Narcissism, thy name is Obama
Two links for your perusal: this and this.
Perhaps you will agree with me that they are very, very disturbing. It has always been clear that Obama has an unusual amount of egotism, even for a politician. But these incidents are evidence that his narcissism may be growing, if such a thing be possible.
There’s a key in the article at that first link as to why this might be happening: as president, he is now surrounded by “nothing but Obama fans.” Of course, that’s been true for most of Obama’s life.
The second link shows not only Obama’s narcissism, but his lack of awareness that it is extremely bad form to display it so nakedly. This particular narcissist has no idea how narcissistic—and downright weird—he has come to sound.
Disturbing. Disturbing. Disturbing.
After reading both articles, I recalled the imperial stage set Obama had designed for his nomination acceptance speech at Denver’s Invesco Stadium.
As time goes on, the pieces of the Obama puzzle fit together to form a picture that becomes ever clearer. It also becomes more evident that Obama knew what he was about all along. Very few of his actions were random or spontaneous, but instead were carefully calculated to convey the impression of his august eminence, and to induce an attitude of veneration in his supporters. It worked—for a while.
The fact that things haven’t been going that well for Obama lately has done nothing to reduce his narcissism. That’s the way it usually is with narcissists. When they meet with obstacles, they tend to look not inward but outward at others to blame. And being surrounded by sycophants does nothing to stop this tendency.
How far will it go? That stage set in Denver made me think about classical history, specifically Rome, and even more specifically Caligula, who became convinced he was a god:
In AD 40…Caligula began appearing in public dressed as various gods and demigods such as Hercules, Mercury, Venus and Apollo. Reportedly, he began referring to himself as a god when meeting with politicians and he was referred to as Jupiter on occasion in public documents…The Temple of Castor and Pollux on the Forum was linked directly to the Imperial residence on the Palatine and dedicated to Caligula. He would appear here on occasion and present himself as a god to the public. Caligula also had several god statue’s heads removed and replaced with his own in various temples.
I’m not saying it will come to pass in exactly that way, and that Obama will declare himself to be a deity. In fact, I’ll even go on record as saying he won’t. Nevertheless, something is very wrong with this man, and it is growing stronger every day.
I heard about the t-shirt thing yesterday and it turned my stomach. I think it’s the worst example of Obama’s malignant narcissism to date –callous, tone-deaf, out of touch, bizarre. I’ve been waiting for you to weigh in on this, Neo.
And the media sure isn’t helping either. Here’s a cover from the WSJ this week: I Hope They Didn’t Actually Plan That Pose With the Halo for Obama.
How is this going to go on three more years? Something needs to happen to excuse this man from office if only to avoid a life long collosal embarrassment for himself. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
When I was in Morocco I saw the king’s picture everywhere – in shops and cafes, etc. When I asked about it I got a sense of resentment from some.
I’d bet that there quite a few careerists in the Whitehouse with enough healthy sinicism to be displaying the picture because it’s expected of them. These are the ones who will write the tell-all books when the time inevitably comes.
I’m glad for the analysis of a mental health professional. Thanks, Neo. This post needs to be shared with other therapists.
How is this going to go on three more years? Something needs to happen to excuse this man from office if only to avoid a life long collosal embarrassment for himself.
SteveH: It’s hard for me to see how this can keep going either. This past year was bad enough for Obama but 2010 will be worse.
As I’ve said, I think it’s 50-50 that Obama leaves office early.
If Obama is Caligula, then who will be his Cassius Chaerea (figuratively, not literally…)?
Brain Swisher has asked the question that occurred to me: who will strike The Blow. The pissed off military in the case of Caligula: I would nominate Goddess Hilary in this era.
Aside: even when cut down, Caligula considered himself god-like…as he bled to death.
Another narcissist to compare and contrast: Nero. Who was struck by a famous financial crisis…hence the persecution of early Christians.
Yeah, I’m channeling Suetonius today…
I’ll be buried in a shirt that shouts – “Freedom !”
Reminds me of Braveheart
[i]Pride goeth before the fall.[/i]
Remember the “Office of the President Elect.” speeches?
I think you are too hard on the man. Can’t you see he is deeply in love and clearly moonstruck (with himself).
The problem is that this “being the president” stuff takes him away from doting on his true (self)love and is just so boring, boring, boring… I wonder. Can he see his reflection in the teleprompter? It would be so wonderful if he could.
Now, when it comes to the hangers on in the White House, it’s another story. Some are clearly in love with Obama, and maybe some are in awe. But, even if they only like him a little bit they all inhabit and contribute to this creepy world. Many are clearly not talented nor cabable of the job. (I also think that they all have to eat his s**t!) It was reported (by the FBI agent who worked in the Clinton White House and wrote about his experiences) that no one was permitted, on pain of dismissal, to look directly into Hilary’s eyes. (Same for very liberal Barbra Streisand’s employees.) They were directed to look down in her presence. I wonder if the same or similar ego enhancing mandates apply to Obama’s White House. Does the hanger on who shows up with the latest Obama photo get brownie points? Do they all ooh and aah over the photos? Do any of them have any self respect remaining? Did they ever have any to begin with?
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
I am beginning to think the man is insane. Or at the very least, disturbed, out of touch with reality.
Narcissist? He bowed to the Saudi King, Emporer and Empress of Japan and, now, the Mayor of Tampa. Today would have been Ronald Reagan’s 99th birthday — the anti-narcissist President. This is a good moment to recall a story told by Michael Deaver on the reason Eugene McCarthy endorsed Reagan over Carter in 1980: “[b]ecause he doesn’t confuse the Presidency with himself.” That’s that’s what Carter did, and this President does — all the time. ecause
Terrye: And he’s got his people confused as well!
From Politico:
He must be a deity. He called for Government freeze and, voila!, Washington has two feet of snow.
Three years is a really, really long time, and I expect that things could get very nasty indeed, and that Caligula and his example might be somewhat relevant by the end.
It does seem like Obama is moving deeper and deeper into crazytown, and his various symptoms are getting more visible and more disturbing as opposition to him grows–I note that his middle finger is stroking the side of his head more and more–and I suspect that there is a rubber room somewhere in his future, perhaps his near future.
However, those around him have the incentives–of keeping their jobs and prosecuting their far Left agenda–to somehow cover this up, not the least factor being that our numbskull, loud mouth, loose cannon VP Biden is next in line according to the Presidential Succession Act, and then Speaker Pilosi and the Frail Senator Byrd, President Pro Tem of the Senate, with Hillary as Secretary of State next in line after Byrd. I wonder if Hillary–increasingly absent from the news–is just sitting back, hoping for and watching Obama’s increasing instability, and planning, what?
Alternatively, if things get really bad, and Obama won’t step down–I’d expect Michelle to stand behind him, prop him up and feed him lines if that is what it took to keep him in office–and White House senior staff won’t or can’t successfully urge him to step down, I’d expect a delegation from the Congress or, if all else fails, a delegation from the Pentagon–unarmed or, if things really broke down, armed, heading for the White House to persuade Obama to exit stage left, but again, brain dead Biden?
Biden lacks Obama’s ambitions. He wouldn’t be a good president, but he wouldn’t be a delusional would-be messiah either.
I can imagine Biden as a caretaker president with a committee of wise men plus Hillary behind him to ferry the Republic to the 2012 elections.
Wolla: There is another alternative.
Didn’t anybody see Dave?
Yackums,
I was just thinking about that. Someone needs to check for plastic surgeons who do ear jobs and see whether they report any unusual business.
Something is indeed very wrong with Baraq. It isn’t getting worse, because it has always been bad. But fortunately it is becoming clear to many. I see flights of ideas, ideas of reference. These occur in psychotics.
I do fear he will punish us for failing to honor him.
“I do fear he will punish us for failing to honor him.”
Funny. I think so, too.
