Maybe Maureen Dowd should start reading Jack Cashill
MoDo is puzzled by Obama’s lackluster performance lately:
How does a man who invented himself as a force by writing one of the most eloquent memoirs in political history lose control of his own narrative?
Let’s just start with the idea that it’s not all about the narrative. In fact, with Obama’s presidency, we are no longer in the realm of “narrative” at all, much less controlled ones. We are in the realm of events and action, which have a life of their own.
Dowd continues:
In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama showed passion, lyricism, empathy and an exquisite understanding of character and psychological context ”” all the qualities that he has stubbornly resisted showing as president. It was a book that promised a president who could see into the hearts of other people. But there’s so much you don’t learn about candidates in campaigns, even when they seem completely exposed.
Perhaps the reason Obama has not been demonstrating the qualities shown in his book is that he didn’t write the book, as Jack Cashill has spent many words attemping to prove. We don’t know the truth of this, and probably never will. But Dowd would be less puzzled by the seeming disparity between the written Obama and the man we’ve experienced as president if she began to entertain the thought that the former is a sham and the latter the real thing.
And then there’s what we learned about Obama during the campaign. Maybe MoDo didn’t see his negative characteristics—she was dazzled by the glory of the great man—but a great many of us did. His narcissism, coldness, leftism, arrogance, passivity, querulousness, tendency to blame others, and lack of relevant experience were all glaringly obvious. Obama was plenty exposed during the campaign—at least, for those with eyes to see.
Is this a disease of us baby boomers? Ms. Dowd seems to think that if you are “smart” then experience is unnecessary.
If we think of the great writer/statesmen of the past none were writers of great renown before they were statesmen. Churchill, Lincoln (speeches), and Teddy Roosevelt wrote in a way that reflected the men they were. Each was shaped by life through success and failure so their writing wasn’t a substitute for character.
JFK at least had a real world war record before Joe bought him his elections. (and he did have his ghostwriters)
The latest Obama harangue– in which he blames the Republicans for not helping him, for desiring his failure, for not being nice–will continue to alienate not endear Obama. I’m hoping for the Sestak problem to continue. I’m hoping for more and more liberals to experience their great awakening. I’m hoping for one of those irons Obama is juggling to drop.
The audacity of hope.
MoDo (Mo Dowdy):
Like you said, the above sentence is not exactly a ringing denunciation of Cashill’s hypothesis that ∅bama didn’t write the book all by his lonesome.
But it is problematic to conclude personal characteristics of an author from his book, even when the author wrote the book himself. Hemingway and Faulkner may have been perceptive and imaginative authors, but their alcoholism made them difficult to live with.
Liberals are stuck on eloquence and symbolic style as the ultimate judge of a person. I can think of 200 million Americans who couldn’t write a decent memoir but would make a much superior President to Barak Obama.
Gringo and Steve, agreed.
But note, even if he did show passion, lyricism, etc, and wrote all by his ‘lone, he wrote it about himself.
I guess the rest of the country isn’t an important enough topic in comparison.
Amazing obtuseness on MoDo’s part. In her world, Obama is a gifted wordsmith who writes a lyrical, eloquent autobiography, although in extemporaneous speech he can barely order a cheeseburger.
Didn’t she think that that was …odd?
Contrast Obama with a real wordsmith, such as William F. Buckley, Jr., whose verbal facility was legendary. Can you imagine Buckley mispronouncing “corpsman” not once but several times, or babbling about “breathalyzers” when he was referring to asthma inhalers? These blunders reflect a paucity of vocabulary.
In addition, gifted speakers such as Churchill and JFK were also renowned for their skill in repartee, whereas Obama shrinks from any unscripted interactions.
Consider the simplest explanation for all this, MoDo: Obama is the Reds’ answer to Milli Vanilli.
‘Being smart’ is a quality parents used to attribute to kids. It is describing a given talent; kids usually don’t have anything else to show for themselves. Wisdom, character, perseverance, decency, courage, sound judgement, these are the qualities they used to admire in adults and certainly in statesmen.
We, however, live in the world of perpetual adolescents inaugurated by the boomers. In this world
child qualities (smart, handsome, imaginative etc) are admired in adults and adult qualities are considered irrelevant, corny or even bad.
