More on taking Obama seriously
Two days ago I wrote a post on why Obama should be taken seriously in which I said, among other things, that Obama is an “excellent, ruthless, and very smart politician.”
Many commenters disagreed, which has happened every time I’ve made such an assertion, and I’ve made it quite a few times.
Now, I can take disagreement; if I couldn’t, I’d better get out of the blogging biz. And of course I respect your right to disagree, yada yada yada. But I’m going to make another effort to convince those who disagree, or at least make an attempt to clarify a bit more about the reasons behind my assertions.
First, let’s look at one of the comments on that earlier thread (from commenter “Ann”):
I noted in that article you linked to that Emil Jones Jr., a Democratic mover and shaker in Illinois and one of the two people Palmer came in behind in that Congressional primary, became Obama’s mentor after Obama was elected to fill Palmer’s Illinois Senate seat. Which leads me to wonder if he had a hand in how Obama dealt with Palmer and how much of Obama’s subsequent political moves were influenced by Jones. Wikipedia says that he played a large part in Obama’s 2004 election as U.S. senator, for instance.
I do believe Obama is totally without scruples, but I’m loath to give him credit for anything more than average smarts, so I hope I’m not just grasping at straws here!
Ann presents a plausible theory, one of many variations on the “Obama’s nothing special; he’s more or less a puppet” theme.
I’ve read a great deal about Obama—not just his national political career or his early life, or even his schooling, but his early- and mid-adult career trajectory. A lot of this reading is a bit rusty, since I did it mostly in 2008, and some of the articles have (interestingly enough) disappeared, most particularly a long April 3, 2007 Chicago Tribune piece called “Obama knows his way around a ballot,” about Obama’s very first political primary, the one in which he showed his stuff by disqualifying Alice Palmer and three other candidates and ran unopposed. [UPDATE: The article appears in a PDF file here.]
The impression I get—and it’s a very strong one—is of a smart and ruthless guy who knows exactly what he wants to do, and who it is who will be able to best help him along the way. And yes, Democratic “operatives” assisted and advised him (although Emil Jones didn’t get into the act till later), but Obama was in charge.
Again, to clarify: when I say “smart,” I’m not talking about book-smart, although I think Obama has quite a fair amount of that sort of intelligence as well, nothing extraordinary but certainly enough to get through college and Harvard Law on his own steam (although his election as Law Review President was more of a popularity contest). And yes, as he himself has acknowledged, affirmative action was operating to give him a significant amount of help. But a person still has to meet some sort of minimal standard, and I believe Obama had no trouble doing that.
But that is not the same as saying he is especially gifted academically. Where I think Obama is extremely gifted is about politics, in particular propaganda and the use of his own persona to appeal to the public and to further his goals and those of his helpers and supporters. And yes, let me reiterate that he certainly did not do it alone; he has had helpers and supporters along the way, and almost certainly was long ago recognized by the left as their perfect instrument—and a not-unwilling one at that, being a leftist himself.
Many many people who met him way back then recognized his enormous political potential, almost on a visceral level—you either feel it or you don’t. One of the most interesting things about Obama’s early resume is how many people who met him would be struck almost immediately by the thought “this man could be the first black president!” Much of the time they mention (I don’t have a lot of cites, because I read most of this a long time ago) that they don’t even know why; something about his demeanor plus of course his race. The thought just seems to hit them like a bolt out of the blue.
David Brooks famously talked about his own version of it when he spoke as though he were enamored of the crease in Obama’s pants on first meeting him:
I remember distinctly an image of””we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant,” Brooks says, “and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.”
This is bizarre, but it is also no accident; Obama knows that a little tailoring goes a long way. But I don’t think Brooks is that stupid, either; it wasn’t really the pants leg, although it helped. In the same piece, the fact that Brooks and Obama were talking about Edmund Burke is mentioned, and Brooks is quoted as later saying, “Obama sees himself as a Burkean,”
Why is that significant? Not because Obama is a Burkean, which I highly doubt, but because Brooks is. In a book I happen to own called Why I Turned Right, Brooks chronicles his own political journey from left to right (or semi-right, or middling, or pretend-right, or whatever Brooks is these days) and makes it clear that Burke was instrumental in Brooks’ own political change, and that he considers himself to be an “inner Burkean.”
So it wasn’t just about the pants crease, although that’s a particularly silly part of the Brooks infatuation with Obama. That vision was embedded in a larger conversation about Burke, one of the ways to Brooks’ heart.
How did Obama know this would be so? Perhaps he studied up on Brooks before the interview. Perhaps it was Brooks who brought up Burke. Whatever it was, Obama demonstrated enough knowledge or surface-knowledge on the subject of Burke to not only convince Brooks (who, whatever you think about him, has studied Burke in some depth) that Obama knew a lot about Burke but that he was himself a Burkean and therefore a kindred spirit with Brooks.
Why am I going into this in such exhaustive detail? It’s not because I think Brooks is so important. It’s because I think Brooks’ experience is probably typical, and it demonstrates several things. One is that Obama has enough intelligence to do this and do it well—whether it’s at the behest of others or his own idea. He has to be able to perform this way and impress his listener, and whether he studies up on each subject or not, and whether it’s his own idea to do so or not, he has to have the intelligence to pull it off and the ability to maintain his calm while doing so. The other is that the Brooks incident is highly unlikely to be unique; it’s a clue to how Obama works his magic. He has probably done a version of this thousands of times to thousands of people—or, rather, to many millions of people, if you count the general public. When he says he’s a “blank screen” on which people project what they want to see, he’s being misleading—he actually cleverly fills in that blank screen with what people want to see, an ever-shifting picture that fits what he perceives to be their desires and interests of the moment.
The late Tony Blankely saw this clearly quite early in the game. On the occasion of Obama’s first inauguration he wrote (and please do yourself a favor and read the entire essay):
President Obama is a beguiling but confounding figure. As he has said of himself: “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” (”The Audacity of Hope.”) It is indeed audacious that he should proclaim this consciously disingenuous attribute. And, as one reads his inaugural address, it is hard not to conclude that it was shrewdly crafted to perpetuate such confusion.
Run-of-the-mill politicians try to hide their duplicity. Only the most gifted of that profession brag that they intend to confound and confuse the public. Such an effort is beyond ingenious – it is brazenly ingenuous.
These abilities are not ordinary, and they take intelligence, although it’s not necessarily the type of intelligence we want to see in our politicians.
But back to “Ann’s” comment and Emil Jones. Years ago I remember reading a lengthy article that described Obama’s early political career, and it mentioned that Jones was very impressed with what Obama had done during the Alice Palmer episode at the very beginning of that career—impressed, that is, with Obama’s boldness and ruthlessness and aggression. It reminded me of nothing so much as The Godfather stories (without the murders), in which the young Don Corleone wows and intimidates others in the mob early on by showing the extreme coldbloodedness of which he’s capable. And there’s never been any suggestion that Jones was behind that part of Obama’s life prior to that election, although he did become his mentor once Obama reached the legislature, and facilitated his political climb after that by directing legislation his way.
I don’t think this is the exact article, but it’s the closest I can find, and I recommend you read it if you haven’t already. A lot of it is about Obama’s early political career in Chicago, and shows what a strong and ruthless character he was from the start, and how many people he alienated along the way. There’s nothing in there that indicates to me that by the time he was running for president (and much earlier) he was not completely his own man. Yes, others saw in Obama an instrument to accomplish their own goals, too. But why do you think that was? It was because he brought his own very formidable political skills, ruthlessness, and savvy to the table. He made a single prominent political mistake, which was to run against Bobby Rush in 2000. But he learned from it, and has made very few since.
We do ourselves no favors underestimating Obama or the left. They are players in the game, and he is a player in the game rather than a puppet.
And let’s not get bogged down by words like “genius” and whether they’re appropriate. You might note that I don’t tend to use that word about Obama except when quoting others, or sometimes with scare quotes. But I don’t minimize Obama’s own capabilities, either. He’s a very gifted guy in a certain direction, one that has paid off for him, big time.
Thanks for a good read Neo. I wish you were running for office. I enjoy the way you can use your counseling skills to remove the emotion from the equation and just deal with the “facts”. I wish more of the incompetent “can’t we all just get along” loyal opposition had your skill set. Although I doubt his sincerity with Christianity, he does fundamentally know how to use the biblical suggestion- “be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” to get what he wants. In his case the adjectives “deadly” and “deceptive” could also be added.
Could it be that Obama is largely free from the emotional thought process which characterizes most illiberals?
