Obama fatigue
Today I started writing a long piece on Obama’s speech on immigration reform. It was half done—and then a profound weariness overtook me.
So here, you read the text of his address, or take a look at a summary. Because I’m tired of analyzing the the usual obfuscations, the setting up of strawmen, the demonizing and blaming Republicans in a speech that purports to appeal to them for help (which he pretends to absolutely require, to cover up the fact that his own party is not fully behind him), and the general rhetorical trickiness.
[Parenthetical note: whoever says that Obama is a great orator has never read transcripts of his speeches, among the most deadly dull documents I’ve ever had the pleasure of perusing. Or perhaps the fact that some people find him a great orator despite the snoozy texts is the best demonstration of the fact that he is a great orator after all. But I digress.]
So I will pause in my line-by-line analysis of such things. That’s not to say I won’t start again soon—probably very soon. But for now let me just say that, although Obama is IMHO the most fascinating president of my lifetime in terms of his contradictions, personal mystery, and the danger he represents to this country, sometimes one must take a rest from it all.
But you can talk amongst yourselves.
In the meantime, this piece by Noemie Emery says something about Obama I’ve been thinking for quite some time.
The question that comes to mind is whether this dud will resign for the good of his party.
If I were the Democrats I’d be extremely worried. The comments on Politico, and not on just this topic, are almost all anti-Obama. This is a generally liberal website where conservatives were seriously outnumbered just a while back.
I get less trolls on my videos. Where did they go?
I recommend listening to BHO’s speeches with the mute button on like I do. 🙂
I hear you about the weariness. Its like every speech is targeted at a not so bright sixth grader who is certain businesses cause poverty and theres only three polar bears left in this terribly unfair world.
An actual thinking adult can only take so much.
Re Emery’s column…
As a voice crying out in the wilderness I say again: what exactly is the evidence for Obama’s “brilliance?”
The institutions he attended? I have firsthand experience with two of them, and I can assure you that they have their share of dunces, and that’s not even taking into account affirmative action.
His performance at those institutions? Well, we don’t anything objective about that, do we? And his reticence about releasing transcripts doesn’t bespeak stellar performance now, does it? Those latter-day gushing encomia from HLS faculty? Where are there contemporaneously-made assessments?
His verbal facility, such as it is? Soaring rhetoric read from a teleprompter notwithstanding, he’s hopeless off the cuff. He’s disjointed, inarticulate, and linguistically maladroit. Half of the time his comments are unintelligible, the other half they’re intelligible but nonsense (inflate tires to save how much oil?). He stumbles over middle school vocabulary items (“corpsman”), and gropes to describe the inhalers used by asthmatics (finally settling on “breathalyzers”).
Sorry for the rant, but references to Obama’s brilliance, especially those taking it as a given, drive me up the wall. I would put his intellect as approximately in the range of that of a low to middling-ish college student, tops.
I too grow weary. Then I start to wonder if that isn’t the point. If we all fall asleep, they, the progressive liberals/Marxist/Communist/whatever you want to label them could squeak through the November elections. So be weary, but VOTE them all out ~ be they Democrat or Reublican.
I’m at the point where I literally. can’t. listen to him. At all.
I lost the stomach for the full speeches early on, but now even the sound bites on the news make me grit my teeth.
Rapidly approaching the point where I can’t look at him either.
Obama’s speeches put me to sleep also. But HE doesn’t. I detest him and all the political thugs who work for him. I think he and they are terrible threats to our country.
He’s easily the worst president of my lifetime and that goes all the way back to FDR.
And I’m afraid we may be past the point of no return in the ability of our electorate to vote in good government.
But we have to keep fighting…PLEASE vote to throw every one of these bums and thugs out in November.
Overcome the votes of your moronic, “helpful idiot” friends and neighbors who voted for him in 2008.