…he will punish us for failing to honor him.
I worry about that too.
At different times I’ve posted the question to Sanity Squad members — neo, Dr. Sanity, and Shrink — as to what a narcissist like Obama might do when the adulation runs dry or, worse, turns negative, but I’ve not seen an answer.
Perhaps it’s too hard to predict beyond neo’s mention here: “When [narcissists] meet with obstacles, they tend to look not inward but outward at others to blame.”
Neo linked to Newsbusters. Your transformation to the darkside is almost complete. lol
I heard Michael Medved quoting Fast Eddie Schultz yesterday. One helluva ‘Tell’ for the Vast Self-Regard King. President Bush(and others)had oil paintings of our founders and other greats such as Lincoln.
The Hopey-Changey Majesty has dozens of pics of himself which are switched out every month for MORE of the same! Oh…I just remembered his returning of Churchill’s bust to London the first week he was in office. An early ‘Tell’.
Obama’s narcissism is getting worse because he’s the President. And he’s just at the end of his first year when the nexus of the experience of being President is greatest, while the end of his term is still distant.
How shall he react when even he can’t credibly maintain that his agenda can still be successfully implemented? Say in December, when the debacle of the greatest single mid-term party losses ever are historical fact, beyond dispute and every Democrat is in utter shock, as they face the depth of the political abyss that yawns before them.
And since failure is not an option for “He Who Would Be King”, what shall he do when all his supporters ‘turn their face’ away from him? For with all the credit for success… also goes the blame when calamity strikes.
He’ll do just what Carter did when Iranian religious fanatics seized the US embassy hostages.
Nothing, simply nothing…he shall wave his hands ineffectually, speak whatever words his speechwriters prepare but it will all be as hollow as the wind, without substance because there’s nothing deep down within him upon which to draw, just a confused and abandoned child who never really bonded or connected with anyone…because his parents were more concerned with their lives than his.
Those the gods would destroy they allow to fashion wings of feathers and wax, knowing that hubris and ambition shall lead them to, as always, fly too close to the sun.
For an interesting Caligula parallel, and an excellent historical lesson in “Hubris, meet Nemesis”, check out the videos of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu on December 21, 1989. There are several on YouTube, and you don’t need to speak a word of Romanian to understand what’s happening in them. Ceaucescu, a man who took a back seat to no one in his narcissism, or his tyranny, attempts to speak as the Romanian people’s fear of him palpably, and almost instantaneosly, crumbles. Ceacescu crumbled next, his government was overthrown, and he was dead five days later.
I prefer using the ballot box myself. We’re nowhere near where Romania was in 1989, so we still can use our democratic processes to throw the bums out. I don’t believe it’s too late for that.
Obama, like many leftists, already dislikes capitalist America and believes it deserves to be cut down to size. His every economic policy is designed to permanently cripple the private sector, impoverish the (mostly white) middle class, and concentrate more and more power in the hands of government.
Since he is also a narcissist, as we fail to honor him, that only reinforces his belief that we are deserving of punishment.
Obama is a “perfect storm” for the American Republic. We live in interesting times indeed.
I agree fully with what’s being said about the defects in Dear Leader’s character. And the Congressional democrats, having been suckered into believing his bullshit, umped onto his bandwagon, then tipped their hand too soon and have overplayed it.
The first step in removing this malignant narcissist and limiting the damage he can do, is to retake both houses of Congress. Then he can be effectively checkd until 2012.
But don’t forget how he, and his cohorts got elected in the first place. Many would not have been so desperate for someone, anyone, had the republicans not screwed the pooch so badly that they made a snake oil salesman palatable to the electorate (with more than a little help from the MSM).
In case anyone needs a reminder of republican stupidity and greed, this week “Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary “blanket hold” on at least 70 judicial nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate…”
His reason?
“Shelby is holding Obama’s nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track. The two programs Shelby wants to move forward or else:
A $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers. From CongressDaily: “Northrop/EADS team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals.” Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.
An improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. From CongressDaily: “[Shelby] is frustrated that the Obama administration won’t build” the center, which Shelby earmarked $45 million for in 2008.”
So here’s a republican engaging in the same behavior many complain about in the democrats. Gee, go figure. If the republicans are serious about fiscal responsibility and good government, they need to act accordingly.
I don’t give a damn about what party a candidate is affiliated with as long as he/she cares about ensuring fiscal responsibility and restraint, honest and limited government, ensuring our rights and freedoms, a strong defense and a commitment to American exceptional-ism.
If ‘business as usual’ is what the republicans are really about if they regain the majority, then we are simply choosing which poison we want to swallow.
Being in a position of authority secures the uninterrupted flow of Narcissistic Supply. Fed by the awe, fear, subordination, admiration, adoration and obedience of his underlings, parish, students, or patients — the narcissist thrives in such circumstances.
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These types of relationships — based on the unidirectional and unilateral flow of Narcissistic Supply — border on abuse. The narcissist, in pursuit of an ever-increasing supply, of an ever-larger dose of adoration, and an ever-bigger fix of attention — gradually loses his moral constraints. With time, it gets harder to obtain Narcissistic Supply. The sources of such supply are human and they become weary, rebellious, tired, bored, disgusted, repelled, or plainly amused by the narcissist’s incessant dependence, his childish craving for attention, his exaggerated or even paranoid fears which lead to obsessive-compulsive behaviours. To secure their continued collaboration in the procurement of his much-needed supply — the narcissist might resort to emotional extortion, straight blackmail, abuse, or misuse of his authority.
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It is in these two crucial points that narcissists differ from other humans.
Their socialisation process — usually the product of problematic early relationships with Primary Objects (parents, or caregivers) — is often perturbed and results in social dysfunctioning. And they are incapable of empathising: humans are there only to supply them with Narcissistic Supply. Those unfortunate humans who do not comply with this overriding dictum must be made to alter their ways and if even this fails, the narcissist loses interest in them and they are classified as “sub-human, animals, service-providers, functions, symbols” and worse. Hence the abrupt shifts from over-valuation to devaluation of others. While bearing the gifts of Narcissistic Supply — the “other” is idealised by the narcissist. The narcissist shifts to the opposite pole (devaluation) when Narcissistic Supply dries up or when he estimates that it is about to.
As far as the narcissist is concerned, there is no moral dimension to abusing others — only a pragmatic one: will he be punished for doing so? The narcissist is atavistically responsive to fear and lacks any in-depth understanding of what it is to be a human being. Trapped in his pathology, the narcissist resembles an alien on drugs, a junkie of Narcissistic Supply devoid of the kind of language, which renders human emotions intelligible.
Narcissistic Leaders
The narcissistic leader is the culmination and reification of his period, culture, and civilization. He is likely to rise to prominence in narcissistic societies.
The malignant narcissist invents and then projects a false, fictitious, self for the world to fear, or to admire. He maintains a tenuous grasp on reality to start with and this is further exacerbated by the trappings of power. The narcissist’s grandiose self-delusions and fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience are supported by real life authority and the narcissist’s predilection to surround himself with obsequious sycophants.
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The narcissist’s personality is so precariously balanced that he cannot tolerate even a hint of criticism and disagreement. Most narcissists are paranoid and suffer from ideas of reference (the delusion that they are being mocked or discussed when they are not). Thus, narcissists often regard themselves as “victims of persecution”.
The narcissistic leader fosters and encourages a personality cult with all the hallmarks of an institutional religion: priesthood, rites, rituals, temples, worship, catechism, mythology. The leader is this religion’s ascetic saint. He monastically denies himself earthly pleasures (or so he claims) in order to be able to dedicate himself fully to his calling.
The narcissistic leader is a monstrously inverted Jesus, sacrificing his life and denying himself so that his people – or humanity at large – should benefit. By surpassing and suppressing his humanity, the narcissistic leader became a distorted version of Nietzsche’s “superman”.