A dark logic guides him; the clue being his famous affect which burns–just below the threshold of recognition–with blackmail and intimidation. It’s almost as if he sold his soul to somebody.
Wikipedia on psychopathy:
Psychopathy (is a personality disorder that has been variously characterized by shallow emotions (including reduced fear, a lack of empathy, and stress tolerance), coldheartedness, egocentricity, superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity, criminality, antisocial behavior, a lack of remorse, and a parasitic lifestyle.
I can find nothing in that paragraph that does not fit O, most to a larger degree than not. I will agree he is gifted if you will agree his gifts are a psychopath’s.
George Pal: back in November of 2009 I wrote this article for PJ characterizing Obama as a con artist. I have found no reason to change that point of view.
There are several problems with the use of the word “psychopath” to describe Obama (or the associated word “sociopath”; see this for the difficulty of drawing distinctions between the two). But one problem with both “psychopath” and “sociopath” to refer to Obama is that they are usually (although not always) used for people whose lives are marked by both criminality and impulsiveness. Obama may or may not have done illegal things (other than his drug behavior as a youth), but I see him as one of the least impulsive people on earth.
So although he has lot of those traits—and a narcissistic personality, more even than most politicians—I would not use those words for him. But it’s really just semantics; I would call him a con man.
Thinking Obama’s “in over his head” has caused us way too much harm. Even if he’s not the total brains behind his operation, he’s selected “brains” like Axelrod, which shows brains.
Some of the strongest evidence that O is good at this stuff is his manipulation of the media. He treats them like crap, which is exactly the way to get those inclined to fawn over you to fawn even more. Yes, they complain about limited access and threats, but the result has been even more excessive fawning.
This belies a deep understanding of human nature and therefore a man not to be taken lightly.
neo –
Agree completely.
My take on the nature of Obama’s intelligence is close to George Pal’s suggestion that he is a psychopath.
Let’s begin from the bottom and go up. In all of us there is a multifaceted thing called “intelligence” that’s nebulous as hell and is probably not even a single thing (opinions differ; my opinion is that it is indeed not a single thing). One facet or one type of intelligence (depending on which theory you subscribe to) is so-called social intelligence, probably the most reptilian (evolutionarily ancient) sort of intelligence we humans have.
It’s also the most interesting, perhaps because of it’s ancientness – it’s murky, and seriously blurs the lines between our uniquely human quality of rationality and our animalistic continuity with the rest of nature. In one way or another we all can see the murkiness at work in ourselves – we “jump through hoops,” we “play the game,” we “network,” and, closer to home, we flirt, we subtly manipulate how we appear and how we “sell” ourselves, and the like.
The “Machiavellian”/psychopath, in the personality literature, is a kind of person who combines a lack of empathy and concern for the circumstances and feelings of others with an insanely overdeveloped, let’s say hyperbolic, social intelligence. I’ve known a lot of people like this; for some reason they are over-represented percentage-wise among academics. They are basically narcissists, but not in the vulgar sense of blatantly walking around peacocking all the time. Rather, they approach the social world as a kind of abstract chess match where the only goal is to “win friends and influence people.” In the absence of genuine fellow-felling – love, compassion, mercy, empathy – satisfaction is found in power, due to its unnerving tendency to blend with the unbridled pursuit of abstract rationality.
That’s one way to understand Marxism and perhaps leftism in general – Machiavellian social intelligence applied without genuine human fellow-feeling and justified by appeal to an abstract rationality that amounts to the will-to-power.
The reference above to Carnegie’s book is instructive. There are two prominent ways to approach what he wrote – to the normal human being, it’s clear that Carnegie is simply trying to get us to employ our natural human sentiments vis-a-vis others more productively; to the Machiavellian/psychopath, however, what Carnegie is doing is providing a detailed manual for manipulation. Alinsky, of course, did this explicitly, which is why people like Obama gravitate to him.
My sense of Obama is that he has the latter kind of intelligence, in spades. We all know how to manipulate and tailor appearances for social advantage, but normal people put a curb on it and try to keep the fashioning in line with the person beneath. Machiavellian/psychopath types cross the thin line between that kind of ordinary social manipulation and outright evil (“evil” here being understood in Kant’s sense of treating people as means only, and never as ends-in-themselves).
Obama of course has convictions – the leftist catechism. But in the end leftism is, as suggested above, but the ideology or rationalization of the naked will-to-power of Machiavellian psychopaths and narcissists. There is no actual content to the doctrine except “People like me shall rule absolutely.”
Once one fully subscribes to that vision, and once one has “hyperbolically” extended one’s social intelligence to pick up the slack for one’s lack of empathy, all of the strange monsters of political life we not know so well emerge: systematic propaganda and dissimulation, the Big Lie, the institutionalization, in short, of Kantian evil.
The whole point of bourgeois classical liberalism and republicanism since Magna Carta was to ensure that power never crossed that line, that in the phenomenology of the state, the people were never seen, registered, and treated as mere means. It’s ultimately about basic dignity, which shows up in liberal regimes as natural rights. The leftist project does not recognize natural rights, and its ascendancy in the last hundred years has nothing to do with a sudden surge in psychopaths in the population. Rather, it is the peculiar nature of the language of democracy which allows leftists a near perfect vessel through which to filter themselves for public presentation.
Obama is a climax to that process. He has mastered the vessel of classical liberal vocabulary and rhetoric – avoiding the mistakes of old-timey Marxists who too often attacked it openly – and due partly to the chance of being born a half-black man and raised like a leftist white man, and partly to his Machiavellian social intelligence, his meteoric rise to power could practically be guaranteed.
I’m feeling dark today, so I will just suggest that deep down, what the Brookses and others of the world who were so mesmerized by Obama were picking up on was not what they liked to think it was (creased pants or whatever). It was this almost miraculous confluence of factors that seemed perfectly designed to get this man set-up in a position of almost unbelievable power. And power, when it doesn’t repel, captivates.
Neo said…
One of the most interesting things about Obama’s early resume is how many people who met him would be struck almost immediately by the thought “this man could be the first black president!” Much of the time they mention (I don’t have a lot of cites, because I read most of this a long time ago) that they don’t even know why; something about his demeanor plus of course his race. The thought just seems to hit them like a bolt out of the blue.
I wonder if this applies only to white people. There’s an interview with Toni Preckwinkle (the current Cook County Board president) back in 2008 at the left-wing website Truthout.org that has this:
BuzzFlash: When some people accuse us of being, you know, Obama maniacs, and this and that, I sort of feel like: well, look, I kind of knew him when. And this is all new to me — the charismatic Obama. You know, he always seemed a hard worker, and had a very progressive record and so forth. But the speaking style, in terms of the way that it absolutely mesmerizes people with a new dimension — I had not been familiar with him until the 2004 convention.
Alderman Preckwinkle: Well, I think it’s the argument then that you can cultivate charisma, as opposed to being born with it, necessarily. I think that’s probably true. That’s something he’s paid more attention to over time, and had a good result.
BuzzFlash: Now, you’ve worked with him when he was a state senator, in terms of Illinois issues and district issues. And he certainly talks a lot about his being a community organizer. You mentioned it earlier. You know, what was your impression of him as a state senator, in terms of interaction with constituents in his district?
Alderman Preckwinkle: Well, he was lucky. In his entire term, he never had a tough race in his state senate role. He had a tough race when he took on Congressman Rush and got beaten, as I said, pretty badly. So in a lot of ways, you can sort of take the temperature of an elected official in those really tough campaigns, and he didn’t have any until the campaign against Congressman Rush in the primary. So I think his political maturity, if you want to call it that, came as a result of that tough race of 2000, which he lost.
I don’t know if the interviewer (BuzzFlash) is black, but Preckwinkle is, and she certainly doesn’t seem to have that Brooks-like fever thing going on.
And interesting that she mentions the role of luck. Here’s a bit more on that in the same Truthout interview:
Two notable points that The New Yorker doesn’t cover. Obama almost lost his U.S. Senate primary, but the campaign of the lead candidate (a self-financed trader named Blair Hull) imploded after it emerged that his second wife had accused him of physically pushing her around, and suddenly Obama’s numbers shot up. (There is wide speculation that David Axelrod pushed the story to the press.) The trader had cultivated many black politicians, so Obama — who didn’t have a lot of “street cred”– was not fairing as well as he had hoped. But when the trader’s campaign collapsed at the last minute as the domestic violence allegations dominated news coverage, Obama picked up the remaining black vote and a good chunk of the suburban vote (along with some support downstate), and won the primary. Then he had the good fortune that the Republican candidate — another wealthy trader named Jack Ryan, this one of the moderate GOP kind, handsome and doing social service by teaching in a city school; in short, about the only kind of Republican who can win statewide in blue state Illinois — got caught in a bizarre sex scandal involving his former wife, a Hollywood actress. This resulted in that candidate’s late withdrawal from the race. Since no reputable Republican in Illinois wanted to go on a Kamakaze mission against Obama so far into the campaign, the Illinois GOP imported the politically and personally bizarre Alan Keyes, and Illinois elected its second black senator in a decade (Carol Moseley Braun had preceded him). Obama’s election to the Senate positioned him to give the keynote at the 2004 convention — and thus history was made.