Former generations would have found it highly embarrassing for a president to show of his body on the beach in front of camera’s, like some twenty year old boy. But here you have it, my generation, the one that never grew up because she wanted to be ‘forever young’…
And then this: Obama appears to have written ‘one of the most eloquent memoirs of political history’. How crazy is that!
Churchill did not write a silly autobiography BEFORE he had done anything worth telling. But he did write a gigantic ‘Memoirs of the Second World War’ (ten volumes!) AFTER he (with others) had achieved victory. And even that great work on a major historical event, he called, as a born statesman would, ‘just words, just images, no real deads done…’ Just compare Obama’s autobiography with the Memoirs of Churchill, and you know how far gone todays political punditry is…
Furthermore: ‘Obama showed passion, lyricism, empathy and an exquisite understanding of character and psychological context’. Perhaps Neo is right that Obama may not have written this book. But how silly it is to look for these qualities in a statesman in the first place! These qualities you want in a poet, a nurse or a mother, not as primary qualities in a statesman. And this is the other part of the boomerdisease: looking for feminine qualities in places where they are not that relevant and can be a dangerous hindrance. And denying the importance of these qualities in places where they are hugely important: such as in real motherhood, the most important job in the world.
Given the circumstantial evidence
(Obama’s lack of other writings, the fact that there should be other writings, the poor quality of what little there is–consider the ape poem, the obvious benefit of the book to his political and financial fortunes, Obama’s admitted severe problems writing ‘Dreams from my Father,’ and Cashill’s analysis and conclusion that Ayers is the author)
how can anyone possibly believe Obama wrote the book.
DirtyJobsGUy,
I think I agree with the main thrust of your post but am puzzled by your assertion that:
“If we think of the great writer/statesmen of the past none were writers of great renown before they were statesmen. Churchill, Lincoln (speeches), and Teddy Roosevelt wrote in a way that reflected the men they were. Each was shaped by life through success and failure so their writing wasn’t a substitute for character.”
I have read it three or four times to make sure that I understand it correctly and it is certainly possible that I have misconstrued your meaning. Nonetheless, I completely disagree with your first sentence, at least in so far as it refers to Churchill and Lincoln. Churchill made his name early as a journalist and warrior during the Boer War, among many other expeditions. Writing was his ticket to fame prior to becoming First Lord of the Admiralty in WWI and also during his wilderness years in the 1930s.
I am not sure when one would place the date that Lincoln became a statesman — but he too became famous for the speeches and writing early in his political career, before his statesmanship became manifest. Speeches against Polk and the Mexican War, the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, and of course the great Cooper Union speech of 1860 prior to his nomination.
I do agree with your second and third sentences.
I should add for the sake of clarity that:
(a) Lincoln, Churchill, and TR had significant and varied life experience prior to becoming President — in contrast to Obama, they actually DID things
(b) I do not believe that Obama wrote “Dreams from my Father” — Cashill builds a very persuasive circumstantial case.
(c) Neoneocon is right — the evidence has been there all along for those with eyes to see.
Liberals are stuck on eloquence and symbolic style as the ultimate judge of a person.
Yes, style over substance. All sizzle, no steak. Superior marketing of inferior engineering. In the “pink” world, as Bill Whittle memorably called it, O could invent whatever persona he wanted for his ghostwritten autobiographic fantasy novel, and be believed, but the fact remains that he has accomplished less than the square root of jacksh*t in the real, “gray” world.
The Oval Office has a way of exposing the occupant’s true character, and this is the process we are now seeing. Some of us, like most commenters at this blog, aren’t especially surprised at the results. But for true believers like MoDo, the truth is painful: their Secular Savior is in reality an empty suit.
Curtis, a succinct and cogent summary of the state of play.
Well done.
Curtis: “how can anyone possibly believe Obama wrote the book.”
Why, you would have to be somewhat of a mental midget, no offense to midgets of course.
In reality, we’ve been told repeatedly of Obama’s “brilliance”. Has anyone seen it demonstrated yet? The media has provided ready excuses for his record of failure. Those excuses – and denial on the part of his supporters – is the only reason anyone would still be surprised at his poor performance.