But being a-human or super-human also means being a-sexual and a-moral.
In this restricted sense, narcissistic leaders are post-modernist and moral relativists. They project to the masses an androgynous figure and enhance it by engendering the adoration of nudity and all things “natural” – or by strongly repressing these feelings. But what they refer to as “nature” is not natural at all.
The narcissistic leader invariably proffers an aesthetic of decadence and evil carefully orchestrated and artificial – though it is not perceived this way by him or by his followers. Narcissistic leadership is about reproduced copies, not about originals. It is about the manipulation of symbols – not about veritable atavism or true conservatism.
In short: narcissistic leadership is about theatre, not about life. To enjoy the spectacle (and be subsumed by it), the leader demands the suspension of judgment, depersonalization, and de-realization. Catharsis is tantamount, in this narcissistic dramaturgy, to self-annulment.
Narcissism is nihilistic not only operationally, or ideologically. Its very language and narratives are nihilistic. Narcissism is conspicuous nihilism – and the cult’s leader serves as a role model, annihilating the Man, only to re-appear as a pre-ordained and irresistible force of nature.
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Minorities or “others” – often arbitrarily selected – constitute a perfect, easily identifiable, embodiment of all that is “wrong”. They are accused of being old, they are eerily disembodied, they are cosmopolitan, they are part of the establishment, they are “decadent”, they are hated on religious and socio-economic grounds, or because of their race, sexual orientation, origin … They are different, they are narcissistic (feel and act as morally superior), they are everywhere, they are defenceless, they are credulous, they are adaptable (and thus can be co-opted to collaborate in their own destruction). They are the perfect hate figure. Narcissists thrive on hatred and pathological envy.
This is precisely the source of the fascination with Hitler, diagnosed by Erich Fromm – together with Stalin – as a malignant narcissist. He was an inverted human. His unconscious was his conscious. He acted out our most repressed drives, fantasies, and wishes. He provides us with a glimpse of the horrors that lie beneath the veneer, the barbarians at our personal gates, and what it was like before we invented civilization. Hitler forced us all through a time warp and many did not emerge. He was not the devil. He was one of us. He was what Arendt aptly called the banality of evil. Just an ordinary, mentally disturbed, failure, a member of a mentally disturbed and failing nation, who lived through disturbed and failing times. He was the perfect mirror, a channel, a voice, and the very depth of our souls.
The narcissistic leader prefers the sparkle and glamour of well-orchestrated illusions to the tedium and method of real accomplishments. His reign is all smoke and mirrors, devoid of substances, consisting of mere appearances and mass delusions. In the aftermath of his regime – the narcissistic leader having died, been deposed, or voted out of office – it all unravels. The tireless and constant prestidigitation ceases and the entire edifice crumbles. What looked like an economic miracle turns out to have been a fraud-laced bubble. Loosely-held empires disintegrate. Laboriously assembled business conglomerates go to pieces. “Earth shattering” and “revolutionary” scientific discoveries and theories are discredited. Social experiments end in mayhem.
It is important to understand that the use of violence must be ego-syntonic. It must accord with the self-image of the narcissist. It must abet and sustain his grandiose fantasies and feed his sense of entitlement. It must conform with the narcissistic narrative.
Thus, a narcissist who regards himself as the benefactor of the poor, a member of the common folk, the representative of the disenfranchised, the champion of the dispossessed against the corrupt elite – is highly unlikely to use violence at first.
The pacific mask crumbles when the narcissist has become convinced that the very people he purported to speak for, his constituency, his grassroots fans, the prime sources of his narcissistic supply – have turned against him.
At first, in a desperate effort to maintain the fiction underlying his chaotic personality, the narcissist strives to explain away the sudden reversal of sentiment. “The people are being duped by (the media, big industry, the military, the elite, etc.)”, “they don’t really know what they are doing”, “following a rude awakening, they will revert to form”, etc.
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have to stop here, its way too long already.
so many sources, and people who know alot, but they are all too long.
Just starting this thread, so I don’t know what others have said, but I want to say that I too saw the Caligula parallel.
Robert Graves vividly described Caligula in “I, Claudius.” Caligula was originally just conniving and super ambitious, but he ended up a genuine madman–of the vicious sort we don’t want in the White House or in any house.
I don’t believe I made this comparison publicly because I knew it would require some explanation, or else it would just sound like an exaggeration–especially since Caligula’s madness took a while to manifest.
Really, there is NO limit to just how crazy a leader can be. History is full of madmen, and modern leaders like Mugabe, Chavez, Gaddafi, and Kim Jong Il, are probably crazy too.
Now I’ve read the thread, and I’d like to add another thought. By the time of Caligula, the Roman Senate had already been destroyed as a political force. Where is our Congress?
Has our Congress always been such a collection of Evil Clowns, or is this a recent development? I’ll admit that I didn’t pay much attention to Congress until I saw how they tried to cut Bush off at the knees, even at the expense of national security.
It was around 2003 that I began to notice the craziness in Congress and in the Democratic party. When I learned about John Kerry, I was disgusted, and that’s when I became a neocon.
I still hope (wishful thinking?) that there are Senators and Representatives who are decent Americans, not marxist agents or criminals. Am I wrong? Are we SO screwed?
Artfldgr, please cite sources for your interesting quotes above. Thanks.
I have two kids with Psychology degrees and they both agree Obama lacks the symptoms for a clinical diagnosis as a Narcissistic personality. But I’m the daddy and I say he is so that is it.
As for Caligula, he promoted a horse to the senate so both Obama and the senate have role models from that era. (If you haven’t seen the BBC adaption of I Claudius do so, it is marvelous).
Tom wrote “I do fear he will punish us for failing to honor him.” Along with Ahem and Hux I worry about that as well.
However, my wife, who also has a psych degree (psych degrees are hereditary in my family) believes that Obama may resign rather than face electoral defeat. This way he can claim others mislead the public (Fox News, conservative radio) into not allowing to bring change. By quitting he can, in his own mind, deny his foes the pleasure of humiliating him, while he goes into some resistance mode like Che or Mao, planning for an eventual return.
In any event the Massachusetts election neutered him, I doubt if very many grown-ups regard him as anything other than a placeholder at this point. Any damage he will do will be by inaction.
So here’s a republican engaging in the same behavior many complain about in the democrats. Gee, go figure.
The difference is that we could actually use a new non-European (EADS) Air Force tanker and an explosives and IED lab sounds like a pretty good idea.
It’s not exactly midnight basketball. sex-ed and community organizing, is it?
Steve G wrote:
“It was reported (by the FBI agent who worked in the Clinton White House and wrote about his experiences) that no one was permitted, on pain of dismissal, to look directly into Hilary’s eyes.”
First Caligula and now Medusa.
Streisand was showiing her minions a kindness by discouraging them from looking her full-on in the face.
I do hope that the Dems are not so completely in control of our government that the only fall-back we have to Obama is Hillary. I don’t, in true life, think she would be any improvement. Our immediate problem may be Obama, but our continuing problem is the Democrats and their agenda. It’s a matter similar to the difference between tactics and strategy. Their party has been taken over by the ’60s Left, and they are searching for a figurehead. These are the people who need to be sent running–with rope, tar, feathers, and rails. Obama may lose his mind in a very public way, or he may not (I’m hoping Huxley and others are correct in thinking that he will, and will simultaneously enjoy and be horrified by the spectacle along with everyone else). But the problem remains that the Left is determined on their program of taking over. Obama is not the problem. Obama is merely (if I may say so) a symptom of the problem.
It is not Obama who needs to be defeated, and it is only tangentially important that we defeat him. These people never give up. Remember that.
And then there is that fine tight-rope walk of taking care that we don’t end up supporting something worse in the other direction!
FREEDOM!