I’m beyond weary, and cannot bear to watch the speeches. I wait for the press coverage and rebuttals. This is a dangerous presidency, and those around him may be the most dangerous. His alienating allies may seem trivial but many believe that moves are being made on the chessboard in the Middle East and elsewhere due to very mixed signals. I have been watching this DOJ scandal in Philadelphia where two prominent lawyers have spoken about widespread voter fraud in the upcoming and past elections. My fervent hope is that this situation is remedied quickly in the next months and next two years. Like many of his ilk, it’s well worth watching what he does and ignoring what he says.
you are starting to understand the weariness and bleakness that pervaded life in such ideological societies. wait till its combined with a complete inability to do anything about it but be subjected to it constantly… (and you have to, since you have to respond correctly to its contents, even if they are about a purple horse that is white).
Obama is brilliant because the left says he is, just like Al Gore, Bill Clinton and John Kerry. And all conservatives are moronic rubes, like George W Bush, Sarah Palin, Ronald Regan, Dan Quayle.
I had a liberal acquaintance from Berkeley who delighted in laughing at what a dunce George W was. I asked her if she knew that he had a Harvard MBA. Yes, but his daddy bought it for him. I then asked if she knew that he had better grades than Kerry and that Gore had dropped out of his masters program. No, she’d never heard a word about any of that. Sad thing is, I believe her.
Artfl, you are so right! He’s taken us from Lenin to Brezhnev in seventeen months!
This link is interesting as yet another example of the total incompetence and duplicity of this administration.
http://www.financialpost.com/Avertible+catastrophe/3203808/story.html
I hear you about the weariness. Its like every speech is targeted at a not so bright sixth grader who is certain businesses cause poverty and theres only three polar bears left in this terribly unfair world.
Our Hitler
Goebbels’ 1933 Speech on Hitler’s Birthday
His nature and his whole philosophy is a brilliant simplification of the spiritual need and fragmentation that engulfed the German people after the war. He found the lowest common denominator. That is why his idea won: he modeled it, and through him the average man in the street saw its depth and significance.
there are other quotes and references.
he is appealing to the MASSES, the largest denominator of people.
take a quick look and see what the numbers would be if he appealed to 115 and below in IQ…
and since we are now commonly at the level of a 5h grader, unlike when i was a kid, when it was 8th grader..
well, its easy to see that he is not talking to you.
he was always talking to the low end of the scale they deny exists…
well if they exist they may know and realize what he is doing, and they will be angry. but if you grease their ego, and let them all think that agreement is equivalent to understanding and that is a sign of smart. well then you have them by their nuts.
they either side with you with what they dont understand… and pretend taht the world thinks them smart.
or they admit they dont know it, are being used, and are not so smart.
self confidence training in our schools make the later an impossiblity.
this is why they get very angry at people who are smarter than they are. not because they actually get the girls, money and such… no… but because if the smart understand it, and they dont, then they are in the same place as admitting they are stooged.
so the fringe, the mental, the suggestible, the defectives that outnumber the more competent and able.
are use to take over the system for the smart and nasty to win over the smart and naive and good of merit.
and what is for me no longer is for thee…
for thats the way that they run things.
President Obama is a reasonably good public speaker. So am I. He has a better than average mind but not my much. Leading a seminar is a skill, and not as difficult as golf. Assuming the President wrote “Dreams”, it’s got it’s purple patches, but for the most part it’s sophmoric and pedestrian. Compared to either of Lincon’s inaugurals, it’s fish wrap. Where’s the evidence of piercing insigt, or scintillating analysis, of polyglot reading, of felicity with multiple languages? There is none. Obama, for a while more, is his own creature aided by a lazy and complicit press.
I have been tired of him since Day 1. Of his campaign.
Rest easy,
Anne Coulter is good looking, smart, funny and armed.
Stark: Obama doesn’t give an eff about the good of his party.
I have to fight continually to keep the rage and fury from destroying my own life. Rage and fury that not enough care to fight, care to know, care to care. It seeps out from time to time but there’s a greater and eventually prevailing world that declares the glory of the Lord. It might not seem like the earth does declare His glory, but it does, and I’ve found that the mere act of putting a smile on my face and saying thank you is “transformative.”
Obama continutes to be admired only by anosognosics.
For a bit of insight, read the first comment at the link by Deebee9 – it’s actually a very sharp observation that could explain a lot.
What we have in the Oval Office right now is not a leader – but a career politician and beaurocrat who’s now discombobulated because the people of this nation have not responded to his agenda as he was certain they would.