Sounds like those two Republican senate candidates who decided to talk about women and rape in the 2012 campaign season, doesn’t it?
Neo-neocon,
I’ll not belabor the point. I recognize the points you’ve made as valid but believe running off to fund raisers as often as he does might qualify as impulsive, and running off to Vegas instead of being on hand for Benghazi to play out as criminal, in the sense of malfeasance – to say nothing of the ensuing and continuing coverup.
kolnai: agreed, and very well put.
George Pal: not “criminal” in the way the definition of “psychopath” means. And going off to fundraisers is the very antithesis of impulsive; it is purposeful and practical in terms of Obama’s goals. He is a very focused and controlled man.
I know two young men (they’re young to me anyway) who are about Obama’s age. They grew up in Honolulu about the same time he did. Lacking funds, they didn’t get to attend Ponahou. Instead they went through the public schools that were filled with racial tension. (Yes, there’s still a lot of racism in paradise.) They both learned to be master diplomats, sensing, with Kolnai’s social intelligence, how to navigate the troubled social waters of the public schools. Although neither went tocollege, they are financially reasonably successful.
I see in them the Obama’s ability to seem to be all things to all people. An ability to dissemble and even lie when they sense the need. Both are extremely likable and have many, many acquaintances but few real friends. I enjoy their company, as they’re very personable. But I have recognized their facility for bending the truth and seeming to have no moral core. As a result, I don’t trust them.
Since they operate much like Obama and echo many of his traits, I have often pondered as to whether it was the social atmosphere of Honolulu that produced these similarities. Or was it something else?
Obama is diabolical. He is simply from that side of the truth aisle – the lie side. So are ALL Democrats/Liberals/Progressives. ALL of them. There are, of course, exceptions. Everyone will say – MY Friends, My Wife, My Co-Workers!!!. They are good people.
That may be so. But in their politics they lie through and through and never do anything but two things: 1) Lie for power; 20 Tell a small truth in service of a bigger lie, for power.
At their very best, they are either gullible, lazy followers or both.
There is no good Democrat. Their starting position is justifying 50m dead babies. You can’t turn that into good no matter how hard you try.
And don’t they try. Sure, everyone has faults and failings and sins. It goes with being human. But they made special deals with the devil for power. They got the power and they will get what they deserve. We will get what they deserve too.
And in the end we all share the blame. Where did this majority quorum of sociopaths come from? We made them. At least, we allowed them. At the very least we refused to take them on in the public square. They won every major battle: Media, Schools, Bureaucracies. We didn’t even fight the battles.
They say there is hell to pay? They are right. And it has just begun.
Obama, therefore, is a symptom of them. Without them, he cannot use his gifts and is irrelevant. With them, he is the leader of that pack. By he time he is done, America will be unrecognizable, China will be a freer place in 20 years than we are today.
He is evil.
He is a good student.
That is why he sat in Rev. Wright’s United Church of Christ for twenty years. He studied with a master.
What kind of -path he may or may not be is irrelevant. It is more important to make a moral judgement of the man, and do something about it if one can. To be passive condones immorality; the Euros taught us that.
Chiming in, in support of Martel (4:05 pm) —
I for one am not that interested in psychological or psychiatric analyses of the incumbent, fascinating though it may be. I think we need to keep our eyes on the prize (figurative): the danger that’s confronting us and what we need to do about it, assuming it’s not already too late.
The degree to which the incumbent is the brains of the operation and is doing the manipulation, as contrasted with who around him gets the credit, is not that important. What is important is acknowledging the scary nature of (what I’ll call) the ruling ILK, of which the incumbent is a key figure.
This ilk has abundantly shown itself to be deceptive, sleazy, cunning, ruthless, and, as a group — an ilk — , they’re just plain not dummmies. (So I’m agreeing with neo at least in this regard.) As an ilk, they evidence a frightening intelligence, in addition to the adjectives I suggested in the first sentence of the present paragraph.
Can we perhaps agree that this is what neo is referring to? Let’s not be distracted by how many angels are dancing on the heads of which pins, while Rome is burning (lousy conflation of metaphors, I know [smile]).
Mike: it’s an old argument with you, and I’ll not belabor it here, but you are absolutely incorrect about the bulk of liberals. They are led by liars who know they lie. But most liberals (and even some leftists) believe they themselves are absolutely telling the truth.
I find it offensive that you assert what you do, particularly since I was a liberal Democrat for many years and yes, many of my friends and relatives are, as well. I did not lie and they do not lie.
By the way, in order to lie you must be aware that what you’re saying is untrue. It is not enough to be mistaken.
MJR –
We’re not distracted. We’re just discussing something interesting.
And a lot of mistakes have been made due to failing to get clear on just what we’re dealing with in Obama and the leftist establishment. “Know your enemy” doesn’t mean only describing the disasters he’s wrought and wishes to wreak.
I would argue that one reason conservatism has found itself in such a rut, fighting a rearguard action at the moment, is precisely that we, or at least our representatives, played accountants with green eyeshades, scowling fiscal and moral scolds, on television and elsewhere, supposing that all of this rubbish about psychology was irrelevant to good ol’ common sense and apple pie. Leftists passed us by in the meantime, and took perhaps a majority of Americans with them. Leftists care about psychology.
We didn’t know our enemy, and we damn sure didn’t know the American people like we thought we did. All too many of us didn’t even see that there was an enemy.
So discussions like this are practically important in addition to being simply curious or interesting. We’re not seeking bended knees, after all, but “hearts and minds.” First comes understanding.
@ Mike/Neo: I’ve come up with a system to categorize lefties that many have found quite useful. I’ve “converted” quite a few of them, and this system works quite well.
Both of you are perfectly correct about one type of liberal but not the others.
http://alphaisassumed.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/they-are-not-what-they-are/
Something that needs to always be kept in mind when evaluating Obama’s ruthlessness and political skills is that he has for his entire life been completely marinated in Marxism.
His mother was one; his father was one; his grandparents were as well; his mentor Frank Marshall Davis was one. When he went to college he sought out Marxists. He attended socialist conferences where the concept of a community organizer was formed/refined. He joined the socialist New Party. He studied, taught and practices Alinskyism.
All of this Marxist training combined with his personality disorders gives you the the model for a modern dictator.
Remember in Benghazi that 30 peoples lives were at stake. He had a short conversation with the head of the DOD then went to bed, not caring at all whether those 30 people lived or died.
Yes Obama is to be taken seriously. He is seriously evil.
Re knowing our enemy: What is this all about — Democrats fear Obama group will siphon money from them:
kolnai, 6:08 pm —
I agree with you, essentially entirely. I even agree with you that “we’re just discussing something interesting.” It ^is^ interesting!
When I wrote, “let’s not be distracted . . .”, I wasn’t expressing myself clearly enough. I want(ed) to focus on the ilk rather than on the person. My point was that the ilk and its nature is the enemy with which we’d better get acquainted.
The ilk, with the incumbent somewhere between mastermind and figurehead.
No, knowing the enemy is certainly not a distraction. I felt some of the focus on the incumbent didn’t need to be so personal. But we’re agreeing.
Y’know, maybe I was trying to compensate for my own very pointed and very personal aminosity towards the incumbent, not wanting to let it show.
So I think I’ll quit while I’m behind . . .
It should be clear now he’s not stupid.
He lacks the skills of an executive, but I’m not sure he cares. He doesn’t seem the least interested in balancing the budget, or passing one for that matter. It is easy to think he’s in over his head, but I think it is more a matter of his goals and priorities.
His goal is to gain power for the left, not to be a good POTUS. He has been good at winning political fights.
Neo @556pm:
Defending the hordes of Democrats who buy into a lie (and lies) because they believe they are truths, not lies, is not quite enough. These ‘good’ people have refused to evaluate, have simply accepted lies as truth. These ‘good’ people are very quick to counter disagreement. They wish to be misled. That is why you, and I, and others find dealing with them it so frustrating.