Obama certainly likes the privileges of the office, Michelle has a staff of, I gather, twenty-seven, not including the hair and make-up people.
They find the Presidency hard work, and Michelle said, they are beginning to find a new-found respect for their predecessors. I simply cannot imagine what their view of the presidency that he wanted so badly was, if he finds everything such hard, hard work.
What concerns me, is the question of his relations with his staff and all those czars. Does his narcissism allow him to really listen? He seems unable to change his mind or shift a position. He is never mistaken or wrong.
He has a meeting every morning with his economic and financial advisers. Doesn’t anybody there know better? He began as an economic illiterate, and nothing seems to have changed. The words of his mouth have no relation to either facts or his actions.
Does he pay any attention to advisers, and can they influence him? That’s my narcissism question.
As usual – not only was Obama a narcisist – he was factually incorrect.
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2010/02/eulogy-to-the-unknown-campaign-volunteer.html
But then again – Clinton, Kerry, Gore nor Obama were factually correct whenever they brought up their sob/sad stories to the stage.
Yes – we conservatives have compassion – and maybe there are conservatives who exaggerate sob/sad stories – I just find it’s liberals doing this far too often.
Bleh.
Baklava . . .
“Factually incorrect” means lying. These people do not care about facts. Lying seems to be a typical behavior with these low-lifes.
Imagine if Kerry-Edwards had won. Yikes.
Or “bleh.”
I noticed that of late the President seems to have learned that blaming Bush seems to do nothing other than cause the listener’s eyes to roll.
Now he blames the Republican party.
Can We the People be far behind?
Obama is not the problem. Obama is merely (if I may say so) a symptom of the problem.
betsybounds: It’s true that the Dem leadership has proven itself to be far left and quite dangerous when Obama’s polls were high and they had a supermajority in the Senate.
But Obama is the face of the Big Bang agenda. If he goes down, they will have neither the courage nor the voter support to continue as they have.
In fact I think the back of that agenda has already been broken. I don’t see health care or cap-and-trade going anywhere. Immigration reform, if it passes, will have to be bipartisan.
Of course the Dems will still be corrupt. That won’t change.
These people do not care about facts.
That seems to be the case and it seems so witless.
Have they not heard of the internet and YouTube? Don’t they realize that these misrepresentation and lies will be caught and come back to haunt them forever?
Now he blames the Republican party.
Michael: The next stop includes the media and the blogs.
Obama’s lastest advice:
That’s not bad advice actually. God knows it would be good for me!
However, I suspect the real reason is that Obama is being pummelled from all directions, including from the normally acquiescent media and his worshipful base, and his polls are dropping again.
Obama would like nothing better than a break from the exposure and to have a chance for everyone to forget all the failures he’s racked up in the past year.
It’s worse than that, actually. It was all a lie. She HAD insurance. Like me. She had a policy like mine with a $5,000 deductible per person per year.
She did not want to drop a few hundred bucks on a routine exam and a mammogram, despite feeling a lump in her breast at age 37.
Facts About The Woman Who Was “Buried” In a Obama T-Shirt That the MSM Won’t Bother Reporting On
Tom links to an interview with Shouse in which she said she took a gamble on insurance because she had just dropped 30 grand into a new business. She only took out catastrophic insurance in which the deductibles were high. She felt a lump but did not go to the doctor, once again gambling. Then, when she finally DID go see a doctor they told her what she already knew, cancer.
There’s more here – Our Big-Time Investigative Media She actaully ended up with her bills paid by Medicare and Medicaid.
I’m stunned, actually. Stunned at the lie, and at the media for not ever asking questions or fact checking this son of a bitch.
And, by the way, no wonder he wants everyone to stay off the blogs – it’s blogs who are fact checking his ass.
When his power at last was established and not to be overthrown, and now openly tended to the altering of the whole constitution, they were aware too late, that there is no beginning so mean, which continued application will not make considerable, and that despising a danger at first, will make it at last irresistible…
“Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Cé¦sar and his fortune in your boat.”
Plutarch http://www.bartleby.com/12/10.html
I waver between thinking he is a malignant, power hungry would be tyrant or he just wants everyone to “look at me, I’m important!” So, I think malignant, power hungry would be tyrant on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and important guy on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Sundays I think about girls with big butts and low morals. I get tired of thinking about that big eared pencil neck.
Pelosi and Reid are evry bit as bad as Obama.
Just let me know any time you need someone to enter your blog and pipe up with the obvious.
Strange days here in the USA.
Click on my name to see my video on this very subject. I took lots of artistic license, but I had great fun looking at all the madmen of history. It’s amazing how most of them looked distinctly British 😉
huxley Says: (February 7th, 2010 at 2:16 am )
“But Obama is the face of the Big Bang agenda. If he goes down, they will have neither the courage nor the voter support to continue as they have.”
I’m sorry, but I must agree with Betsybounds – Obama is merely the symptom of a problem here in America, the ‘lump’ that indicates there is a cancerous tumor in our breast. He is not ‘the’ (singular) problem, but rather the face of a malady that has been allowed to grow. A cosmetic removal of the lump will only hide the cancer within, allowing it to grow and prosper. The liberal agenda has crept into every facet of our culture – Obama is merely the end result of a corrupt philosophy that can be found in various stages of growth/acceptance throughout our country. His removal, whether forced or voluntary by circumstances or time, does little to ensure the long term viability of American liberty and freedom.
Since Obama’s backtrail has been so thoroughly obliterated no one really knows anything for sure. Here is a link to an interesting analysis that tries to figure out just who Obama’s parents might have been (http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/another_look_at_obamas_origins.html)
It seems to me that Artfldgr’s recent quotation of a source laying out the elements of Malignant Narcissism fits Obama pretty closely.
I, too, would like a cite to the source.
LilMissSunshine–I agree wholeheartedly with you that Obama is merely the most prominent symptom and manifestation of a systemic illness.
Geoffrey Britain says:
“but it will all be as hollow as the wind, without substance”
Geoffrey, us folks in Florida view the wind a little differently.
“Further complicating the situation is that the Narcissistic Character is extraordinarily sensitive to humiliation and equally intolerant of it. ” This is from shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2005/03/narcissism_mali.html. Prognosis is bad, since inevitable humilation will send such person down to outright paranoia, Caligula type.
Tom,
sorry bout that.. been trying to keep it short, and no one else tends to have to cite. They just tend to make stuff up then get peturbed in point it out. (for some reason, i have always been held to impossible standards)
its from an article written by Sam Vaknin
“Narcissistic Leaders”
its reprinted all over so its one of those things where the content is very interesting, but you cant necessarily judge it by the location on the net the copy you find resides. (as an obtuse example, you can find bible quotes at wacky religious loony sites, and you can find the same quotes at a site maintained by the vatican. where they reside or are framed have little to do with what they can offer)
i do not know the author so cant speak for that. though i do know that they have several online books out. given that iserbyts book is good and so is the secret history of schools, another good text, like location framing, the method of publish doesnt necessarily say much about the work (especially given how skewed the msm press and coporations are in selecting what to be published).
FREEDOM!
Free of Dominion
Svoboda!
(sloboda!)
(Ñвобода)
brīvība!!!
kebebasan!!
[Obama’s]removal, whether forced or voluntary by circumstances or time, does little to ensure the long term viability of American liberty and freedom.
LilMissSunshine: Again, I’m talking about the Big Bang agenda Obama was pressing to transform America now. Obamacare, cap-and-trade, monstrous stimulus packages, mega-bailouts, nationalization of major corporations — that kind of thing.
This agenda only had a chance because Obama was an extremely popular, charismatic ideologue willing to bet his presidency on a legislative blitzkrieg during his honeymoon first year and had large, tractable majorities in Congress with radical leadership willing to implement such an agenda.