He and his ilk can’t possibly be THAT wrong about anything!
His solution, of course, is to pile on more of the same until the country comes around to his way of thinking.
If the country can survive him, this will actually be a blessing in disguise.
Without Carter, there could have been no Reagan.
There are no Reagan’s out there now (at least IMHO) – BUT, it definitely sets the groundwork for completely undermining the political base of the lefties such that the 2/3 of the nation actually capable of thinking for themselves won’t want anything to do with “progressives” for a long time to come after this.
Neo-
He doesn’t give a flying eff about anything except our subjugation.
Listen to him? Watch him? Analyze his words? Why? Why bother? We know it’s all BS.
His chief speechwriter is 27 years old BTW.
The following is a link regarding Sam Besserman, an eleven year old lad who wrote an amazing article for American Thinker.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/07/sam_besserman_on_the_air.html
What really stumps me about this guy is the fact that lots of educated, bright, affluent, well read people voted for him. That requires some serious analysis. For all we knew the guy could have been a real “Manchurian candidate.” I can see the college student support and the black thing, but the blindness of otherwise bright solid people is troubling. I have to believe that the media were villains in this.
Meanwhile, our economy is in the tank and millions of people are out of work with little prospect of relief and Obama wants more illegal aliens, bigger deficits and higher taxes. This is not going to end well.
On immigration I’m startled by the dog that doesn’t bark: the 2005 immigration effort. For health care the MSM pursued a historical narrative – a chance to rectify the failure of 1993/4. Apparently prior failure is only interesting in the HC arena. For immigration the historical touchstone is Reagan, with the context being if the head wingnut got behind amnesty why can’t you teabaggers support it?
Surely Obama said SOMETHING in 2005 about this. Why is it a secret? This is the problem with the loss of MSM credibility. When the dog doesn’t bark, it’s too easy for me to fill in the blanks with the aid of Occam’s Razor – Obama was against Bush’s efforts for some tangential reason, he said that Bush was harming the most vulnerable of our population etc. But I think that’s just half of it. The other half is the Dems decided to deny Bush a victory on the legislation simply to deny him a victory. Bush was on the Dems playing field with this and the only path to success was to hold about half the Republicans while getting most Dems. The Dems couldn’t let Bush have a win, no matter what their beliefs on the legistlative merit. So they sold out. I don’t even see the FNC folks talking about this. Any Hispanic Congresscritter that comes on FNC should be challenged to explain how the effort failed in 2005 when a Republican President was playing ball with them.
Though I’m trashing the MSM here, the reality is that the rightie blogs and media outlets aren’t pushing this either. The reason is simple: they didn’t like the legislation then and they were glad to see if fail. The Dems stabbed Bush in the back and the right clapped. So it’s hard for them to scream about something they’ve already applauded. But independents open to immigration reform should know about this history. Obama and the Dems had a chance 5 years ago, and they sold out the Hispanic community for naked politics.
Most offensive speech an American President has delivered since Jimmy Carter. Essence of today’s speech:
“I’m smart! I can do things!” — Fredo Corleone.
The Fredo effect is why Dems and their media acolytes always push the “liberals are smart, conservatives are dumb” meme: it provides the cognitively disenfranchised with a facile way of dispelling the gnawing (and well-founded) suspicion that they’re really not too bright.
All the Fredos of the world have to do is sign on to the liberal agenda, and then they can join all the other smart people in sneering at those stupid conservatives. Of course they’re smart — they agree with all the smart people, and to do that you have to be smart, right? Tribal allegiance will now be their sword and buckler against any adverse implications regarding their own intellects. Conversely, bucking the Birkenstock tribal council will subject them to vituperation on that very same score, one on which they’re acutely sensitive.
Sorry this paragraph:
I believe Gore dropped/flunked out of two post-graduate programs, one in law and one in divinity, the latter presumably because it didn’t address Gaia worship.
should not have been part of the blockquote above.
I don’t like listening to speeches so yeah; I know what you mean about reading them. Awful.
Sorta the reverse of some Bush speeches. They were good speeches when you read them, but listening to him read them could be painful.
I hear ya Neo.
