Obama vs. Boehner: this is how a narcissist responds to disagreement
Once more Obama poses as victim: it’s those mean old Republicans, out to get me!
Obama is determined to paint the Republicans as the obstructionist bad guys, and he says it’s personal rather than about any sort of principle. If those “bipartisan” hearings are televised, expect to see more of the same sort of accusations. I could be wrong (it depends on how much finesse Obama manages to muster as he does it), but I don’t think this strategy will play well with the majority of the American people, who are heartily tired of blame duck Obama’s antics in this regard.
Boehner made a substantive policy argument to Obama, and Obama responded with a partisan attack.
Isn’t that the way? And meanwhile, in an alternate universe, Obama demands that Congress “transcend petty politics.”
You first, President Obama. We insist.
There seems to be a curious asymmetry in the psychology of left and right. Leftists appear not to admit of the possibility that someone could in good faith possibly disagree with them. Anyone who disagrees with them must have malign motivations: be bought off, racist, sexist, fascist, something. It’s apparently inconceivable to them that anyone might simply disagree.
In fairness, I sometimes see those on the left as participating in subversion, but hold that view for a select crew for which evidence of such exists (e.g., Soros, Ayers, Stern, Rathke and that ilk), and do not extend it to garden-variety liberals, whom I view as led by the nose.
If those “bipartisan” hearings are televised, expect to see more of the same sort of accusations. I could be wrong (it depends on how much finesse Obama manages to muster as he does it), but I don’t think this strategy will play well with the majority of the American people
I too expect that the “bipartisan healthcare summit” is simply a rigged game for Obama to paint the Republicans as obstructionists , while trying to retake the moral high ground of “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America – there’s the United States of America.”
I’m not sure how that goes down, beyond deepening the polarization.
Those who like Obama still like him, even if they don’t love him as they did. They will continue to blame Republicans. Republicans, predictably, will just become angrier.
It won’t persuade the independents and will probably lose Obama some more indies.
In the end, it will be results that count and Obama still doesn’t have any. The problem for Obama is that he is campaigning not governing, and he is burning daylight between now and the midterm elections.
The healthcare debate is going to slide into March. The later it goes the more it will be on voters’ minds for the election and that’s bad for the Dems.
This new Ramussen poll reports the majority of Americans (58%) support cutting the size of the Government’s workforce.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/61163
This goes beyond a loud “NO” to Obamacare.
I still don’t understand how the two sides can have the health care summit if they have a black-and-white uncompromisable disagreement on the agenda’s starting point.
I can’t remember any speech, on or off the teleprompter, in which Obama did not disparage someone for something. And, he goes much further than setting up straw parties to push his arguments. Even his off the cuff comments are unfairly pointed at others. (Not a nice guy!)
I believe that he is incapable of running a meeting in a disinterested and straightforward manner. His fangs will come out fairly quickly and with little subtlety. It’s like he has a button on his chest that says “Press here for my latest and greatest inappropriate response” and any point made by any Republican not to his liking will be taken as a free press of the button. The trick for the Republicans is to be prepared for the not too subtle attacks and have responses at hand to parry them in an appropriate and gentlemanly (and, if possible, a funny) manner, while carefully not being visibly disrespectful to the man holding the office of president, even if they do not respect that man.
Occam’s Beard Says:
A good example of this asymmetry occurred a few years ago during a concert by that lefty grunge 90s-leftover band Pearl Jam . Their lead singer Eddie Vedder just couldn’t resist making a statement against President Bush. To his surprise, some members of the audience reacted negatively, and some got up and left. Vedder was dumbstruck. He relied on the ole reliable leftist whine: “It’s just my freedom of speech maaaaaaaaan.”
Democrats are figuring out they really suck on offense. They play pretty good defense with republicans in power and actually want to replicate that dynamic if only for its victim underdog effect.
A decent strategy that might have had merit if they’d done it before they scared most Americans to put their tray tables up and their seat in the upright and locked position.
I cannot understand NoBama’s idea of forming a “bi-partisan commission” to iron out a health care bill. First, because the vast majority of Americans don’t want a health care bill, at least not the Democrat-Socialist version, and, second, we already have a “bi-partisan” mechanism for working out the details of legislative bills – it’s called “Congress.” Maybe a Naval Corpseman should write that on NoBama’s hand.
The trick for the Republicans is to be prepared for the not too subtle attacks and have responses at hand to parry them in an appropriate and gentlemanly (and, if possible, a funny) manner, while carefully not being visibly disrespectful to the man holding the office of president, even if they do not respect that man.
Steve G: That will be quite a trick– as Rep. Wilson and Justice Alito discovered.
Obama is very skilled at giving the finger (sometimes literally) to the other side while speaking all humble and above-it-all.
Republicans will be on Obama’s turf (the Blair House), with Obama presiding, with apparently Obama’s agenda, and with the Obama-friendly media covering the event. Advantage: 4-0 Obama.
I’ve been in enough corporate meetings to know that kind of stuff makes a big difference in negotiations.