They wish to be misled. And mislead themselves.
Don Carlos:
If you think someone is wrong, of course you believe that person has “accepted lies instead of truth.” And perhaps you are correct. But that fails to distinguish between what the words “lying” and “mistaken” mean. They are very very different.
I never wish, or wished, to be misled at all. And yet I was a liberal Democrat for most of my life. It took me a great deal of effort, reading, a lot of thinking, and a great deal of motivation to even begin to realize I had been misled. I don’t fault most people for either not having the time or the inclination to go through that process (not even realizing there might be something wrong with the way they, and almost everyone they know, thinks), or even for not reaching exactly the same conclusions as I have if they do make the effort.
@ carlos
Indeed, many wish to be misled, after all, leftism outsources personal responsibility & morality. It’s a great way to be lazy & get credit for it.
Also, as a society, we’re spoiled as hell. The Gods of the Copybook Headings haven’t visited us in a long time.
But for those who don’t want to be misled, we’ve done an AWFUL job at reaching them.
All of these will one day have a “My God, what have I done?!” moment, but for our sake & theirs, we need them to have that moment sooner rather than later.
Martel, 6:57 pm —
“But for those who don’t want to be misled, we’ve done an AWFUL job at reaching them.” I’m not convinced many are reachable. And the mainstream media, in the twinkling of an eye, too easily can turn a not terribly bad job into a laughably moronic job, and a good job into one that never saw the light of day.
“All of these will one day have a ‘My God, what have I done?!’ moment, . . . .” I beg to differ. Many to most will never have any such moment. Let us not underestimate the stubbornness and the fixedness of the human mind (one aspect of what we’re up against).
Obama is seriously good at picking the terrain for his battles. He is seriously good at Orwellian speak, in fact, he uses a better dialect than strict Orwellian because even the non-Orwellian can be left wondering where the hanging thread to unravel what he just said is.
He is also seriously better than the Republican Establishment in knowing the American people (well, how hard is that).
His counterpart on our side isn’t Ted Cruz, my favorite Brill (short for Brilliant), but Sarah Palin, my favorite Chieve (short for Achiever). Obama is a counterfeit Chieve who uses blackmail and intimidation to claim his victories. Or merely incorporates others achievements as his own, eg., Osama bin Laden. (Does that not still infuriate and make one vomit?)
Meanwhile, as an athlete, Obama sucks.
Incredibly he dares the world to publish it.
I kind of like the fact that Sarah Palin quietly runs Paul Ryan’s marathon time in the dust.
So, I’m conflicted here: Other than being an asshole bullshiter, what has Obama done? But then, that may be enough.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/post/sarah-palin-beats-paul-ryan-in-gop-marathon-time/2012/09/03/bc8b7dea-f611-11e1-8398-0327ab83ab91_blog.html
Does anybody know of the 2 for 22 story?
Obama the magnificent!
Celebrate diversity!
In this case how wonderful it is that Obama’s basketball ability is on the wonderfully diverse sucky level.
OBAMA NAMES HIMSELF SCIENTIST IN CHIEF
If Neo had penned that yesterday it would have more quickly been identified as spoof than her excellent April Fools’ Day misdirection.
The Obama comedy is opposite of comedy where real self-deprecation results in group acceptance. No. In Obama we have a self-deprecation that we are IMMEDIATELY supposed to recognize is either wrong or a pretense for a revealed greater good about our shithead demi-god.
Digest it if you can:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-names-himself-scientist-chief_714445.html
I take Obama as seriously as a boil on my fanny. That boil is a serious signal something is wrong with the system, and the boil itself has scientific properties when viewed from a detached point of view are awesome, but my view is that it’s gross, hurts, and has to go.
Great argument Neo: You are “offended that…”
Isn’t that just the number one argument of the other side that is driving us right into national destruction. Heard it for years. It is an argument straight out of hell. have you never heard the devil’s number one technique to manipulate and oppress people is the guilt strategy?
And by the way, just because a person “thinks” they are telling the truth does not mean they are not telling a lie. My goodness. Just because you didn’t realize you were speeding, you mustn’t have been speeding! Let me know how that goes next time you get pulled over. I refer you, as usual, to all the good Germans – the moist accurate analog to the typical liberal of today – who “thought” Hitler was the guy to support….
There are obviously gradations of personal responsibility for telling a lie. There are at least the following factors involved: a) whether the matter is objectively false or not; b) whether the person saying it knows it is false or not; c) whether they could have, or should have known – i.e. whether their ignorance is vincible or invincible…
If they are a liberal, there are reasonable conclusions to make about the lies they tell.
1. That they will try to evade the entire issue of objective truth. They have been trained this way. I’d say they have been brainwashed this way, but they were willing participants in the brainwashing. It served their purposes to believe that they weren’t really lying to themselves all the time.
2. If they are ignorant, that ignorance is programmatic. The exact reason they are liberals is that they have held ignorance to be a virtue and a value. The conservative is exactly the person who says to themselves one day – “I can’t stand the lies and I am going to find the truth”. Seek and ye shall find and conservatives generally find. They are not ignorant.
3. The liberal, above all else, will never admit to lying. The liberal, for themselves, will never admit the possibility that they have any moral faults at all. None. The liberal, ALL liberals, have only one category of moral fault that exists in the entire universe of reality…and I mean in the entire universe of reality, gods, angels and any possible sentient beings or forces in the universe like fate and astrology inclusive….and that is: anyone who does not agree with a liberal or the liberal position. Amazing coincidence.
@Martel
Okay Martel, I skimmed your piece on the anointed, the entitled and the beknighted libs. But all three still share the common attribute of continually telling themselves and others things that are objectively false and harmful. The word I use is “lie” I’m sticking with it. I most definitely hope they get offended by the term. There is at least hope there. A person like Obama, I am nearly certain, is flattered when you call him a liar. He takes it as a compliment since that is what he wants to do, and do well. The rest lie to themselves enough to know that they think they remember lying was bad.
There is one other thing from Denis Prager who says that Liberalism/Leftism and what is the same thing today – Being a Democrat – is a religion. That is important. The Democrat of today has a main religion and that religion is leftism and all it contains. There may be different types of believers, like there are varieties of Catholics….but not that different. And their entire Creed is built on lies and justified by more lies. They have rituals and dogma, magisterial, propagandist, and mystical departments like any other religion.
And that religion is straight out of you know where….
The red flag is a little late, but Neo was one of the first to raise it. You have to be a lot smarter than Obama to pass Neo’s bullshit radar.
But then not everyone is a disciplined athlete and thinker, two things which would immediately spot Obama as a phony.
Not that phony’s shouldn’t be taken seriously.
While at the same time mocked and laughed at.
@ MJR: “I’m not convinced many are reachable.”
You’d be surprised how receptive SOME of them can be when things are presented properly. I’ve facilitated lots of “change” moments, myself, usually accompanied with some variation of “I’ve never thought about it that way before” or “nobody else has ever put it that way.” Not to toot my own horn too much, but I’ve got a talent for this sort of thing, but as one who’s got the talent himself, I can see that the Dems (especially Obama) have it in spades and the GOP has almost none of it.
“And the mainstream media, in the twinkling of an eye, too easily can turn a not terribly bad job into a laughably moronic job, and a good job into one that never saw the light of day.”
Indeed, and we’re absolutely horrible at countering this. Unfortunately, doing it takes far more cojones than most of us have got, and those who have the cojones don’t have the skill.
“All of these will one day have a ‘My God, what have I done?!’ moment, . . . .’ I beg to differ. Many to most will never have any such moment.”
I was referring to those who aren’t willfully blinded (and I concede of these there are many), but those who are being duped.
@ sharpie “[Obama’s] counterpart on our side isn’t Ted Cruz, my favorite Brill (short for Brilliant), but Sarah Palin…” Correct, although Cruz has potential. This is why the MSM destroyed her, and one of the many reasons the McCain campaign was so inept. Had she been allowed to follow her own instincts instead of McCain’s “experts”, the MSM would have come at her just as hard, but she may well have beaten them. Unfortunately, they successfully framed her as a moron, and it’s much harder to overcome a frame than it is to keep from falling into one.
@ Mike: Your description of liberals fits many of them perfectly, but not ALL of them, sorry. I’ve met too many who change their minds after meeting me and hearing our side presented well for once. It requires knowing when to use mockery, understanding, knowledge, quickness, the ability to listen, and the willingness to insult them harshly, but when you cut through the BS they WILL hear you out.