This guy real has rubbed me raw.
I’ve listened to too many of his speeches and they are all so nauseating.
OWN UP BOSS! Be a man! Lead ! Execute ! Manage !
Or step down and let Joe Biden do it ! 🙂
I call for the Presidential Writing Sample.
Two topics, one hour of composition each with two 10 minutes breaks.
Then, he can read the result to the nation.
It is rather curious that someone whose faults were so glaring could have found so many anxious to overlook them, only to have crisis upon crisis bring those deficiencies to prominence. It’s like a Greek tragedy except that the main protagonist is not Obama but the society who supported him. They (we) are facing an inescapable doom, punishedment for unrecognized sins; lack of maturity, mental laziness and hubris, he is a mere catalyst, a means the gods used to teach a lesson.
Then again perhaps it is not a Greek Tragedy but a drama; a demon sent by the gods to galvanize the polis by his evil behavior. That way it’s a test for redemption and we have a fighting chance.
Most likely it is a Greek comedy and we are all one big laughingstock.
Obama is the Cliff Claven of American politics. He expounds endlessly on subjects that he knows absolutely nothing about. And then becomes offended if you question him on any of his “wisdom”.
I no longer allow myself to watch him. With my hyper-tension it just isn’t healthy for me.
Oh smack !
http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2010/06/30/growth-only-way-to-avoid-u-s-economic-collapse/
800% of GDP ???? Kill me kill me now !
Occam’s Beard
Correction: “because it didn’t include Goreacle worship.” 🙂
Yeah, not to mention zero mention of any chakras, whatever those are.
Occam’s Beard
Correction: “because it didn’t include Goreacle worship.”
From the Noemi Embry link:
Compare this to this NYT piece from 2007 In Law School, Obama Found Political Voice :
“Then again perhaps it is not a Greek Tragedy but a drama; a demon sent by the gods to galvanize the polis by his evil behavior. That way it’s a test for redemption and we have a fighting chance.”–Bob from Virginia
Absolutely spot on, in my view. I might say Obama is an adversary and God sent him, but what the hey…the point is, it’s a test and we have a fighting chance.
Yes! Have a 2-martini lunch with an old friend and avoid talking politics. Front line troops need relief.
The headlines (today) on the Drudge Report are beginning to make my blood boil over.
Any American even approaching center from the left hand side, much less being right of center, is totally discounted. It is actually become hard to keep my composure.
Last weekend, I reread Dostoevsky’s The Friend of the Family. I didn’t get far before I started guffawing. Damn! Foma Fomitch Opiskin, fraud, parasite, petty tyrant and above all, tireless hambone, has come to life as our own Obama!
While Dostoevsky’s story has a happy ending, justice is hardly served. The dupes never wise up; villainy is never punished, but rather, in spite of everything, remains honored by its victims.
The parallel isn’t perfect however. Foma was fed better lines by a far better writer than the one Obama has behind the curtain.
I’m afraid they lost me at “The Washington Post claimed.” I want to see objective evidence, not conclusory statements by impassioned partisans.
I would very much like to read this article. Very much indeed.
The NYT article, which I know was intended to buff up the Messiah’s image, to me makes him sound like an ineffectual ditherer. Rodent rights? Good God.
Well, I’ve dug up the Tribe article, on which he is sole author (Barry didn’t lose his shutout) and in which he thanks Rob Fisher, Michael Dorf, Kenneth Chesebro, Gene Sperling, and …the Messiah, in that order. Color me underwhelmed.
I don’t have access to the article itself (just to the first page), but its thesis is sophomoric. It draws a pseudointellectual parallel between some implications of the Uncertainty Principle (viz., the effect on a phenomenon of an attempt to measure the phenomenon) to the impact of legal decisions on shaping society. (Where’s physicsguy? We can yuk it up about this drivel.)
Here’s the operative part of the abstract:
Is this kind of superficial and vapid pap what passes for scholarly thought in legal circles?
Legal decisions affect society. Imagine.
Yeah, “rodent rights” brought me up short, too.
