s economy, the health-care fiasco, and a summer of “post-racial” scapegoating will pale by comparison.
After all, who among us is not for world peace?
National Review: Obama’s UN Gambit: King of the Universe and the Polls
Obama will chair a discussion of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. Iran and North Korea will not be mentioned specifically.
Afterwards there will be a commemmorative showing of the film, Woodstock. Standing next to President Obama, Country Joe will lead the UN Assembly in an international celebration of the Fish Cheer.
Actually I made the last paragraph up.
Huxley,
I’m sixty-four and a half (don’t look a day over a tough, seasoned, masculine forty-five) and have watched both people and politics since Kennedy was running.
I was on campus in the Sixties.
I’ve worked with folks in faith-based peace&wonderfulness groups.
Never, not even among The Kids of the Sixties, have I seen the component of “we’re better” and “you’re flawed and possibly evil” as high as it is regarding political discussions involving Obama.
While some or many of those folks I mentioned earlier were proof against reality, they were, in some part, reasonably humble. They held the positions they held because the positions seemed to them to be good. Or so their presentation usually went.
Latterly, admitting you were not for Obama labeled them as superior and you as inferior and there was no question, no hesitation, no possibility it could be otherwise.
Considering the people in question, very few of them had qualifications to be in any group labeled “superior” at anything.
And, in addition, you could tell it made them feel very, very good.
Exactly-Obama was (is) about the zeitgeist, not about any substance whatsoever. He represents balsamic vinegar (as opposed to ranch dressing) and independent films (as opposed to blockbusters) and Dave Matthews and Whatsisname Mraz (as opposed to oh, classic rock or country, I guess) – all things I like, but recognize as PREFERENCES rather than as shards of my identity. How old do you have to be before you can dare to prefer without buying the whole package?
Jamie.
It depends on what you think your friends will say.
O’s cultists are very concerned.