More about that Obama narrative
We’ve read over and over in the MSM and from liberal bloggers that Obama needs to take command of the narrative in order to change America’s view of him into something more positive. Here’s a more lighthearted look at the whole thing: Samuel P. Jacobs at The Daily Beast asks a variety of fiction writers to help with that Obama-narrative thing.
The answers in the article that interest me most are Margaret Atwood’s and Alex Berenson’s. Atwood suggests a sci-fi scenario in which “the President has been taken over by the Pod People” (who are different from the iPod people). Spy novelist Berenson goes the sci-fi route, too:
Give him an enemy who is not John Boehner. Maybe he needs an alien invasion. We can all be against invasions.
Not so fast. A generation marinated in Avatar-mania might welcome one.
Atwood’s response makes me wonder whether many former Obamaphiles think he’s already been taken over by a Pod Person. That would explain quite a bit—his odd lack of emotion and/or the offness of some of the emotions he does exhibit, and the contrast between his super-confident campaign demeanor and rhetoric and his present tentative and almost-chaotic style and policies.
At this point, it’s becoming clear even to liberals that the problems with Obama go beyond narrative, and beyond fixing by any sort of transformation by narrative. A presidency requires action, and although rhetoric can help, and inspirational rhetoric can rally the public (see Ronald Reagan) and get them behind a leader, a president still must support policies that people see as beneficial and effective.
That’s not rocket science, it’s common sense. Rhetoric does not work if it’s completely untethered from reality, especially in the current economic climate. Words are mere words, but the bottom line is the bottom line.
It is ironic that Obama is supposed to ‘take command of the narrative,” as he is anything but silent. IMHO, he speechifies substantially more than the average POTUS. We haven’t heard enough of Obama: we have heard too much of him.
He talks more and decides less than the average POTUS.
I for one welcome my new alien overlords. As long as they abide by the Constitution (as amended), I’ll have no problem with them.
Otherwise, I’ll give them the same answer the Spartans gave: come and take it.
Neo,
You wrote:
Words are mere words, but the bottom line is the bottom line. ..
One of the wisest things I ever heard said was uttered by a psychoanalyst, Don Schwartz, when I was a resident at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute:
Reality sucks. But it’s the only game in town.
Jamie Irons
Jamie Irons:
🙂
And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
But “mere words” are the President’s stock in trade. That’s the currency he’s used his entire life, and it’s never failed him before.
It’s going to be interesting to watch attitudes evolve. People who continue to insist that the President’s ideas are good, he just didn’t explain them well enough (hah!), will start to realize that this was the man they hired to be the Great Communicator — and that he’s been doing an awful lot of talking. Maybe there’s something actually wrong with the ideas he’s talking about.
As I said in a previous thread, it’ll also be fun to watch people realize that they’re endlessly offering endless advice… to the man they insisted was the Smartest President Ever. What’s wrong with this picture? And if they decide that perhaps he isn’t as smart as they once believed he was, well, why did they believe it? Who told them, and how did they know?
I suspect that, between now and November 2012, we’ll see a lot of eyes opening.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
He keeps pushing the narrative, and his army of wackos are taking to the streets and hurting people!
[after all, he is justifying revolution from all sides]
But i do know that the left loonies are coming out of the woodwork armed.. and the news refuses to report and not hide it until they get a idiot from the alternative to the left.
,blockquote>the Pod People” (who are different from the iPod people).
Not so much as you might think…
Aak! I messed up the coding:
Not so much as you might think…
” “the President has been taken over by the Pod People” (who are different from the iPod people). ”
I’m guessing you don’t know a lot of Apple fans….
It’s not the President who’s been taken over by Pod People — it’s 52% of the electorate!
Margaret Atwood may be a heavy weight Canadian author but she’s always been a light weight politician. As a purveyor of post modernistic fiction she would be a fan of Obama (the 2008 model). She is really boring!
Not so fast. A generation marinated in Avatar-mania might welcome one.
Daily Beast commenter Joe Phillips points out we do have an invasion: of illegal aliens.
The Left, the RINOs, and the ruling class think that’s just fine. “Family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande.”
I so happened to see an article about Margaret Atwood last night. (I don’t have the link handy.) Apparently she may be a moon landing denier, or at least she was being coy about whether she believes it really happened or not.
@ Daniel in Brookline 4:12 pm. As I said in a previous thread, it’ll also be fun to watch people realize that they’re endlessly offering endless advice… to the man they insisted was the Smartest President Ever. What’s wrong with this picture?
This will, I think, be a rare occurrence. That kind of realization would be like a cross between grabbing the third rail and staring at the sun: most people who actually thought Obama is Real Smart are simply not going to go as far as reconsidering. Too much is at stake: they have to admit that they were bamboozled, and that the media they trusted misled them, and, further, they might even have to consider the possibility that “intellectual” types (even the genuine ones) aren’t necessarily the best people to have in government (a silly idea that has been entrenched in some circles since the Kennedy presidency). Way, way, way too much is at stake for them.