For two scary weeks last summer after cap-and-trade passed in the Senate and the House seemed close to passing Obamacare with a public option, effectively socializing American medicine, it looked like Obama might well succeed and after that who knew what could happen.
But conservative and commonsensical Americans exploded, took to the internet and to the streets, drove Obama’s polls down and threatened the electability of Congress members taking the side of Obama’s agenda.
So Obama failed, thank God, and it’s been steadily downhill for Obama since. He is now a lame duck when it comes to big leftist things and that radical agenda is effectively dead.
However, no, Obama’s failure does not fix the leftward drift of America since FDR.
It is common among 3rd world countries for leaders of the governing to have huge “cut-outs” of them placed everywhere they travelled and lived. Yes, it is narcissism. If the POTUS has descended to those levels, we are definitely headed in the wrong direction.
And I am sure it is not so with every president. If it were this way in the Bush White House, we would have heard about it in the liberal press a long time ago.
in german its Freiheit
literally unfettered, unbound.. unit..
ie.. an individual
the antithesis of the individual is a collective
despotic leaders like collectivism
because under a false concept of progree
(to nowhere)
they get to replace the personal individual ends of everyones lives with their own ends
do not think that such people quit, they just change means. they do not quit, as to quit is to have a quality they dont have. humility.
a collective is a nation who thinks like their leader, and will do what their leader says. the leader does not even have to wish to do harm, he just will end up doing so because that is what happens when you try to herd cats. you either accept that you cant, or you have dead cats as you try to whip them into compliance as bribery earns no fealty.
they believe in law and regulation, and so they believe in the terror that such can bring, the inhibiting of all personal will in the desire to avoid the punishment of deviating from the nations/leaders/progressive plan.
they contradict themselves in that their ideal future is one of slavery with them as leaders, and that is not a future. that is a temporary state of luxury that can only end in one way over the long haul as one always outnumbers the other, and the other eventually becomes crippled by their desired living conditions. and so when times turn as they always do, they no longer can sustain themselves and are swept away.
this was a major difference to life after judeo chrisianities moral set and idea of work and play.
by work first, play later, live moral, but enjoy life, do what you want with the fruits of your labor (for renting yourself out to the highest bidder, and so those that worked hard to be valuable had something more to sell than someone else that didnt – thats social darwinism, while a class society is social creationism).
the change that is made to create the condition ripe for such people to be almost the only option of leadership is the destruction of such morals under large good terms like liberation, and other such things inverted in meaning (practice).
to see blood sweat and t-shirts (or any of the new shows taking UK young adults to my wifes country, or india, etc). the shows point is mixed as the kids think its aweful and wish to curb their wasteful spending (and dont realize that its MORE aweful when they do that, not less as the show implies).
tehy are crass, selfish, mentally crippled, insulting to their hosts to no degree, and completely incapable of fitting in, in any world other than that same kind of world they think is normal, but is about as normal as a laboratory is to a mouse.
completely ignorant, sterilized, and puffed up with self ability that doesnt exist. they cant even live with the people they are visiting, and accept that these are very gracious acts.
when things receed they will find normal living so painful that they will ask to be delivered. how they will be delivered is the big joke of it all.
how do you get such people to return to real life? chain em up and force them under pain of death.
just watch the kids. you can see them saying all kinds of things taht show they actually dont understand because they cant understand. and this experiment is kind of cruel as there is no one helping them understand, there is just this camera in the face recording their musings.
one girls goes. if someon treated me like that back home when i was working i would stop and quit and not work. (and eat what?) they have no loyalty to family. they think that this is waht life was like 150 years ago.
but i worked a factory as a teen. here in the US. before the kids became crippled, you did your work. you didnt talk. you tried to keep your numbers up doing a mind numbing repetitive job for minimum wage, maybe a bit more. and put up with hazards, time clocks, and petty social bs.
the people we would depend on most to keep things going here are the ones that without skills will throw temper tantrums of destruction in exchange for believing they got the state to do something it didnt want to do (but does), and thats take over their lives for them (as they obviously no longer have the resources to do so themselves).
Appropos to the “big bang” mentioned above (huxley at 10:17) and Obama’s narcissism, I just finished reading Frank Tipler’s editorial on Obana v Einstein
(http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obama-vs-einstein/)
No surprise here, either.
And he not only gets Einstein and physics wrong, but he aks gets John Maynard Keynes and economics wrong as well
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/04/news/economy/meltzer_keynes.fortune/index.htm
aks = also
sorry
Not only Caligula fancied himself a god, as recently as the “Bloody Terror” of the French Revolution, the architect of the murder of hundreds of thousands and the fore runner of the modern day Zinnist, Robespierre, on a stage decorated much the same as the one Obama stood on, presented himself to the people as Zeus. His reasoning was, even though he extolled the virture of athieism, it had become clear to him that the people needed a god to worship, so why not him. This was just before the angry mobs that he had whipped into murderous frenzies with his pompus oratory just months earlier turned on him and place his head beneath the blade of the guillotine. Uneasy is the head that wears the crown, even if it is self imposed.
Hilary is not a realistic replacement for Obama, even if she seems to be more adult and reasonable. Remember, they both worship at the same alter, at the feet of Saul Alinsky.
Prom and Rose,
Melanie “chose” a catastrophic plan and then she “chose” not to deal with the lump she had in her breast.
My sweetie had a lump and we scheduled the appointments to get a little rice sized particle from the lump and get it analyzed.
When liberals (including Melanie) stick their head in the sand – and then change the facts to make it out to be the big bad insurance company or the evil republicans we all lose because we didn’t advance the discussion.
Because we are free – we didn’t have one kind of insurance to choose from. And when people “choose” catastrophic plans to save money – they need to be PREPARED to use their own money for the checkups as needed.
Of course you two knew that. 🙂 I’m speaking to liberals who want everything for free and no mechanism for reimbursing those who provide them service.
It’s like my liberal neighbor who didn’t pitch in 1/2 for the fence.
Guess what I did. I redid 1/2 of the fence and left the other half to rot and fall which it is doing this year. He is the one with the dog. Before long I’ll be taking fence boards and putting them in the fireplace ! 🙂
Personal Responsibility
Freedom
Can I get another echo Art? 🙂
Just looked at the 25th amendment. The President can be removed if “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of the office. Does being an egomaniac equate to being unable to function? Probably not. This amendment has never been used so there’s no history and precedent.
Gray you replied to this comment of mine, “So here’s a republican engaging in the same behavior many complain about in the democrats. Gee, go figure.” by saying the following,
“The difference is that we could actually use a new non-European (EADS) Air Force tanker and an explosives and IED lab sounds like a pretty good idea.”
First point, the issue isn’t whether the lab is a good idea or not. How you can conflate, the building of an IED lab in Shelby’s district as good, but somewhere else as bad is beyond me. What is going on is that the lab will not be built in a republican’s district. Don’t expect Congress or this administration to give this money back any time soon.
Additionally, having a US based firm build the tankers was never the point. Here’s what I said, From CongressDaily: “Northrop/EADS team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals.” Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.”
So….
Second point, by your statement, you think that holding up the appointment of 70 federal judicial nominations which will only clog the courts and gum up the federal court system is fine because third point, the earmarks for Shelby’s district have been eliminated. Wow! You are as corrupt and parochial as the worst congressman/woman out there.
You then snark on, “It’s not exactly midnight basketball. sex-ed and community organizing, is it?” But it seems like Shelby and, I guess you think it is by your playground gotcha attitude about it.
=======
I have to agree fully with Betsybounds who says, “But the problem remains that the Left is determined on their program of taking over. Obama is not the problem. Obama is merely (if I may say so) a symptom of the problem.”
As well as with LittlemissSunshine’s statement that, “The liberal agenda has crept into every facet of our culture – Obama is merely the end result of a corrupt philosophy that can be found in various stages of growth/acceptance throughout our country. His removal, whether forced or voluntary by circumstances or time, does little to ensure the long term viability of American liberty and freedom.”
