Obama the narcissistically wounded
People are wondering about Obama—even his supporters, or maybe especially his supporters. He seems distracted, confused, passive, and even more cool and aloof than ever.
I have no idea why any of that would be a surprise. But it is, especially to those who bought into and also encouraged Obama’s own narcissistic myth.
All of them could learn a lot by reading up on narcissism. If they did their homework, they would discover that narcissists are grandiose and have delusions of omnipotence, and that if the world doesn’t step up and acknowledge their wonderfulness they suffer a re-opening of the narcissistic wound. The pain that results is almost unendurable, and narcissists will go to great lengths to avoid facing it.
Obama is a special case even among narcissists, because the world has long surrounded him with the sort of adulation that has fed into his narcissistic feelings in a way that most narcissists can only dream about. Deserved or not, he’s grown so used to the constant adulation, success, and honors that he considers them his due and believes even more deeply in his own innate power, whether it be to make the oceans rise or to make Putin into a pussycat.
From the start, anyone paying attention would have had to have known that Obama was no happy warrior. His personality as projected in public appearances rarely seemed truly joyful and often seemed petulant, even during his first campaign. There was his tendency to blame others, one of the first things I ever noticed about him.
And there was perhaps the most telling, and certainly the most strange thing: the statement (which I wrote about three days ago) made by the woman who was and still is probably his closest advisor, Valerie Jarrett, claiming that Obama has had a lifelong trait of boredom. Simply put, Obama has been disappointed with life, which bores him. And Jarrett locates the wellspring of that feeling in his narcissism, although she doesn’t call it that. She (and he) believes him too smart for almost anything he takes his hand to, and that leads to boredom.
Of course, it needn’t—except for the narcissist. For the latter, no deference can be enough and no reward high enough to satisfy. Obama is fated to be disappointed, because the locus of his problem lies in himself rather than in the world. The narcissistic wound, which underlies everything for narcissists and which they feel most acutely when they face failure and criticism rather than praise from the world at large, is experienced as so painful that it must be evaded at all costs:
The narcissist constantly consumes (really, preys upon) adoration, admiration, approval, applause, attention and other forms of Narcissistic Supply. When lacking or deficient, a Narcissistic Deficiency Dysphoria sets in. The narcissist then appears to be depressed, his movements slow down, his sleep patterns are disordered (he either sleeps too much or becomes insomniac), his eating patterns change (he gorges on food or is avoids it altogether).
He is be constantly dysphoric (sad) and anhedonic (finds no pleasure in anything, including his former pursuits, hobbies, and interests). He is subjected to violent mood swings (mainly rage attacks) and all his (visible and painful) efforts at self-control fail. He may compulsively and ritually resort to an alternative addiction ”“ alcohol, drugs, reckless driving, shopaholism.
This gradual disintegration is the narcissist’s futile effort both to escape his predicament and to sublimate his aggressive urges. His whole behaviour seems constrained, artificial, and effortful. The narcissist gradually turns more and more mechanical, detached, and “unreal”. His thoughts constantly wander or become obsessive and repetitive, his speech may falter, he appears to be far away, in a world of his narcissistic fantasies, where Narcissistic Supply is aplenty.
He withdraws from his painful existence, where others fail to appreciate his greatness, special skills and talents, potential, or achievements. The narcissist thus ceases to bestow himself upon a cruel universe, punishing it for its shortcomings, its inability to realise how unique he is.
When narcissism thus fails as a defense mechanism, the narcissist develops paranoid delusions: self-directed confabulations which place him at the center of others’ allegedly malign attention. The narcissist becomes his own audience and self-sufficient as his own, sometimes exclusive, source of narcissistic supply.
The narcissist goes into a schizoid mode: he isolates himself, a hermit in the kingdom of his hurt. He minimises his social interactions and uses “messengers” to communicate with the outside. Devoid of energy, the narcissist can no longer pretend to succumb to social conventions. His former compliance gives way to open withdrawal (a rebellion of sorts). Smiles are transformed to frowns, courtesy becomes rudeness, emphasised etiquette used as a weapon, an outlet of aggression, an act of violence.
The article goes on to describe what can happen if these mechanisms fail to adequately protect the narcissist. What can follow is not pretty, and can include severe depression leading to self-destructive behaviors such as drug addiction and suicide, and/or psychotic breaks. Short of that, though (and I don’t think Obama is even close to reaching that point), the other defenses work, albeit shakily.
Doesn’t this explain a lot? The last paragraph of the quote in particular certainly explains why Obama wouldn’t even do something as simple as a border photo-op during his trip to Texas, something that on balance probably would have scored political points, even though it would have put him on the spot in other ways. Obama would much rather surround himself with rich admirers, smiling and patting him on the back and getting out their checkbooks to give him vast sums of money.
Right now, to the rest of the world he is saying a big FU. At this point, his very equanimity may depend on shielding himself from too much exposure to reality, and the sycophantic worshipers who advise him agree.
His campaign speech in Texas today was pretty routine. Does he know the election is over?
Interesting problem solving method, attacking the people you have to work with.
Frankly we should all be grateful he wasting his time achieving nothing.
Make that ecstatic.
There has never been, in the history of hominids, so great a mother lode of aberrant pathology in one ‘human’ as is found in Ophilia. That so many had been taken in by Ophilia-ism — the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the Family Hominidae — leads me to suspect the “pod” movies of the ‘50s were not portending but alerting to a fait accompli. How else to explain current events but pod people are running the show — and the biggest pod is their leader.