I’m late to this thread, but I understand and sympathize with you, neo. Count me among those who have had Obama fatigue ever since the election. On election night 2008, I turned off my TV and didn’t turn it on again for a full three weeks. Nowadays the only things I watch are baseball games, along with a little football. The internet and talk radio provide all the news, analysis, and opinions I need, and then some.
I cannot stand to see his smug, arrogant face or listen to his strange, clipped cadence when he
speaksreads the teleprompter. The only times I listen to one of his speeches are when one of his speeches coincides with the Mark Levin radio show. Levin carries the speech along with his own running commentary, MST3K-style.Rickl, one (?) word for ya: MLB.TV. No Barry, none of the time, watch any game you want when you want (time-shifting is no problem), where you want. Adios cable, hello MLB.TV.
“Conversely, bucking the Birkenstock tribal council will subject them to vituperation on that very same score, one on which they’re acutely sensitive.”–Occam’s Beard
Molly Hagerty, Gore’s worst nightmare and alleged victim, states she was part of the Birkenstock tribe.
Police Report: http://i.cdn.turner.com/trutv/thesmokinggun.com/graphics/pdf/algoreportland.pdf
It’s a good read!
OB:
No Barry, none of the time
Well, except for the All-Star game. I wonder if His Oliness and his Mom Jeans will grace us with their presence this year.
Maybe he’ll send Elena Kagan instead. I understand she played softball in college. She could probably throw a decent first pitch.
OB, I had run across this Laurence Tribe article before, and it is indeed a stunning bit of vacuity. It is a well-worded version of “Yeah, but Einstein proved that everything is relative,” applying that to subjects other than light and physical frames of reference.
I also agree that the evidence for Obama’s intelligence is sparse. What he does very well is poke the right cultural buttons of those who think they are smarter than others. Sensing what those are and incorporating them into one’s personality does require a sort of shrewdness, but it is only the same thing that con men learn in order to make a living.
Neo, you nailed it.
I stopped midway through a couple recent essays for my own blog because they were just too bitter and negative. There is something about Obama.
I believe there is an odd element; a small but significant percentage of the human race that does not identify with the rest of mankind, is not or does not feel a part of us. Some people are of “the other”; different, self-superior, unable to identify their kindred. For the last year and a half, one of those people has been President of the United States.
That’s just the feeling I get.
Good idea. She’s more masculine, and cannot possibly throw worse than he does.
Perfect precis. A thoughtlet richly deserving an “F” when offered by a dull-witted undergraduate, but apparently taken seriously when coming from Tribe. If I’d attended his lecture on this topic I’d have had a hard time keeping a straight face. Judging by this, and assuming this is the best he can do, Tribe would be better suited to arguing traffic tickets in night court. Paris Hilton is a deeper thinker.
Tribe’s thesis (pardon the exaggeration) is just the kind of stupid, brainless, vacuous pap for which I used to savage grad students in oral exams by way of venting my irritation at having my time wasted on such drivel, and on having my intelligence insulted. My reasoning was that anything a doctoral candidate brought up unbidden was fair game for a long, painful and exceedingly thorough proctological exam where we ascertained just exactly what, if anything, he knew about this subject. Moral: if you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t bring it up. A good moral to burn into the soul.
You are right on both counts.
Obama is NOT a great speaker.
Obama is NOT very smart.
People who think he is either are remarkably shallow and monumentally ignorant themselves. They are gullible, weak, and just flat out stupid.
I’d be in favor of you not thinking it privately but mentioneing it openly more often.
The man is a dunce who, because he smokes, has a smooth baritone voice. He’s been affirmative actioned all his life and so people dare not say that he is really stupid.
Yet, his galactic arrogance means that he’ll never know the truth about himself.
Obama could not, without doubt, get a 7/11 store profitably through a weekend. But he thinks he knows car companies, banks, health care, and diplomacy. He knows exactly Sh*t about sh&t.
Period. There is no more to the story…exceot that he is the freaking President!
I don’t blame the egotistical moron. I blame the people who voted for him. If possible, the are more egoistic than he is! The vote for him was pure vanity – a mass delusion and as brilliant a manipulation of people’s vanity as there has ever been in history.
There is no other way to explain how a no-count nothing is now President.
P.S.