So true, which I was also alluding to in my comment when I said that if the republicans have learned nothing and go back to business as usual, which brought about their electoral debacle in 2006, we are in trouble and have only two poisons to pick from.
========
huxley’s response to LMS’s comment above says in part, “LilMissSunshine: Again, I’m talking about the Big Bang agenda Obama was pressing to transform America now. Obamacare, cap-and-trade, monstrous stimulus packages, mega-bailouts, nationalization of major corporations – that kind of thing.
This agenda only had a chance because Obama was an extremely popular, charismatic ideologue willing to bet his presidency on a legislative blitzkrieg during his honeymoon first year and had large, tractable majorities in Congress with radical leadership willing to implement such an agenda.”
Agreed, but let’s not forget that the first bailout, TARP, was enacted by the Bush administration in the fall, prior to the 2008 election.
“For two scary weeks last summer after cap-and-trade passed in the Senate and the House seemed close to passing Obamacare with a public option, effectively socializing American medicine, it looked like Obama might well succeed and after that who knew what could happen.
But conservative and commonsensical Americans exploded, took to the internet and to the streets, drove Obama’s polls down and threatened the electability of Congress members taking the side of Obama’s agenda.
So Obama failed, thank God, and it’s been steadily downhill for Obama since. He is now a lame duck when it comes to big leftist things and that radical agenda is effectively dead.”
Agreed partially. I’m betting that if the republicans get back into the majority and proceed on the same path they did prior to the 2006 election, they too will see a vicious backlash.
Why? IMO, because our economy is in dire straits. we need serious adults who are looking to the welfare of our nation, not squabbling political vultures picking at the carcas. If serious action is not taken to limit our spending, lower taxes, reduce onerous government regulation (some regulation is good) and reduce federal intrusion into more and more areas of our lives which leads to the increased centralization of power in the hands of the federal government, we will continue on this downward spiral into insolvency.
“However, no, Obama’s failure does not fix the leftward drift of America since FDR.”
So true. Unless our politicians start acting like there is a crisis, in our huge deficits, in the atrophy of our manufacturing base, in our energy policy and so much else, we will continue this downward spiral into a third world economy.
The stage set for Obama’s acceptance speech is eerily similar to the Pergamon Altar. http://bit.ly/b1ZPXk
Pingback:Bent Notes » The deep and profound spiritual illness of The Most Equal Comrade
More Good News Dept.
Obama’s Rasmussen Approval Index is a chilly -17 with general Approval/Disapproval at 44%/56%.
After SOTU Obama enjoyed a warm spell reaching -4 and 50/50 but that’s over now. I guess voters realized it was just another Obama speech.
Then there’s this news on the healthcare front:
Neo-neocon said, “When they meet with obstacles, they tend to look not inward but outward at others to blame.”
Accurate, and chilling. There are some famous examples confirming this, but Godwin’s law stays my hand.
Link for healthcare quote above.
“Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited” by Sam Vaknin is the best for us civilians I’ve ever come across.
First point, the issue isn’t whether the lab is a good idea or not. How you can conflate, the building of an IED lab in Shelby’s district as good, but somewhere else as bad is beyond me. What is going on is that the lab will not be built in a republican’s district. Don’t expect Congress or this administration to give this money back any time soon.
That doesn’t make any sense at all. I read it a couple of times and it just doesn’t make any sense.
To reiterate: IED lab = a good thing benefitting more people than just the workers in his district.
US-owned AF tanker. Same deal.
Not midnight basketball or sex-ed.
Congressmen bring projects and jobs back to their districts. They always have. The important part is whether those jobs/ projects have anything to do with the Constitutional role of the federal government. Defense is a legitimate role of the federal government. Sex-ed and Midnight basketball, not so much….
Options. What are the options available for the Obama Administration to further promote (and quickly institute) the liberal anti-American agenda that has been percolating since the 1920’s?
Have we forgotten, but it was our illustrious Republican President George W. Bush who attempted to legalize millions of illegal aliens. This anti-American socialist paradigm crosses political boundaries throughout our entire country and replacing it with a working philosophy of liberty and freedom is an on-going generational struggle. I don’t know, perhaps we as Americans have become exhausted from ‘pleasuring ourselves’ with the rewards of our material success.
I’m in favor of blocking Obama’s judicial nominations, and I don’t much care how it’s done.
The time for playing by Marquess of Queensbury rules is over.
Rickl–Hardball is exactly what Republicans should have been playing from day one, instead of begging to be “popular” and included in the Democrat’s club. Its like they were the bewildered, needy rejects, stuck in the back room at the fraternity in “Animal House,” begging, and willing to do anything to be pledged.
They should have been tearing up the railroad tracks, monkeywrenching the engine, laying down in front of the train if they had to, to stop the Obama Express but, instead, they have been standing on the platform, waving at the train as it leaves the station.
In the situation Republicans find themselves in now in Congress, “bipartisanship” is code for letting themselves be defeated, be rolled and our democracy lost, and getting some gutless, clueless Republican’s fingerprints on the gun used to kill Democracy, our freedoms and representative government in America.
I knew before I even clicked on that link that you must be referring to the t-shirt comment, Neo. One of the creepier things he’s said lately. Every time I think the man can’t top himself, he goes and does just that.
On the subject of the shrine….a couple of weeks ago the guys on the Hillbuzz blog commented on a visit they made to a Chicago museum that featured that exact replica of the White House in minature. This traveling display is known for its slavish attention to detail, reflecting the White House furnishings and artwork as it changes with each family that occupies the home.
In short, the minature WH was completely festooned with pictures of the Obamas…in virtually every room throughout the West Wing, etc. Various folks wrote in to say that the WH replica was accurate, and furthermore, that the Obama photos also filled the nearby (Old?)Executive Office Building.
http://hillbuzz.org/2010/02/02/question-has-the-white-house-really-been-transformed-into-a-cult-of-personality-shrine-to-the-one/
On the plus side, Hillbuzz also points out that no one is buying Obama junk anymore. Except the White House decorators, that is.
http://hillbuzz.org/2010/02/04/no-one-is-buying-obama-junk-anymore/
Wolla, Rickl, et al.,
Somewhere along the line the Republicans were persuaded that what the American people want to see in Washington is bipartisanship. I don’t think it’s ever been true, but they bought it, took the bait and got reeled in hook, line, and sinker. The bait was the notion that the people would like it, and the hook was that it meant surrender. All that remained was being reeled in. I recall back in the late Reagan years or so, hearing about polls that showed the American people wanted Washington to stop what was termed “partisan bickering” and get things done. It never made any sense. It pretended to harken back to some mythical time when everyone in Washington got along, and everyone was allegedly better off for it. Whenever I heard that I wondered whether everyone had forgotten such expressions of comity as the savage caning of Senator Charles Sumner in 1856. The Republicans have completely lost sight of the fact that the Democrats live by: Anything worth having is worth fighting for.
Republicans are constantly being begged to come up with a “program of their own,” something positive. They came up with Newt’s silly Contract with America (at least I think it was silly). It’s not what kicked the Democrats out in 1994. What kicked the Democrats out in 1994 was the House Bank scandal, the Jim Wright publishing fraud, and all the other fruits of over 40 years of 1-party rule in the House. The Contract was a show–even a sideshow. They’re being fed the same stupid rope-a-dope BS right now on health care–Obama says, “Come on, guys, let’s talk, let’s find things we can agree on, let’s be bipartisan.” It’s a scam. The American people don’t want to see what the Republicans can offer, they want the stupid bill STOPPED. We’ll worry about what comes next later, after this thing is killed, dead-dead, with a silver bullet through its head and a wooden stake in its heart.
