Obama the loner
Here’s an interesting article by Scott Wilson about Obama the loner.
It’s becoming clearer and clearer that Obama, unlike many presidents, is not a people person. He not only doesn’t have many friends but he doesn’t have many advisers, and those he has retained are the ones he’s had for many years. The portrait is of the man most of us have already seen: tight, distrustful, and cold.
Wilson quotes the White House as often saying during the administration’s first two years, “Good policy makes for good politics.” That may be at least partly true, although if you alienate enough powerful people you might have trouble pushing your policy even if it’s very good. The trouble with Obama’s policy is that it’s not good, as even liberals are starting to agree. Unlike conservatives, they may find it not radical (or steadfast) enough, but the common denominator is that Obama is lacking in both arenas, policy and people skills.
Wilson’s article is pretty easy on Obama; he seems to be an admirer who thinks Obama has a few flaws that might doom his campaign for a second term. But he correctly locates the moment when Obama really went wrong as when he abandoned any pretense of working on jobs for the unpopular push for Obamacare. Wilson never quite explains why Obama did this, if he’s so all-fired smart. But this wistful quote nicely illuminates the condescending know-it-all quality of this administration towards the little people:
“What if we proposed something that was actually popular?” one senior adviser who was not part of the campaign said a year into the administration. “There’s only so much spinach people are going to eat.”
But what if Obamacare isn’t spinach, it’s horse manure? What if the people can smell it a mile away? Maybe “popular” isn’t always “bad.” Maybe the people knew what the president’s priorities should have been, and maybe being responsive to them would have been both good policy and good politics.
The few friends he did have (who he has since dissociated with) were radicals. He’s managed to draw two popular uprisings, one from the left and one from the right. He campaigned on being all things to all people; instead he means nothing to everyone. I think his wife likes him, though. Sort of.
I smell something and it ain’t spinach.
To add a bit to holmes comment, what type of person, or company, would put up with someone with Obama’s vanity or reality challenged view of the world? Only radicals, (read misfits and parasites) would accept such a flawed personality into their circles. And who would want to work for someone with such skewed attitudes. Neill Freguson summed O’s foreign policy advisers as second and third rate. So much for the smartest man ever to be president.
related-I just finished reading a few pages of Shirer’s The Nightmare Years. A particular part on how the German workers proved willing and happy to surrender their freedoms in return for full stomach was particularly unsettling. We should be very, very grateful Obama is such a fool.
Problem is he is the front man for people who aren’t fools.
It ain’t over ’til it’s over, Bob. Barack will not go quietly. Think a bit about how much damage can still be done, not just ‘twixt now and Nov 2012, but ‘twixt Nov 2012 and Jan 2013. Irremediable damage.
It keeps me up at night. We are aship in a Cat. 5 global hurricane, and the captain is a malevolent liar and nutjob. Since you brought up Adolf, I think there is one similarity he and Barack share: The Volk don’t deserve me, and I’ll just show ’em.
Problem is he is the front man for people who aren’t fools.
Bullseye.
from the article:
“Obama is, in short, a political loner who prefers policy over the people who make politics in this country work.”
I do not believe Obama likes policy. That is spin from Obama acolytes. I suspect Obama likes Obama, + ESPN playing in the background of his office. The only policy Obama likes is retread 1960s communism + retread 1970s nuclear warhead treaties. If Obama liked policy, then he would be better at policy; he would have energy for policy; he would not commonly be morose and lackluster. The proof is in the pudding.
Morgan Freeburg, via Vanderleun:
“What does it say about a so-called “man,” when he possesses certainty & conviction only when he discusses the deconstruction of some unknown stranger’s right to earn and own property? And on all other subjects he reverts, with all the reliability of gravity, right back to the dreaded emasculated tone of the American Castrati? What do we know about someone who is certain about the world in which he lives, only when he seeks to destroy things, along with people who built those things and might build other things?” http://www.peekinthewell.net/blog/why-do-todays-men-act-like-toddlers/
Um , maybe because he’s a POS backstabber? Heck, except for maybe his immediate family, I doubt he’s ever been close to anyone.
To understand Obama, one need only study the dysfunctions in the personalities of those first to loot homes and businesses during crisis and disasters.
Yeah, that under the bus stuff isn’t conducive to life long friendships.
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Here’s something that most will get some laughs from. I certainly did.
Obama as interpreted by Steve Bridges.
http://tinyurl.com/3uv32sk
As despicable as he is, the Republicans are no prize. Who among the Republicans will address our real issues? If Obama isn’t removed, things will become much more confrontational.
Seems to me Thalpy disputes his/her own assertion.
“Wilson’s article is pretty easy on Obama; he seems to be an admirer who thinks Obama has a few flaws that might doom his campaign for a second term. But he correctly locates the moment when Obama really went wrong as when he abandoned any pretense of working on jobs for the unpopular push for Obamacare. Wilson never quite explains why Obama did this, if he’s so all-fired smart. But this wistful quote nicely illuminates the condescending know-it-all quality of this administration towards the little people …”
Maybe the quote doesn’t quite explain it, but it explains it well enough.
Instituting and entrenching more government oversight and control over the “human resources” of the polity is what’s really important to him. Probably more important that his own reelection prospects.
He’ll be alright and financially taken care of either way.
” … the dreaded emasculated tone of the American Castrati … What do we know about someone who is certain about the world in which he lives, only when he seeks to destroy things, along with people who built those things and might build other things?” http://www.peekinthewell.net/blog/why-do-todays-men-act-like-toddlers/ ”
Thirty seconds after following your link I knew I had to second the following text:
“You hear this soft, inflected tone everywhere … it tends to always trend towards a slight rising question at the end of even simple declarative sentences. It has no timbre to it and no edge of assertion in it.
The voice whisps across your ears as if the speaker is in a state of perpetual uncertainty with every utterance.”
I’m glad that I am not the only one to have noticed that this has been creeping up on us for years.
Canadians, when responding to questions regarding their opinions, were notorious for doing this decades ago, as anyone who has access to CBC broadcasts can affirm.
Then came the Valley Girl intonation with it’s quizzical uptick, and now it’s spread everywhere.
“I think that I prefer beige to blue?” Jesu …
DNW,
Thanks for the quote and observation?