Sometimes one carry the day anyway or at least not get too badly beaten up. But it’s not easy and it’s the exception, not the rule. A surprising number of conservative commentators miss this.
I’m hoping the meeting gets scuttled over the agenda disagreement.
This looks like a setup and a show trial to me; a sucker bet.
If I were the Republicans, I would just not show until it was publically agreed that the current bills voted through by the House and Senate were scrapped and things started from square one. As soon as Obama deviated from this, I would stage a walk out, with an immediate press conference to follow, with illustrative quotes and charts on hand to illustrate what had taken place.
Is your title a typo Neo? It says Boemer but I think you’re talking about Boehner.
Obama’s personality quirks aside, its important the republicans get their message out or they’ll look like the bad guys.
It’s just a joke to discuss the existing bill vs. starting over. Can’t graft our ideas onto theirs to turn healthcare into a regulated utility run by the government. We’ll start over and talk in good faith, but Obama is not interested in that….
Jim Sullivan: Yes, absolutely a typo. Thanks; I’ll fix it.
… . . this is how a narcissist responds to disagreement. We have 3 more years of this! As Richard Fernandez argues in his latest PJM post, we can expect the left to pose all sorts of overtures toward conciliation in governing now, but that’s just it – – its posing. What they really want to do is to rule. Obama just can’t contain himself. The drive to rule shows.
There seems to be a curious asymmetry in the psychology of left and right. Leftists appear not to admit of the possibility that someone could in good faith possibly disagree with them.
its the difference between one side who is faking it and another side that is trying to actually get to brass tacks.
the fakers are cargo cult, and so they see the world and think everone is faking it like them. they are terrified of unbounded productivity, as they think no ones driving “we will all die”. they think that its the rules and regulations that guide other fakers not to walk off a cliff the way a blind person would if there was no rail (and he had no skill).
so when you put the two together, you get a unfair unfair from one side. its like a school yard where they are supposed to be pretending to agree to get something… but here is one being mean and talking all this stuff they dont understand. since everyone is faking, they are just being mean and faking this attack thing forcing people to choose, etc.
even if you gave them the points of the issues they have spent their whole life taking shortcuts to take up a place higher than they would otherwise have if there wasnt this skill at faking it, another skill at deflecting what would get you caught, and membership in a club that helps you get a free pass.
by the way. such people suffer a dearth of any evidence in their life of actual success or acheivement. they may have awards and honors, but little to show for it other than some adulation of others.
they also surround themselves with others like them so that none will call each other to the mat on such. in this way they are used to shaping the reality of others around them to get by without having to really produce at the same level.
they hate those that call them out in any way and break up the harmony and the enjoyment of the same feeling they think that others have in an honest position. (for them faking sucess is what real success feels like. a win through cheating still feels like a win and counts, etc).
I think the Republicans could make some points in a session with Obama. They could point out that they have spent a lot of time listening to their constituents and they take their concerns seriously: The people don’t want an enormous law that will irrevocably change our health care system. They want us to remedy specific problems and do it in a way that we can modify our solutions should the need arise. These are the biggest problems our constituents are having and these are our proposals to address them. To do more at this point only adds instability to an economy that is trying to find its legs. The people do not trust this enormous piece of legislation because they don’t believe their representatives have even read it, much less evaluated its effects. They have heard of problems with the health care systems n other countries. Why has no one been able to assure the people that your plan avoids these problem? Why can’t we go a little more slowly and a lot more surely?
John Boehner addressed this problem not too long ago about a percieved lack of drive in republicans at getting their point across…Something like..”Republicans come out of Rotary Clubs and Democrats come out of union halls. One has a fundamentally more confrontational personality than the other”.
Incredibly, I see this Obama(and other Democrats)-as-victim all the time on the liberal blogs. They’re convinced that the only reason their healthcare didn’t pass is because of the Republicans. Pointing out their sizable majorities in both houses of Congress doesn’t dissuade them. I’m not sure what to make of it.
Tom the Redhunter: actually, health care reform bills passed both House and Senate without Republicans (except for one Republican vote in the House that would not have even occurred if the bill weren’t passing anyway). So Republicans didn’t stop the bills, although they would have if they could have.
It was the Democrats’ failure to pass identical bills in both House and Senate that caused the problem, and the timing of the Massachusetts election, which occurred before the bills could be merged. If Brown had not been elected, it’s not certain the Democrats would have been successful, but they certainly might have been. So if their health care reform bills fail to pass, they will actually have been stopped by the votes of the people of Massachusetts, a predominantly Democratic state.
The Republicans are starting to act like they know how to play the game. Hank Paulson’s book–excerpted earlier this week in the WSJ–tells how the Democrats blackjacked poor old John McCain during the TARP negotiations, playing for political spin while he thought he was going to show statesmanship and rise above petty gamesmanship. Obama played the role of spokesman for the Democrats.
Clearly, Obama’s handlers think it is going to be “deja vu all over again,” in the words of the great Yogi Berra. Their mistake, which we can add to the list.
So if their health care reform bills fail to pass, they will actually have been stopped by the votes of the people of Massachusetts, a predominantly Democratic state.
Way to slather on that understatement!