This video by Andrew Klavan is terrific on the matter:
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=80&load=3826
I came across someone refering to Elena Kagan as Barney Rubble. Lol! Oh man can’t catch my breath!
A good Con is a thing of beauty.
A good Con repeated over and over again on TV until everyone knows exactly what it means is just pathetic.
After Obama’s Gulf Spill speech, a pollster had a focus group of middle of the road, average intelligence, average life people give their take. The overwhelming non-scripted response was that Obama was just using this as an excuse to ram through Cap-And-Trade.
The Con has gotten so old that everyone knows it. The only people who aren’t Conned are the ones who want to pass it all anyway – ie – they want to Con you.
I guess I’m proud of Neo for reading these speeches and pointing out all of the contradictions and falsehoods. God knows I couldn’t do it. But I think now that everyone is in on it, it probably isn’t that important to do any more.
I remember running across Tribe’s website a decade ago. The man is a pompous and surprisingly naive dilettante:
I still love reading about the search for a unified TOE, although I can’t really pretend to know a superstring from a supernova. Stuff about black holes interests me, in the end, more than stuff about corporate (or even, at times, constitutional) law.
But law too has its deep structures and amazing symmetries, and I find an elegant constitutional argument almost as inspiring as an elegant mathematical proof. I do despair, though, of ever discovering eternal truths in the social sciences, and when I’m in a truth-obsessed mode, I despair of ever finding in the world of law any proposition half as remarkable as, say, the fact that:
e to the i Pi = -1
I love brilliant magenta sunsets, unagi, Martin Amis’ “Time’s Arrow, the fish tank at MGH….
The Law Review article cited by AVI/OB is a perfect example of the unwarranted generalization of relativity theory so prevalent in the 20th century: Einstein showed what was relative, and what was not. He was repelled by the naive takeaway.
Tribe’s/Obama’s banality: Professor Tribe concludes that, while perspectives resembling those of modern physics have been integrated into some of the most important constitutional cases decided during the twentieth century, the current Supreme Court shows an unfortunate tendency toward relying too often on visions of society and knowledge that have long been rejected as overly formal and sterile.
The visions and Constitution of the Founders, in other words. This from a man who has spent much of his time arguing cases before SCOTUS. Lord help us.
Good News: Liberals Find Spending They Want To Cut
The bad news is…it’s from the defense budget and will essentially hollow out our military.
ace.mu.nu/archives/303208.php
Thanks a bunch, Artfl.
I’ve been in a fairly good mood tonight, but that link sends me right back to my comments from last night on this thread.
Okay, I’ll throw a hand grenade.
Could our president be a psychopath?
He seems to be devoid of real emotion, although he understands and can mimic if he wants. He has an inflated view of himself, although I’m sure the people around him have probably aided him in that self delusion. Whatever he does, he does for his own benefit, without any sense of conscience or consequences. He lies so obviously and so egregiously that it almost seems like the lie is a truth. And finally, he has an incredible charisma that can envelope so many people and yet seem so odd and out of place to a smaller population of people to whom he gives the heebie jeebies.
I understand that not all psychopaths are criminals, and many find their way in the world while abiding by our values and laws. I’m also not a pschologist. But after becoming fascinated by the clinical description of a psychopath after reading a work of fiction, I’m becoming more and more convinced that I see this in Obama.
@ Occam’s Beard
“(Where’s physicsguy? We can yuk it up about this drivel.)”
I’m here…. just reading more than writing as I don’t think I have much to contribute to many of the recent topics.
““Yeah, but Einstein proved that everything is relative,”
Perfect precis. A thoughtlet richly deserving an “F” when offered by a dull-witted undergraduate, but apparently taken seriously when coming from Tribe.”
That was actually my next thought… 🙂
I’ve often noted that the left use Einstein as a justification for the post-modern central tenet of “everything is relative”, and therefore nothing is absolute. In fact, I think a claim could be made that postmodernism is an attempt by humanists to transport a physics idea into their own realm. Of course, the attempt at transference is absurd on principle.
However, I am often amused by the attempt. It’s fun to watch those in the social sciences and humanities try to take great ideas in physics and apply them to their own areas. I chalk it up to “physics envy” 😉
Daniel wrote: “Could our president be a psychopath?”