For most people it’s too much work. Personally, I get a huge rush seeing some lefty hipster chick start rambling on about the evils of government 90 minutes after I meet her.
But I’m really weird.
I’ll refute myself here:
So, I’m conflicted here: Other than being an asshole bullshiter, what has Obama done?
Well, he stood strong when the pressure was on. Why? Because he is not a politician of the form of Clintons. Since he has sold his soul he has assurance of victory, which assurance sustains him and builds his coalition.
It’s all about Satan, people.
C’mon, take a joke. But then maybe the archtype exits for a reason?
I lived in Louisiana among the Cajuns for a long time. The word they would use for him would be cany, not sure how they would spell it but they say it can i, and it means sly, sneaky, and a lot further devious than our word for canny. And that is what I think he is. I also think he is not academically talented. He is talented at reading and using people.
He also knows when to let them use him so he gains more power. I do think he is a definite Marxist.
Neo’s distinguishing volitional acceptance of lies and repeating them as truth, from “being mistaken” does not persuade me. Isn’t being mistaken and getting a pass too analogous to what goes on in our rotten education system? Move ’em up to the next grade; they’re mistaken (about chemistry, math, religion, whatever), but let’s keep ’em moving.
The outcome is certain.
1. “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
Often overlooked is that he serves as a blank screen on which his opponents project their most unattractive characteristics—for all the voters to see.
2. Given Obama’s record, the November election should never have been lost. If the Right—the polls-and-betting-odds-are-wrong Right—continues not to take Obama seriously, that’s even more worrisome than blowing the election was. Say hello to President Clinton 2016. In fact, Democrats more radical than Hillary may be emboldened to run.
Who makes whom?
Power makes us.
We make children.
Children bury us.
“He is a very focused and controlled man.”
Except when he isn’t. I’m still mystified by his utterly inept performance in the first debate with Romney.
Was it because he felt he’d already “caught the wave” and was on his way to an easy re-election? If so, would a true Machiavellian really succumb to such a feeling? Remember Nixon and the Watergate break-in — he okayed it because, even though he was headed for a landslide victory, he couldn’t let one single base remain uncovered.
@ Mike: I won’t get into it on the “lie” thing, but I’ll grant this: lefties believe and/or promote untruths. That may not be strong enough for you, and that’s fine by me. I appreciate you’re reading the post.
There are three foundational types of truth, all of which are violated by leftism. One I address in that piece, “I am what I am,” the individual is the prime unit of sovereignty. (for those who don’t want to read my piece) Some believe that they are more than what they are (the Anointed, those who would rule over us), some believe that they are less than what they are (the Benighted, those who surrender their minds or rights to serve the ends of the Anointed, often for ostensibly noble reasons), and those who make both errors at once (the Entitled).
They violate the other principles as well, either disregarding them altogether or mixing them up. They are therefore enemies of Truth.
Nevertheless, although all of them are at fault, I differentiate between those who deceive us intentionally to serve their own ends and those who genuinely believe they’re doing the right thing. Are they all “enemies”? Yes. But they are to handled differently.
The Benighted can be brought to our side. The Anointed require almost a “road to Damascus moment”, for they are the Pharisees.
Maybe one or two SDs over the average american IQ, no more. 120 or so. A trash IQ in the real world (I work in an environment in which 135 to165 is the norm). Absolutely no more. Deviousness, hatefullness, malignant cleverness, power hungriness, destuctveness, racist passion, deceitfullness, arrogance, etc. None of these traits shound be mistaken for intellegence. Sorry to disagree. But he is simply a power hungry tool of the left, not some brieght guy. His off the ciff statemets are a clear imdication of a limited intellegence. yes hes is dangerous, but not because of some great intellegence, rather the stupidity of modern times, and his horrible ability to appeal to peoples basest feelings.
Pharisees.
Jesus was a Pharisee. St. Paul was a Pharisee. St. Peter, a Jew, recognized the authority of the Pharisees.
The term, “Pharisee” is an anti-Semetic term long abadoned by the Catholic Church and most certainly refuted by the Protestant Church as it has embraced its Hebrew roots.
The Pharisees did not crucify Jesus. Only the Romans in their uniformed cruelty, lacking Torah, crucified people, a practice which the “Barbarians” did not use.
It has ever been the refuge of “civilization” or “community” which practices it.
http://religion.lilithezine.com/History-of-Crucifixion.html
It takes a community to crucify a child.
http://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthesociety/files/2010/09/jackson_lottery.pdf
Lots of psychological terms, lots of astute judgments and analysis. Still when its all said and done we have an empty suit con man that actually despises this country occasionally siting in the Oval Office but mostly flying around on an endless campaign to destroy core American values. He has managed to enthrall the MSM and 50.1% of the voters.
I think we know our enemy from his toe nails to the tips of his ears. The question is what to do about it? First we gain ground in the house and senate in 2014. That requires action on our part to get good, well vetted candidates on ballot. There is work to do, stop navel gazing and get to work.
I’d put this one in the “protest too much” column.
Almost like O’reilly tonight-“I accept disagreement” – Laura disagreed – and he went off on another rant of self-justification.
Whether or not jugears is actually “smart” doesn’t seem to be as relevant as the source and basis of the policies he’s been provided with. (I mean a 2,000+page “stimulus package” appearing overnight – and his MASSIVE “healthcare” bill — sure, that his idea) It seems to be much like an actor provided with a script and coaches and stagehands and props, and the audience confusing the character in the play with the actor himself. It’s been proven he can read a teleprompter and take choreography and coaching… as long as he has the machine of Soros and Chicago pulling his strings, he’ll behave like a “proper socialist”…get him away from his handlers for over a minute and he’s a babbling fool with a sh*t eating grin.
I think he gives evidence of the competence of those who prop him up and feed him lines, and not much else.
Either way, “smart” or not…the country is screwed by his “figurehead” presidency…the gullible lemmings who exemplify the greed they pretend to hate, as they demand indulgences, their “rights,” and their freebies, like those German lemmings who heard what they wanted to hear, have opened the door for a miserable future for the entire world.
I agree with you Brad. Wish I could add something, but I think you nailed it with clarity, simplicity, and completeness.
So it sounds like some Democrats are Sauron (knowing liars, deceivers, oppressors, etc.), and the rest are the Orcs out of Mordor (who fight for Sauron but are perhaps not as intelligent as him).
These Orcs we generally call neighbors and fellow citizens.
But they are Orcs and if we could see them rightly they would even look like Orcs.
Orcs, they will tell us, are people too! In fact, an oppressed class of victims no doubt – victimized by people calling them what they are…Orcs!
Very soon, and I know no one who is honest will doubt the possibility of this in “America” today, it will be illegal to be a Republican. Not being a Democrat will be to be guilty of a hate crime…against the poor Democrats.
I wish I was writing a fantasy novel with that as a plot. But we all know if they could do it, they would do it tomorrow and they will soon try to do it at the first opportunity.
And those monsters we call “good people only differently politicized”.
Right.
Whether Obama’s a genius or an empty suit, whether he’s doing what he thinks is right for America or he’s trying to bring us down, whether he’s a puppet-master or a pawn, he wrecking us and we gotta fight him.
Nevertheless, he’s demonstrated some skills, and it’s always better to err on the side of over-estimating an enemy.
@ Mike: An orc is an orc by nature and literally can not change. People do change.
I’m no fan of the left, but I’ve seen enough “orcs” turn into “hobbits” to not buy into the notion that we’re altogether different species.
‘If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can count on Paul’s vote.’
President Obama has promised to pay large parts of our population and, for the most part, he has gotten their votes. It seems to me his greatest skill is being able to convince them, through an amazing ability to deceive, that they will really be paid now and in the future.
What is the source of his ability to deceive? I do not know. Some persons are convincing because they believe their own falsehoods. I think this is not the case with Obama. Nixon was a terrible liar: he knew he was lying and knew lying was wrong. I think Obama is like Clinton–like Nixon they know they are lying, but unlike Nixon they believe lying is not wrong–at least not when they do it–and so they can lie without tell-tale signs of guilt. (I do not know how dumb or smart Obama is, but he is not so dumb as to believe a lot of the things he has promised.) Maybe one reason persons are deceived is that they want to believe the lie that they truly will be paid.
In my field of medicine, a diagnostic sign–part joke and part truth–of a certain type of psychopath: he leaves the interview without paying his fee and with a loan of $100 from the psychiatrist. They can be very persuasive and hard to spot, sometimes for a long time.
Maybe there is some hope that public perception can eventually change: his job approval level in the Real Clear Politics poll average is in negative territory for the first time in 23 months.