“Human kind cannot bear very much reality.” (Eliot)
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/tseliot/7066
“his odd lack of emotion and/or the offness of some of the emotions he does exhibit”
Maybe he’s truly the Manchurian Candidate, not just metaphorically…
“And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
Unless perhaps it’s Bubba romancing Monica….
“And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
Unless perhaps it’s Bubba romancing Monica….
LOL! I was thinking the same thing!!!
A brilliant article on the topic:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/12/10/obama__the_rhetoric_of_progressivism_108197.html
“Too much is at stake: they have to admit that they were bamboozled,”
Not only that but the vast majority of themselves believe they are part of that group of ultra-intelligent people – so they aren’t really giving him advice as much as having a conversation (er, dialog I guess is the preferred term) with him. They are simply pointing out what all smart people know and sometimes get off track.
Obama wasn’t this ultra-intelligent person because he had good ideas, they listened, liked them, and adopted them. He was the most brilliant person on the planet because he agreed with them.
A large part of the shift has more to do with him not doing what they are saying than his actual ideas. Clinton could at least make them feel like he really wanted to do what they told him and it was a really brilliant idea but those wiley Republicans (the Source of All Evil) were blocking him. Obama just looks like what he is – floundering.
Don’t we all expect that, if it looked as if the Earth were about to be invaded by giant space ants, the Left generally would act exactly as Kent Brockman did in the Simpsons episode, offering their services to Earth’s conquerors and occupiers? What an opportunity an alien invasion would offer to destroy “capitalism” at last!
It’s tough to admit zero was wrong if you thought he was right in the beginning. It would require you to admit you were wrong. Not only wrong about him but wrong about the ideas you (thought) you shared.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
“Words are mere words, but the bottom line is the bottom line”…but there are millions of people in America today whose professional lives revolve totally around words and, sometimes, images…..writers, journalists, actors, lawyers, advertising people, many types of consultants and professors.
For a farmer or a machinist or even an electrical engineer, the difference between words and reality is pretty clear. For a Word Person, maybe not so much.
david foster: I’m a word person. And yet I understand the difference.
For a farmer or a machinist or even an electrical engineer, the difference between words and reality is pretty clear. For a Word Person, maybe not so much.
This is the clash that Bill Whittle describes between the “gray world” and the “pink world”. On the gray side, such as engineering or aviation, reality can kill you and you can test objectively whether your ideas work or not. Bad ideas fail spectacularly in the gray world and are not perpetuated. The engineering used in the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed in 1940 was not repeated in similar structures. The techniques used for the Golden Gate Bridge, still standing after all these years, were used again. Objective reality. Cause, effect, with mathematical rigor.
In the pink world, which is dominated by words, bad ideas are hard to kill because objective testing is difficult, if not impossible, and it’s not always apparent where the flaws lay. Take socialism (please). Even though it has flopped again and again, it still has its adherents, because it just “sounds” so good and logical, that “this time, for sure” they’ll get it right, just by having the right people in charge and tweaking it here and there. When it fails again, as it inevitably will, the blame will be everywhere but on the system itself.
Neo, you’re a word person who gets it. Many, like 0 and his supporters, don’t.
This is the clash that Bill Whittle describes between the “gray world” and the “pink world”. On the gray side, such as engineering or aviation, reality can kill you and you can test objectively whether your ideas work or not.
Chemistry has its own bifurcation within it, between gray and pink areas, namely synthetic and what I call “measurement” chemistry.
Synthetic labs are inherently dangerous places, and require common sense, prudence, and care (and even physical coordination) for researchers to leave work with all the body parts they showed up with.
Measurement chemists generally sit in front of instrument consoles and tweak knobs and push buttons, and wear nice clothes (unlike most synthetic chemists, for obvious reasons). It’s kinda like being a DJ.
If a prospective grad student came across as foolhardy, know-it-all, accident-prone, impulsive, reckless, or just plain clumsy…it was off to a rendezvous with an instrument console. Synthetic labs have enough fires and explosions already, thank you very much.
Neo…”I’m a word person. And yet I understand the difference”
You are also smarter and more self-aware than the average bear.
Chemistry has its own bifurcation within it, between gray and pink areas, namely synthetic and what I call “measurement” chemistry.
A college roommate of mine was a synthetic chemist, a pretty good one, who later became a chemical engineer. He was especially talented in organic chemistry. For my part, I knew a lot about model rockets, understood how cartridge primers worked, and was handy with woodworking. We had an interesting, um, partnership back in those carefree days in the 1970s. I’m sure you see where this is heading. Suffice it to say that we managed to stay off the police blotter and not hurt anyone, to include ourselves.