And bipartisanship, as many many others have noted, is just a scam to get the Republicans to surrender. If they can’t see that one coming at them like a freight train, they’re incapable of learning from experience.
Although I am sure that they would deny that that is what it is, my extremely liberal in-laws have their own little Obama shrine in their home, centered on an autopen signed letter they received thanking them for their–no doubt–very generous support, and also featuring an idealized picture of “the Won,” with what looks suspiciously like is a halo in the background behind his head. Can “miraculous medals” be far behind?
If Obama & Co. set a few of their “Civilian National Security Force” goons to round them up, they still would probably murmur, as they were shoved into the van, “If Obama only knew.”
More on the polls:
Check this great article and chart. Obama’s SOTU speech impressed people until word of the budget came out and that’s what put Obama back in the polling dog house. As well it should have.
“Money changes everything,” Cyndi Lauper once sang and Obama should have listened.
A great connection from the budget to
the Obama’s ‘cap-and-trade thing’:
Yes, keep on your eyes on “bipartisanship” — this is the gun Obama wants to bring to the knife fight in the post-Scott Brown environment.
Generally speaking both Republicans and Democrats complain about how their evil opponents use bipartisanship to victimize them and I don’t take that talk very seriously, but Obama and his advisors have decided that “bipartisanship” is the key to next phase of the Democratic offensive in the health care war.
Here’s Obama interviewed today by Katie Couric:
This is going to be dirty.
He’s not? How is Newsweek going to explain this?
It’s true the both parties complain about being victimized by their opponents’ bipartisan traps. I was speaking more as an observer, though, and while I can’t claim a totally objective position, still it strikes me that the Republicans are the suckered more than the suckeed (is that even a word? 🙂 ). I don’t recall a single Democrat ever being enticed into any “bipartisanship” traps during the Bush administration, at least. Instead, they formed an active and often vigorously hostile opposition to an administration they considered illegitimate from its very outset.
But yeah, this is going to be dirty. I hope the Republicans have the cods for a fight, because that’s what’s coming.
Huxley,
It strikes me that declarations of Obamacare’s demise may have been a tad-bit premature. It ain’t over til it’s over, and it ain’t over yet. He may not yet be as defeated as some thought!
Personally, I hope there’s a sane Republican soul or two who can restrain McCain and/or Graham from trotting out some gang of 14, or 60, or 535, or some other such bipartisan joker’s triumph.
betsybounds: Well, my point is that Chairman Obama — He Who Transforms America — is dead.
Any effort he makes to restore that mantle and put monstrous bills like Obamacare and cap-and-trade into place will fail.
Obama is trying to tack towards the center or, as is more likely, trying to make people believe he is, but whatever comes out of that process may be damaging and dangerous but nothing like the blitzkrieg we saw this past year to turn America into something between France and Venezuela.
Obama can complain all he wants about obstructionist Republicans and how Americans don’t understand the wondrous benefits of his bills. But Americans have caught on and as soon as they see the dollar signs they run.
The Republicans have put it together that their best strategy is to oppose all of Obama’s irresponsible efforts and not got snookered by his “nice guy” overtures. And it’s not just the best strategy, it’s what the voters want. It’s how Scott Brown got elected.
Republicans may be stupid and corrupt about a lot of things but they do know by now that Obama is not a nice guy.
In Washington, nobody should be a nice guy. In Washington, nice guys finish last (and that’s in a race where the only finishing positions are, respectively, first and last). The problem with the Republicans is that they persist in thinking that they can prosper by being nice. Be nice. Always be nice. It’s always important to always be nice. Never forget to be nice.
Obama is not a nice guy. Geschenck
He may also not be so finished as some of us have thought him to be.
Where’s Leo Durocher when you need him?
Damn.
Sorry: Geschenk.
This is serious business. Ideally Republicans should ignore this request, but practically they can’t.
It is a stunt by Obama but it is a clever stunt. Republicans had better get their ducks in a row on this.
The republican reply to Obama should be “Sir, you tried to shove crap down our throat and now we’re supposed to look past all that and work with you? F*ck off.””
Huxley and SteveH,
Agreed.
Now: Will they??
Anyone else think O acts like he does because of a deep feeling of INSECURITY? Either that or he really believes all those accolades about his wonderful self. Either way, we are in deep trouble.
First, I find it funny that anyone can talk about the ‘obstructionist republicans’ with a straight face. The democrats;
a) control the Whitehouse
b) had a filibuster proof majority in the senate until this past week and still retain 59 seats
c) have 256 out of 435 seats in the house
The only obstructing that the republicans can do is as speed bumps. Which by the way is a testament to how awful the democrats and their proposals have been.
Huxley, you said “The invitation to meet together on Feb. 25 – and to do so live in front of the American public – represents an effort by Obama to hit the reset button on the top domestic priority of his first year in office.”
Not so fast, quoting from an article at Politico, “The Feb. 25 meeting is an attempt to reach across the aisle but not a signal that the president plans to start over, as Republicans have demanded, a White House official said.”
From the same article, “Obama said he wants to “look at the Republican ideas that are out there.”
“If we can go, step by step, through a series of these issues and arrive at some agreements, then, procedurally, there’s no reason why we can’t do it a lot faster than the process took last year,” he said.
In a statement, the official said, “What the president will not do is let this moment slip away. He hopes to have Republican support in doing so – but he is going to move forward on health reform.”
The republicans should reject this monstrosity of a bill outright and demand an entirely new bill. They were frozen out of the process entirely the first time around. But that’s not the game that’s afoot.
The dems know the republicans will not cooperate and want to paint the republicans as the real obstructionists. With the help of a 24/7 MSM barrage to spread the line that ‘yeah, we tried, but those obstructionist republicans just won’t play ball with us.’ How well this will fool the public remains to be seen. All I can say is thank god for the internet.
The trouble is, when you get down to it, I don’t think that the republicans are any more serious than the democrats. The democrats would destroy the country by growing the government so big that it will collapse of its own weight after crushing the private sector and ruining the finances with programs they can’t fund and which won’t work while paying off their cronies, and the republicans have been content to allow the system to collapse from neglect.
If the republicans are serious, they should take up the president’s offer and really put out an opposing version that really does deal with some of the problems, or articulate how medicare could be fixed first, before a more general proposal is pitched. But that would take real courage, something sorely lacking in both parties.
You all do realize it was Oboingo who really won the Superbowl…don’t doubt this;that narcissistic tinkle top really thinks he inspired it .
Tim P.: Not quite sure of your point.
I was quoting, not saying, that passage you attributed to me.
I don’t believe for a second that this is a good faith attempt from Obama to reach across the aisle.
However, I would say that Republicans had better respond to Obama as if it were a good faith request.
The Republicans are not as unserious as you paint them. They are just in a difficult spot where they must respect the President without acceding to the context Obama is setting.
The Republicans know that they must reject the current bill. As John Boehner, the House Republican leader, said, “The best way to start on real, bipartisan reform would be to scrap those bills and focus on the kind of step-by-step improvements that will lower health care costs and expand access.”
Obama, of course, is insisting that discussion start with the current bills, not from a clean slate.
This is the kabuki dance. Both sides will declare their allegiance to a bipartisan effort but both will insist on setting the initial framework for the discussion.
Of course I think the Republicans are right to start over and insist upon it, but the game for the next couple weeks will be delicate onus shifting between the two approaches. And I think the Republicans have the more difficult hand to play.
Francesca, reference Obmessiah’s insecurity. Rather than psychoanalyze him I for one would like to know what the hell was wrong with an electorate that voted such an obviously intellectually deficient neurotic into office? He could not hide his lack of knowledge of world affairs, his narcissism, lack of real world experience, unsavory associates, and questionable ethics; yet he was touted as the new blood we needed. That was an awful lot of people being weird at one time.