1. Satanists, orcs and hobbits oh my!
2. This center-right country has moved leftward ever since 1988.
3. A critical mass of conservatives will look anywhere for explanations except in the mirror.
Such behavior is pharisaical.
Martel, 10:10 pm —
“@ MJR: ‘I’m not convinced many are reachable.’ You’d be surprised how receptive SOME of them can be when things are presented properly. I’ve facilitated lots of “change” moments, myself, usually accompanied with some variation of ‘I’ve never thought about it that way before’ or ‘nobody else has ever put it that way.'”
Martel,
I will neither doubt you nor argue with your success. I’ve spoken pretty reasonably with some, and maybe it’s that they’re among the unreachables, or maybe it’s that they won’t admit to there even being another way to look at it — but I’ve found them to be very unmoveable.
Then again, how moveable are we on our side?
When I was younger (those were the days!), I was very willing to hear everyone out. I still am, but with a condition:
To quote Archie Bunker, “tell me something I don’t already know, hah?” I am happy to listen to a perpsective that’s new to me, but if the other guy is going to spew the same old tired talking points, I really need not waste my time or his/hers.
I then have the advantage, actually, because while I’m (too) familiar with their viewpoint, they may never have been exposed to mine. But when their mind is snapped shut, what difference does it make?
Anyway, I’m rambling, but those are my thoughts upon reading your reply (thanks).
You did note as you closed your reply to me, “I was referring to those who aren’t willfully blinded (and I concede of these there are many), but those who are being duped.”
Maybe that explains it: I was embedded in a very left-liberal environment from babyhood until last year, when I retired and then moved.
“perpsective” = perspective
Except in the mirror. As if one were needed! So much mirror education and media saturation and yet a mirror is needed. Alll of Hollywood and education and politics point their finger at the Puritan who fails to grasp his backwardness and remains the threat over 400 years.
Yes, a mirror. A mirror is needed for instance to explain the murder of blacks by . . . whooops . . . better move the mirror, but it is still needed to explain the laws which keep the progressive and heroic minded down like affirmative and racial preference laws, hey, move the mirror again because America would never elect a black man President, but America did and now all evidence points to the power of the federal gov’t is biased against blacks, wait, move the mirror again.
Mr. Moron, will you appear and explain your statement with facts and evidence that unemployment, debt, racial tensions, and foreign threats are the result of conservatives? Who has been in power?
Ahh, I get it, the mirror is only for us. You get a pass.
Mike:
“I am offended that” is not an argument, and I most definitely did not offer it or intend it as one.
It was a statement/comment on my part, my personal response to what you were saying. You misunderstand my intention and meaning. Sometimes I am just speaking for myself, not debating a point pro or con.
The rest of what I said was an argument, but that statement was not.
gs:
Thank you for your brilliant summary of the many comments here. I appreciate it. Who knows? You might be as gifted as Obama. You know, gifted in hypocritical censorious self-righteousness and so forth. Or maybe you’re just mislead and don’t know it, but are sincere in your views nevertheless. That would not be your fault, of course.
“In my field of medicine, a diagnostic sign—part joke and part truth—of a certain type of psychopath: he leaves the interview without paying his fee and with a loan of $100 from the psychiatrist. They can be very persuasive and hard to spot, sometimes for a long time.”
Obama as “Evil Woman.”
Hey woman, you got the blues, cos you aint got no one else to use.
There’s an open road that leads nowhere, so just make some miles
Between here and there.
There’s a hole in my head where the rain comes in,
You took my body and played to win,
Ha ha woman it’s a crying shame,
But you aint got nobody else to blame.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6dcIJWqVQ4
the johnc comment went down like pizza.
sho do like pizza.
who don’t like pizza/
The following are Black People we hate and will not support:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6dcIJWqVQ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=r6uTMARIB3g&feature=endscreen
What heart does not open up to Sade?
Can we stop this bullshit now?
Can we admit its not about skin color but about money which Jesus said is the root of all evil.
Can we admit how we love each other, how we admire each other’s children, how we have the same plans, how we have been played by politicians, how we love to see achievement and accomplisment, how purpose finds its end with individual desire and that desire is without color?
Paul wrote in a letter (epistle) to Timothy (1Tim 6:10),
“For the love of money is the root of all evil.” (KJV)
For me, “the love” is a very significant part of that exhortation; to quote the phrase and omit “the love” is to change the meaning significantly.
Your mileage may vary.
He plays very skillfully & ruthlessly within the artificial rules of American politics. But his counterparts in Bejing, Moscow and such routinely show that he’s just a rube from Chicago to be plucked. Too bad America is the wallet.
Unpersuaded.
You give no recognition or countenance whatsoever to the
fact that HUGE chunks of Obama’s life have been intentionally and purposefully withheld. Not little insignificant trivialities either, but entire portions of his life, spanning years and years.
Until we know more, a lot more, efforts to gauge Obama’s putative intelligence is like one deaf, dumb, and blind person trying to describe a banana to another deaf, dumb, and blind person. It may make for entertaining performance art, but it’s elsewise useless.
@neoneocon Hmm. Read your followup column, and the comments.
…and I’m sticking with my position as last stated that Obama is an accident of history, a carpet-bagger in the original meaning of the term, and a charlatan in the PT Barnum-esque meaning, whom has been successful ONLY due to a certain confluence of historical events.
(I do appreciate that you’ve walked back a bit – clarified works for me too lol, if you prefer – from the “genius” column …but I remain unconvinced about ANY “special” ability of marked degree past the norm of a certain subset of cheap salesmanship that any other con-man would include in their basic repertoire.)
Those events of history in the main include:
1. The takeover of the Academy beginning in the 1960’s by both Marxist idealists (think Ayers and his ilk …and like Mike, I categorize them as at best in the thrall of Evil, and too often merely evil), and Marxist Useful Idiots (in the old KGB coinage of the term: think too many liberals who were never able to shake free from the intellectual strait jacket imposed by their “mentors” …scary quotes used for effect). This has meant a couple of lost generations of people able to critically analyze practically anything politically or socially substantive (which is NOT the same as calling them “stupid”: I’m certainly not calling them unintelligent …but I certainly AM calling them ignorant and unskilled). “They’re sitting in the pews, and listening to the sermons, but they have zero recognition that they’re in church, at all.”
2. The rise and acceptance of so-called “journo-listers” as a substitute for serious journalists (courtesy of their Marxist masters in the Columbia School type media madrasas), and their consequent enabling of the rise of ANYONE Obama-like through their enmeshed gestalt within the paradigm of their “liberal guilt” for whatever the current soup du jour of self-identified liberal guilt is (everything from AGW to white guilt to SSM to women’s rights to the Patriarchy to anti-Christianism to ??? ad nauseum …mixed in with the classic pathology of the battered wife syndrome).
3. Obama’s skin color.
Without those three progenitors? – No Obama. Regardless of the adroitness of his “vaunted” con-man “abilities”.
So …no “genius”, no greater amount of ruthless certitude than any other successful race-hustler, no greater anything …other than having the great good fortune to have landed from a balloon in Kansas in a fantastical world in an event that won’t soon repeat until the next time “…the moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars“.
He just got lucky: the press was [is!!!] inordinately dumbed-down, and aggressively subdued, due to an education by an Academy mired in the morass by persons of evil intent or evil acceptance, and a complicit and conspiring media (unwilling to bring charges against their abuser) abusing the Fourth Estate’s traditional role in levelly informing a generally apathetic, apolitical, and uninterested electorate (or more colorfully, American “journalism” is currently a propagandistic tool of the Marxist Academy).
At any given moment, the curtain could be pulled back by the charming little canine though. And the “real” Obama revealed.
Sadly, the curtain hasn’t been pulled back for far too many. Yet.
And musings on the Right about Obama’s “skills” (whatever) aren’t particularly helpful in that direction.
So, yeah: I’m sticking with the Oz the Great and Powerful meme as the correct interpretation of Obama’s “genius” (or whatever term you want to label it as).
But I specifically reject the Obama as The Mule that Hari Selden could not have predicted in Asimov’s classic Foundation trilogy …granting that he’s enjoyed a similar historical confluence in that archetypal vein.
IOW, I remain pretty much entirely unconvinced by your followup argument’s suggestion that Obama has any “genius” level skills or unusual or preternatural abilities (well, beyond those of any successful con-man).
He just got lucky, and to coopt the phrase “…more than the usual number of fools were born in those minutes”. Sadly, for us.
davisbr: in what you refer to as my “genius” column, I do not call Obama a genius. Other people keep using that word, but that’s not what I’ve been saying here.