Many have wondered that very thing, Dan. Here is a tidbit on psychopathy, they, psychopaths, are attracted to positions of power. The fact that he can look the public in the eye and lie, lie, lie or simply not care about the ramifications of his acts other than as benefits his ego (healthcare) or power (refusing to suspend the Jones Act so as to not lose Union support in spite of the duress it is causing the Gulf Coast) argues heavily that he is a psychopath.
Also, if I remember a statement by a German psychologist, the condition is far more common than we think. It would explain why in the times of upheaval the nice guy next door neighbor becomes a kill crazy loon.
Knave, fool, delusional, psychopath, ingrate, fraud, liar, pathological narcissist, traitor, snake oil salesman, immature, naive, stupid, corrupt, insane, inane, inexperienced, incompetent ….one can really take ones pick with Obama. Oops, I forgot, and has a close to 50% approval rating. In the contemporary US one can murder a busload of nuns and get away with if one is photogenic on TV.
BTW, another excellent essay by Charles (the Great) Krauthammer at
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer070210.php3
It brings out that Obama refuses to identify our enemy in a time of war.
I can pretty well guess what future generations are going to think of the electorate of 2008.
Here is more about psychopathy;
http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm
It explains a lot, I agree, Obama is a psychopath.
physicsguy
Professor Laurence Tribe has a bachelor’s degree in math, so he might have more justification than others in his reductionism. At least he has more experience in constructing logical proofs than most in his field.
Such attempts at reductionism forget Gertrude Stein: “a rose is a rose is a rose.”
What does a mathematical description of subatomic particle have to say about constitutional law? IMHO, very little.
The takedown by NYU physics professor Alan Sokal, back in the 1990s says it all. Those “social scientists” at the journal that approved his article, Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity, for publication had no idea they were being played for fools.
It might also be argued that as Professor Tribe had a math background, he should have realized he was publishing nonsense.
Wow, a bachelor’s degree? Phew. So he knows all about it then.
In the natural sciences (as opposed to math, but Tribe’s thesis bore on the natural sciences), a Ph.D. is a learner’s permit. It means you can actually drive the car – under supervision, of course – instead of sitting behind the wheel making vrooming noises.
Physicsgruy, agree?
Research groups delight in telling stories about first- and second-year grad students (a classic apocryphal chestnut in chemistry has a grad student mistaking the vermiculite packing material in a can for a reagent, not realizing that the reagent is in a bottle buried in the vermiculite for protection during shipping) and even post-docs.
Allowing someone with only a bachelor’s degree in chemistry (and lacking on the job experience) to do lab work without close supervision would constitute criminal negligence. So I’m not impressed.
Paul Johnson in ‘Modern Times’ begins his analysis of the 1920’s through the 1990s with the observation that the “relativity” of physics was incorrectly co-opted into philosophical relativity. The conflation of terms shows the chosen stupidity of progressives who are emotionally driven children, even if some of them are brilliant, like Hitchins, who seems to lately be showing some strivings towards honesty. Nothing could be more objective than the law that the speed of light is a constant. And as to “it depends on your point of view,” how many of us are traveling at or near the speed of light?
Johnson reminds us that Einsten designed experiments to disprove his theory and demonstrated the highest dedication to objectivity by waiting for those experiments to prove or disprove his theory. Opposing such a mode, Johnson illustrated the practice of Freud who zealously sought to prove his theories, continually modified them to proof, and fought wars against defectors. Freud created a religion; one that has been transformed and debased, or rather, puttered into the useless and soft (or in Johnson’s words: coddling) therapies of today.
Dear Neo, Please don’t despair for long. I can only offer that new readers need to hear and read over and over what you know and have expressed before.
Other bloggers have presented bingo cards with repeated phrases that the player/reader/listener -circles to quickly critique BO’s (et. al) speeches, legislation etc.
You can present a circled bingo card.
americandigest.org; house of eratosthenes.blogspot
iowntheworld.com and others
“Einstein proved that everything is relative”…apparently, Einstein almost called the theory of relativity the theory of *invariance*, referring to the velocity of light. Would that he had.
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