As I wrote earlier: O is neutered now, any damage he will do will be through inaction. Unfortunately it means we do not have a functional presidency. No one is in change and the welfare of so much is dependent on American strength and resolve.
Hux and Tim P
When both sides mention bipartisanship I remember a quote from Gibbon that went something like this:
As usual among civilized states the two opponents began their preparations for war by expressing their earnest desire for peace.
I’d like to see the republicans spend the next two weeks hammering Obama with “Duhhhh Mr President…Theres no such thing as a political party that isn’t out to obstruct its opposition.”
“As I’ve said, I think it’s 50-50 that Obama leaves office early.”
Huxley, I have been thinking this for a while. I keep telling my husband that he looks teed-off more and more. This just isn’t going according to what was planned or what he thought it would be like.
Maybe he thought that he could handle the photo-ops and iconic moments while his minions carried out his wishes and policies??
I agree that the Zero is a very bad man. I agree with Betsy that he is not done yet. The Trunks are always rolled when they play the bipartisanship game. This is one reason that McLame was defeated so soundly. I also think that Tim P. is closer to the mark. The Trunks have shown that they were not serious since 1988. Neglect is a kinder word than fecklessness or incompetence. Look at our economy. 40% of our GNP was banking. However, banking is not a product but a service. And I would contend that a lot of the banking that was lost in 2008 will never return. Banking replaced manufacturing, which produced products that people wanted and needed, and employed people in value added jobs. We haven’t had a decent industrial policy in 40 years, and both parties are responsible. The reason that people are really beginning to pay attention is that the pie is truly shrinking now, but the vultures in DC want to be sure that their cronies get their piece.
Huxley,
Didn’t mean to imply you said what you were quoting.
Sorry about that.
But I disagree when you say, “The Republicans are not as unserious as you paint them. They are just in a difficult spot where they must respect the President without acceding to the context Obama is setting.”
I think that the republicans would be on solid ground with most of the public to say that they reject this bill in its entirety and that we need to start over from scratch.
My reasoning is that they had no part in its making because the dems froze them out of the process. Also, because it will ruin our economy and provide less and worse health care than what is presently in place. Health care which the dems claim to be trying to fix. On top of that, I think that the argument that it gives too much power to the federal government is valid and resonates with many.
Perhaps I’m being too harsh to the republicans, but I doubt it. See my comment on Shelby above. It’s these type of games played for pork while the real problems go unaddressed, which the public is getting tired of. For medicare, social security and many other programs, the bill is quickly coming due.
As I said above, regardless of party, I will support a serious candidate who has the political courage to propose real solutions. (Though I doubt any, or many will be democrats) I will not unthinkingly support republicans because they are the anti-democrats. Nor do I think that you, or any thinking person here would.
I do find it a bit discouraging when I hear people on this forum say that we need to be just as dishonest, dirty and rabidly partisan as the democrats. Bullshit. The tea-parties, the recent election in Massachusetts and the stopping of health-care, cap&trade and card-check (so far) in the face of the democrats overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress and their ‘ownership’ of the MSM are proof that we do not need to become what we loath in order to stop it. If we morph into a mirror image of the left which we oppose, then they have won and the republic, as we have known it will be lost.
Geoffrey de Bouillon,
Re; your comment above.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
But you did. Thanks.
I think that the republicans would be on solid ground with most of the public to say that they reject this bill in its entirety and that we need to start over from scratch.
Tim P: That is what Boehner and McConnell, Republican leaders of the House and Senate respectively, are saying. The White House and Democratic leaders said no, we’re not starting over.
I don’t know what happens next. Obama’s gambit to work out healthcare on television with him presiding and both parties debating has never been offered before.
I think it’s a bad idea for the Republicans to accept, most especially starting with the current bills, since it concedes almost everything to Democrats in the format, which is Obama presiding — and no doubt lecturing and lying — with occasional Republican petitions to change a little of this or add a little of that and the end there is the expectation that the result will be a bill that should be passed, and then Obama and his followers spend the next year clapping themselves on the back for bipartisan they are.
As we’ve seen when Obama addresses Congress he has no compunction about misrepresenting his case and basically slandering his opponents, but if there is slightest show of contention or disrespect by Republicans or conservatives it gets blown into a big hairy deal.
No, this is a lose-lose proposition for Republicans. They should politely stick to their guns to shelve the current bills and take the PR hit when the gambit dies.
I do find it a bit discouraging when I hear people on this forum say that we need to be just as dishonest, dirty and rabidly partisan as the democrats.
Tim P: I agree.
Tom Maguire at JustOneMinute nails this TV health care gambit perfectly: Obama Announces Plan To Host Republican Surrender Ceremony.
Huxley and Tim:
If the choice is between being honorable and pure while watching a gang of thugs and fanatics wreck the country, and getting your hands dirty fighting against them — well, soap’s cheap.
Tim y Hux:
I don’t recall any calls for us to get dirty and didhonest. “Rabidly partisan” is a critical component to vigorous opposition of the foe, however. We do not want to compromise with the enemy. Give ’em an inch, they’ll take a mile. No more McCains.
The argument that we cannot get our hands dirty, that we must be pure and virtuous in order to deserve a place standing on “the moral high ground”–in unmarked, shining armor, pennants waving, and high above the life and death struggle, the cacophonous, dirty, bloody, stinking battle–has always struck me as a recipe for disaster; the game is not won in the Press Box, it is won on the field.
This country was not built by good losers, and will not be sustained by good losers. You better know that the Progressives plan to win by fair means or foul.
Here is a description of Obama’s formal refusal to move to the center:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/02/obama_dismisses_blanche_lincol.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Not the quickest ship in the fleet, pity there are no Darwin awards for politicians.
We at Neo Neocon are developing the characteristics of a lynch mob.
Excellent.
Bob: Huh? Care to clarify?
Just a little on the Shelby deal: As I recall the Northrup/EADS joint venture is based around an Airbus (300?) airframe which means that it is essentially a european aircraft. The competitor is Boeing.
We need, and we will have, a replacement for our aging air refueling fleet and the competition is fierce. Senator Shelby is trying to bring it home.
Personally I’m rooting for the home team, but I suppose that airplanes are kind of like cars any more. There is so much outsourcing of components that it’s hard to designate a true country of origin.
all analysis i read here is as if the US is a fishbowl not part of a world.
i also note that there is a click of people who make stuff up, and have teamed together to assert that numbers win over ideas.
they cant fathom a whole nation being wrong, and only a few getting it.
and they CAN somewho fathom ignorancy as a way to knowing.
Obama he is my man, he show his anger, he gives no dam.
He is a progressive in every way, killing jobs is how he earns the union’s back deal pay, in action he is a socialist even when he is just issuing a simple stay: he says he for the free, but he is bent on a single deed, providing a permitted May Day for us to see.
He oppresses many while calling them every name, then claiming he and his party is the victim to gain more fame, he is very hypocritical in the blame, knowing every time it’s the same, this is his Obama’s favorite game.
He is for big government every time, hurting our economy so we can’t save a dime. He knows big government’s role, will take away all of our dough. He made a promise not increase the deficit, this promise was known, to be untrue, but if he created enough civil unrest, he could find some else to have the all the blame rest, so it’s prove it’s not his fault for the ugly mess.
With government spending billions in waste, I know our government will make it sound great like it’s a honorable place, so they can feed more money to their own cronies in every case.
President Obama helps unions gain their dues, no bill is done with out their un-ethical sausage dew. Soon our education system stench will protrude, and doubly hurt a next generation ability And
He blame’s others like the Tea Party, Insurance, Big banks, and Israel. Many of us knows he’s already failed. He shows the signed of being a dangerously narcissistic, but our media loves him, as he can fool them to believe, he just being pessimistic.
Go Obama, lets have Government take away more freedoms, come on man, you can transform us to angry, nanny state.
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