You keep using that phrase over and over and over, and even though you put those scare quotes in it does not apply to what I’ve been saying. You’re arguing with a straw man.
My point is to refute the idea that Obama isn’t smart, or that he’s a puppet controlled by others with no mind of his own.
G Joubert: of course it’s been withheld. That has no bearing on what I’m saying here, which is that from what we can see and what we do know he is clearly smart and in a fair amount of control of the people around him, not a dumb puppet.
What his grades were and whether he got help is irrelevant to that. I assume his grades were not genius level or even all that good, especially before he got to Harvard, and I assume people helped him.
My point is that he’s neither dumb nor a puppet.
Slightly OT:
I wonder if it’s not his grades that Obama is hiding, but his courses.
@neoneocon I was using the word in the generic sense, neo: I understand what you’re trying to say …it’s that I disagree with your essential assertion, and I am addressing your point (granting you think the “genius” moniker isn’t your “point”, I agree with you in that, at least …i.e., that you’re not making that argument per se).
…so, mine is not a strawman rebuttal in that sense.
To wit: I respectfully disagree that his success is due to some degree of intelligence beyond the merely common. He’s a con-man …nothing special.
I don’t think he’s necessarily stupid or manipulated by “shadows” (if you’re trying to suggest I am, you need to re-read my comment).
I’m saying he’s a not very special or adept man, and his common-ness has been hidden – or at least abetted – by peculiarities of recent history, i.e., that his common-ness has been hidden behind a curtain (well, to some).
Hmm. If you say he’s “not, not smart“, isn’t the implication you’re making, the opposite, too? Aren’t you using “genius” in an equal sense of the term while not using it per se, and just going in through the back door?
…argument stands …and not a strawman attempt to set you up.
Hmm (again, lol), and thinking out loud about your response: inasmuch as I’m arguing for a confluence of events, I’d also say that I’m not at all arguing that while he’s a puppet with puppet masters, but that he’s certainly a “tool” of sorts, of the events.
davis br: “not not smart” is certainly not the same as “genius.”
You don’t have to agree with me in my basic premise. I think I’ve given ample evidence for my argument, and don’t need to revisit it. But when you use the word “genius” four times in your earlier comment (the one I was responding to) to describe my argument re Obama, I think that’s hyperbole and misleading. That’s why I’m calling it a straw man argument. If you want to refute me, refute what I’m actually saying rather than what I’m not saying.
Why are we arguing about how best, most accurately, to describe Obama? WHERE DOES THAT GET US?
We are already united in the over-riding theme: He is bad for us and bad for the USA. The challenge is to prevent his badness being irreversible, ever. Our quibbling, setting up circular firing squads, does not make me optimistic.
The Democrat nomination of Obama in 2008 was what pushed me over the edge toward leaving the fold, so to speak. I was well on my way, looking back, but that was the final straw. I did not like the man and found many stories of his past, particularly the Alice Palmer story instructive. He is a power grabber and possibly, as you state, a narcissist. He is able to conceal his farthest left agenda enough to squeak it all the while denying it. The way he’s treated Israel is an example as he is saying outrageous things like he has been more of an “ally” to Israel than any other President, all the while throwing her under the bus and undermining her. All politicians can be deceptive but Obama is particularly so. I really do find him detestable and I find your analysis particularly of interest.
Excellent discussion, with a shout out to kolnai, as usual.
We can split hairs all we want, but the headline remains, that Hoops Obama is a quasi-academic con man, nurtured and sustained by the Red Diaper Baby network, who, because of who he is and when he is, is presented with the electoral equivalent of what Tom Wolfe called “the unscrewable pooch.” He doesn’t have a plan, but he has an Intent. He didn’t invent the Intent, and he hasn’t added much to it. He didn’t intuit the means, which FDR and the radical left (hello, Cloward-Piven) named long before him. Frantz Fanon invented the pose. He is surrounded, as powerful politicians always are, by energetic men who really, really want to stay in power and to enrich themselves and their friends. What more is there to discuss?
We should probably be talking more about “the end of meritocracy.” As Wretchard points out, it is all about “who sent you?” As result, even our villains are second rate.
Not hyperbole …though I wonder, again, if you’re reading what I wrote, or just counting word occurrences lol.
So …okey-dokey, detailed refutation …of your “strawman” assertion at least:
First usage: My first use of the term genius was “the “genius” column…” which refers to this post – Take Obama seriously.
Thus, your strawman assertion number one is incorrect: I used “genius” in this instance to refer to the earlier post merely because “genius” kept popping up in that column (and I totally understood that you rejected IN the post the use of “genius” as necessarily an attribute of Obama in the IQ sense …but to quote you “…I think part of Obama’s ‘genius'” and “…Stalin, Hitler, et all were political geniuses” …etc., etc. …and as the use of the word “genius” was certainly in common use in that column, I thought the word a convenient short-hand to refer to that post.
Just so. My first use hardly supports a “strawman” setup though. Point davisbr.
Second usage: In saying “…no “genius”, no greater amount of ruthless certitude than any other successful race-hustler, no greater anything”, I too am using “scare quotes” for “genius” and as rhetorical short-hand …though in this case, my real point is that Obama exhibits no special characteristics other than those a common hustler would use, which was why I included the modifying phrase. This observation was meant as counter-poise to your phrase “excellent, ruthless, and very smart politician” …I instead maintain that Obama’s political skills suck (because you’re ignoring too many obvious political miscalculations of the past six years); his con-man skills require the connivance and gullibility of the media to be successful (my “behind the curtain” phraseology, if you will).
So my second usage is not a strawman analogy at all. I was directly addressing your argument (though continuuing to use a rhetorically correct shorthand of calling the general argument of “special skills” by the term “genius” IN scare quotes …iow: I’m not asserting at all that you somehow think him a genius, but I do indeed disagree that he has been endowed with, or exhibits, ANY “special skills” OR political abilities. He’s no Bill Clinton lol. Point davisbr.
Third usage: “I’m sticking with the Oz the Great and Powerful meme as the correct interpretation of Obama’s “genius” (or whatever term you want to label it as).” In this instance, I’ll grant your error as simply sloppy reading: you ignored – or denied, or simply didn’t understand, dunno which – the implications of my use of the phrase “Oz the Great and Powerful meme” and focused on “Obama’s ‘genius'” …and for a third time denied the legitimate use of the term as a rhetorical shorthand (which, again, I continue to maintain was justified by the many uses of the term in the first column …and do please note I started out my reply as referring to my reading THIS post as being a continuance of your observations from the first column, since you ASKED us in that column to read the following – i.e., this – post).
In this case, Frank Baum’s character in the Wizard of Oz was an ordinary man, who – though he was a “good man” – was a terrible wizard, and who was exposed as such by being “caught in the act”. I thought the description both apt & colorful and appropriate and went with it …Obama is of the same ordinary kind, he has no special abilities (or skills, or whatever), just luck, and the [media] “curtain”. Sadly, Toto hasn’t yet pulled back that “curtain”.
…but because I’m a nice guy, I’ll call this one a draw. You were in error, and totally missed the point (and missed my meaning of the usage of “genius” for a third time), but lets’ call this round somewhat of a draw. Your point, contested, but as the line ump, I’ll lean over backwards with this one, and graciously give it to you. Point neoneocon.
Fourth usage: The last phrase was “…your followup argument’s suggestion that Obama has any “genius” level skills or unusual or preternatural abilities…”. As in the former arguments, I again use the quotes around “genius”, and again the purpose of the quotes is rhetorical shorthand, and which I suitably modify with the phrase “…skills or unusual or preternatural abilities”.
I maintain that my usage of “genius” throughout was a shorthand, and that not once, not even, did I maintain that your use of the term meant other than “heightened skills of various sorts within the political realm” if you will.
As such, I indeed offered up an alternative view of Obama than the one you expressed (as being a man with superlative political skills): that what appear to be political skills are merely an accident of historical timing, aided and abetted by the corruption of the Academy and the utter and total failure of the Fourth Estate.
And indeed: in my subsequent initial response to your strawman accusation, I explicitly state that I knew exactly what you were talking about, and that I understood that you were not asserting you thought him a “genius of the intellectual” kind.
So I do believe I owe myself that last point.
I, indeed, don’t quite see how you seem to have missed the essential point that I think I did rather well in making. In retrospect, I had no idea it would be taken as obtuse, and with a concentration upon a word used only as a rhetorical shorthand.