In his largely unnoticed book “Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage,” Christopher Anderson also concluded that Ayers ghost-wrote “Dreams.” Cashill confronted David Remnick, author of an Obama paean (“The Bridge””), with Anderson’s finding. Here’s what ensued: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/close_encounters_with_david_re.html
Can you imagine Buckley mispronouncing “corpsman” not once but several times, or babbling about “breathalyzers” when he was referring to asthma inhalers? These blunders reflect a paucity of vocabulary.
Not to mention knowledge and common sense.
B.O., the second biggest fraud after AGW; Corpseman,
award winning writer, ha, ha, ha… one can only have more contempt for the Obamatoads who’ve empowered this disaster. The history books will not be kind…
Yes, but he knows people who speak Austrian. And he’s been to all 57 states!
I think he’s fabulous. And I mean that literally. 😉
A week or so ago I sauntered on over to dailykos to see what the natives were up to. In several threads I was amazed to read some serious BHO bashing. They seem to be beginning to understand his incomptence. Of course, their complaints center on the “missed opportunity” to impose their Utopian social order, but they do question the President’s competence.. Pretty amazing read.
Whatever BO is doing, it seems to be inspiring a new class of conservative female candidates that seems to be largely motivated by the economy and fervent opposition to the Obama administration’s agenda. Gimme that “shot of estrogen”!
Maureen has always written pretty well, but has had so little to say. She serves as a good example of a poor idea done well- glitz and no go.
The truth is that Obama appeals to the biology of his true believing followers. Chris Matthews’ leg tingles and women…
physicsguy, you touch on something interesting. True Believers are a different voting group than Hopey-Changeys who are swayed by impressions. There is of course a similar split on the right, with those who believe in the core principles of conservatism being a different group than those who vote for Republican candidates who “seem” practical, or tough, or whatever. True Believers are not much driven by personality characteristics, and are quicker to abandon public figures who don’t get at least low passing grades on key issues. The name John McCain may come to mind. Many on the right, though approving of much of him, could not get past some serious breaches of conservative principles.
We see this happening on the left at Kos and firedoglake. True believers are beginning to split off, as principle (even though to my mind wrong principle) is more important to them than feeling good about what sort of guy the president is. They actually do care about competence and are not fooled as easily. Those folks are rarely going to convert and become conservative voters, and most will hang on a long time and vote for the Obamas in a pinch, seeing no other choice. But a few more each day will decide to just sit out the next election, or not contribute to these candidates, or not man the phone lines and go door-to-door.
As a side note, if you asked me whether the true believers or the easily swayed do more damage to America, I’d be hard pressed to answer with any confidence.
MoDo is clueless, as usual. I haven’t read any of her hero-worshipping drivel for months and was far better for it. Her latest piece is pretty much standard liberal fantasy mixed with finger pointing at the usual suspects: Bush, Cheney, the oil men who conspired to kill JFk, among other things. Schadenfreude is wonderful, but it is coming at a high cost for the country. Better now than if Chairman Zero got elected to a second term before the pixie dust wore off the electorate. Nevertheless, expect a down and dirty fight in the next election cycle.
Theres incredible irony in how Bush was labeled as a buffoon. By people that apparently craved a real honest to goodness buffoon! You couldn’t make this stuff up. I contend 9/11 and its blow to the multicultural narrative of the left did what may turn out to be irreparable harm to liberal psyches.
Quick guide to reading the NYT op-ed:
Frank Rich: Republicans are evil because they are homophobic.
Paul Krugman: Republicans are evil because they’re racist.
Bob Herbert: Republicans are evil because…well, nobody knows because nobody’s actually read boring old Bob for the last 20 years.
Maureen Dowd: Republicans are evil because I can’t get a date.
Dowd is showing herself as a very superficial thinker. And this transfers to the left as a whole, really.
Even if he did write the book, that’s just writing a book. It isn’t action. Dowd is worried about narritive and emmoting. But the nuts and bolts of actual action and leadership escape her.
and speaking of dreams…
I’m hoping for more and more liberals to experience their great awakening.