Whatever. I, too, remain unconvinced by any of the various pundits since the Podhoretz column that History will be anything other than very unkind to the political “skills” (I hesitate to use the term “genius” further LOL) of President Obama.
He’s a con man, and puerile politician. His ONE “political” strength isn’t actually his, but rather the prevaricating connivance of the duplicitous media.
He’s the man behind the curtain.
…and with that last, game, set, and match.
davisbr: actually, I did not use the word “genius” in the “column” (in other words, in my post) at all.
It occurs to me that your idiosyncratic use of the word “column” is part of the problem here. I think you actually meant “thread” or “comments thread,” because in the “column” (i.e. the post—in other words, my post) the word “genius” does not appear at all.
A “column” usually refers to the author’s piece, as in a newspaper column. The thread or comments thread refers to just that—the whole thing plus comments, or just the comments.
So the word “genius” came up only in the comments afterwards, and I used it in response to other commenters’ use of it. For example, the very first commenter there, George Pal, used it. All of your quotes of me using the word there was me responding to other people using it.
So, if you had wanted to say it was the “genius thread” or the “genius comments discussion,” I might have known what you were talking about. But that’s not what you said.
This is what you said:
“Walked back” from “the genius column” certainly appears to imply that I wrote a column calling Obama a genius, and that I “walked it back” somewhat (i.e. took some of what I said back, or changed it—the definition of walking back being attempting to withdraw a previous statement). I did not.
That’s my point—that I have not been calling Obama a genius in my posts here. Other people have used the term, I have responded (sometimes using the term as they used it, and trying to clarify what I meant instead), or used it ironically at times. The way you put it sounded as though you were saying I had made the assertion in my post, and was “walking it back.” I did not, and I was not.
That’s what I mean by hyperbole—the idea that I was making an assertion about his “genius” in my post that I was needing to “walk back.” I have not changed my stance in any way on this topic; I have not “walked” anything “back.” I still don’t really know what you’re referring to when you say that.
And your continual emphasis on the word “genius” itself—in a comment that was addressing me, after all—seemed to be hyperbole (exaggeration, that is) in that “genius” wasn’t my term, it wasn’t what I was saying about Obama in the first place—so why keep emphasizing and harping on the word, as though it was my word for Obama?
I think, though, that the key to the whole thing is probably your use of the word “column,” which certainly made it sound as though you were saying I wrote a post about Obama’s genius, which I of course did not. And that I then “walked it back,” which I did not. That’s the strawman I was referring to.
One more thing—you wrote to me:
So, you’re accusing me of saying Obama’s a genius even when I’m not saying it? If that’s not hyperbole on your part, perhaps you’d prefer the word sophistry? Or are you perhaps making a joke? It just seems a bizarre point that you’re making there—that saying someone isn’t “not not smart” (in other words, not dumb) is somehow tantamount to saying the person is a genius? Trying to get the term in “through the back door” by saying the person is not dumb??
LOL. Well, this is certainly a hoot (the mental picture I formed is actually more like one of the scenes from a – beloved, in my case – Three Stooges skit, where Curly says “now this is a revoltin’ development, nyuk, nyuk” lol).
Yeah, I was referring to the “comment threads” when making reference to your use of “genius” (which was why I could not understand why you’d possibly think I’d somehow misunderstood that you had never referred to Obama as a “deeply intellectual fellow”, if you will: of course you hadn’t, indeed, obviously you hadn’t, and you have equally more than adequately communicated that you regard him merely as a “very skilled political animal”, with some adjectival modifiers …of which btw, I totally and thoroughly agree with one, in particular: “ruthless” …I think that sobriquet is entirely accurate in piecing together the puzzle the man is to so many: my suspicion is that ruthlessness pretty adequately covers many of more distasteful attributes of one Barack Hussein Obama).
So I was a bit puzzled why you seemed to think that I’d said you had even contextually called him a “deeply intellectual fellow” lol. But! As you’d used the word in the rhetorical sense – as a convenient shorthand – and in the same way previously “in the comments sections”, I so used it similarly also …so I thought it quite puzzling (in your replies), that you seemed quite, umm, “possessive” of use of the word “genius” in the rhetorical-sense-as-shorthand …but that I shouldn’t/couldn’t? – And since, to my way of thinking, your “posts” (I’m using that term more formally this time), are of a single piece with the comments after, I see where the consequent confusion arose.
…perhaps it would have been more apropos – more clarifying – for me to have substituted the word “conversation”? My bad: it didn’t occur to me that I’d been misunderstood there …sigh, not for the last time I fear (though I do promise to be less free with the usage of “column”, “post”, “thread” and especially “comment section” from now on lol).
I thoroughly appreciate your difficulty now: of a truth, I can be – and usually am- rather idiosyncratic in my use of language (generally that’s because I’m – again, generally – so enmeshed within the context of the dialogue, I just assume that the contextual usage will be obvious, and prevail over more conventional usage …oh dear, that does sound rather snooty).
…so: merely a HUGE misunderstanding than? Responses at cross purposes and forty paces?
As one of my first replies in a long while, what a truly dismal re-introduction (I’ve been both very busy with business since the election, and “in recovery”, if you will, with the implication of the results of the election, that I’ve not had time, nor felt inclined, to do more than stay serially current by lurking).
So, you’re accusing me of saying Obama’s a genius even when I’m not saying it? Oh no. I was musing aloud and in a hurried fashion there (and my wife was urging me in the background to get on with our personal afternoon activities), so I’d call that just further evidence of the basic misunderstanding I think: I was not accusing you of saying (and I’m paraphrasing, for clarity) “Obama’s a very intelligent person”, but rather of using “genius” in the same fashion as I was (i.e., as a convenient shorthand), though (I thought) rationalizing the sense of the terminology by “disguising” the term in a “backdoor” fashion.
I pretty much do understand your columns of course, Neo: your writing in general and presentation in particular is generally quite rational (one of my highest compliments btw) and one of the few (hmm, maybe only lol) political blogs I still regularly read and muse over …and which is not to say that I always agree mind you, and in the case of what Obama might be or represents in the historical matrix, suspect I very much disagree indeed lol.
And with this, I think I should reassess the scoring of the strawman game, and after too-lengthy consideration, in retrospect (and respect) I believe the whole thing to have been a draw after all …/wink
davisbr: yes, we’ll walk it back :-).
I think it was a misunderstanding, based on language.
As Popper said, “It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.”
LOLOL.
But! I’ve changed my mind yet again.
Final result, Game neoneocon.
…because …I should have read the “con artist” article on PJ Media that you linked to in your George Pal reply, up column (sorry, I couldn’t resist …and, when I was looking at your post-plus-comments “thread”, I finally realized that what I was viewing onscreen was this linear, columnar presentation, and that’s why I gravitated to using “column” heh …which is not to disagree with your insistence upon the original meaning of “column” from print days being generally accepted as the correct meaning of “online post only” …merely thought it was funny the way my brain worked).
I thoroughly agree with what you’d written in that post.
…our only divergence on point though, is that I think O’s political skills are actually weak sauce (he’s just made too many obviously unforced purely political errors so far), his con-man abilities are rather common (which, since he’s a con man, means “way better than the rest of us” lol), and I lay his electoral successes firmly at the door of the mis-educated, fawning, sycophantic, and vastly under-performing (in the historical sense) denizens of the Fourth Estate.
…and I think the electoral defeat has created in conservatives a tendency to over-estimate his political skills (IOW, I’m very much in disagreement with JPod’s post that caused all this minor ruckus of the Right’s commentariat …not that I didn’t wallow in self-defeatism for quite some time post-election too lol…but it’s just time to get over it, and move on).
But the “ruthless” attribute you ascribe to O’? Oh yeah. That’s key to any analysis of his basic character IMO. And entirely consistent with the history of him we are reasonably sure is correct: the man is seriously flawed.
Regardless, I think you actually win the overall argument simply because I wasn’t paying sufficient attention (i.e., to your off-blog, definitive assessment of O’s characteristics that I quite believe to be accurate).
Unforced error, woot! Line judge calls it for the lady!
A few more things should be thrown into this discussion. Was “The Curvature of Constitutiional Space”(1989)supposed to be taken seriously or did the co-author(Obama) know it was “crackpot physics”? Why should we not think Obama was an academic charlatan when, at the University of Chicago he refused to debate with his fellow academics? There is a 70 page paper online describing Obama’s use of cribbed hypnotherapeutic techniques in his rhetoric. Considering the adulatory letters to the editor about Obama in my local papers,one should be referencing Jim Jones. Finally, who can verify Tom Fife’s contentions about Obama in Russia in 1992?