Seriously, has anyone noticed that Ophilia isn’t quite all there, not quite fully… human? There’s something missing there, as if there’s no there there. There’s nothing autonomic about him… no personality… no naturalness. It’s like everything about him is rehearsed, practiced, and nothing spontaneous.
I thought his recent meet up with Perry — and its photos — showed a high level of passive-aggressive disdain.
It looked like one of Barry’s staffers had cracked a joke that was ONLY funny to Barry.
The Texans ALL looked pained — if not insulted.
&&&
I find it notable that Barry is, apparently, NEVER around grey beards. All of his staffers are ten or more years younger than he, and he’s in his early fifties.
&&&
HIllary’s re-positioning away from Barry is not going down well at the White House.
Barry would love to be able to cross Rodham with Warren.
%%%
For my money, Barry is a Reactive-Dependent Gonnabee of the first water.
He fits that profile to a Tee.
From Wareham ISBN 0-689-11756-6
Status-seeking reactive-dependent
Facade: Aggressive, tough, macho, highly confident.
Real Objective: To compensate for feelings of inferiority by becoming a “Big Shot.”
Underlying Emotions: Anxious, insecure, fearful, hostile, angry in the extreme.
Management Style: Angry autocrat.
Strength: Highly manipulative.
Weaknesses: Inherently unsuited to the role to which he aspires.
Emotionally weak, highly dependent.
Poor judgment.
Entirely self-absorbed.
Not truly interested in accomplishment.
Self-destructive.
How to spot: Consistently talks of his “toughness.”
Often ashamed of parental status.
Overprotected upbringing.
Seeks demanding line-management role.
May have appeared on a TV show, or been featured in a magazine.
Appearance and dress immaculate or calculated.
Lots of self-promoting diplomas and other “you’re a great guy” artifacts on office wall.
Lives beyond means.
How to manage: Place only in structured role calling for manipulative skills.
Let go rather than promote.
…
“Gonnabee is inherently unsuited by his inability to line in the real world to perform any kind of high-pressure management job, and things inevitably start to go wrong from almost the first moment he receives such an appointment.” op. cit.
“However, NEVER give him (Gonnabee) a REAL president’s role, for he will most certainly therein sink both himself and the enterprise.” op. cit.
###
This largely explains the Wan.
Less than an empty suit, he’s an empty soul, an empty heart.
He’s not for learning, either.
“Approbation”: You keep using that word–well, you used it once–I do not think it means what you think it means.
Love this column, Neo and may I join in the chorus.
F U Obama
Get this man out of my country!
I hope someday, he will realize how pathetic he is and then he will curl up and shrivel away.
Your description of a narcissist reminds me of the movie “Downfall.”
Historically, people have been very willing to subjugate themselves to a leader/Savior/messiah.
Hopefully, his internal and external pain will degrade even more in the months to come. I have zero sympathy for this man boy. I hope he becomes so bored and in pain that he removes himself from office. That’s very unlikely to happen, of course, but it would be a grateful (for me) end to this nightmare.
Language Bully:
Thanks, fixed.
I’m trying to figure out what word I was actually thinking of, though.
I think “narcissist” label gives the guy too much status. He’s just a jerk with tons of enablers and, unfortunately, lots of power.
I just read on PowerLine that all of the Western allies have called Netanyahu concerning these rocket attacks but Obama has apparently been too busy.
Does he get this bad advice from his staff? Or is he just too arrogant to believe that he should be concerned about the fate of Israel?
I too saw the photos blert refers to but I do not think that Obama is laughing at some random joke. His demeanor is completely at odds with the seriousness of the situation and I’m convinced its intentional. He’s laughing all right but its at Gov. Perry and all of us on the right. Look at the woman and her face as she looks at Perry, she’s gloating.
Obama’s underlying theme is ‘I know that you know but so what, you can’t do a damn thing about it’. He’s punishing his enemies, destroying the country and greatly enjoying it.
which brings which…
does the need for a new soviet man, beg the position to be filled with a narcisist who beleives he is that superior being that stands as an example to all? (see the illusions post for the new socialist man by thedore hsi-en chen… 1969 chicago journals… comparative education review)
i know its hard, but one has to realize that whether a narcisist or not, they are following a well defined plan that cant be explained by the pop psychology that often enough, was kibbitzed by their ideology itself over the years and warped in the publics mind (zeitgeist)
so many of them date back to the 1800s, and are just proclamations of which the left refuses to accept are untrue.
but while examining the elephants foot, and its trunk, you have yet to figure out the elephant…
everything is scripted from the dream they learned in school and pamphlets and when washing the places in the world that were implementing their dream and wanting it to be so here as well.
New Soviet man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man
Just as bible thumpers try to learn greek, to read the bible in the language of its translations… they learn Russian to read their bibles in the original tongue…
but you have to put the pieces together… not make up things to take their place and help stalinize history…
the larger point is that any man or woman who would stand up to be the leader from a socialist position MUST either pretend or actually believe all the stuff that such a person would have…
In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.
Marx, German Ideology (1845)
all you have to do is read all these descriptions of their MESSIAH who will deliever them, and think “what kind of person, reading this, would believe this of themselves and be willing to act out the play to the hitlerian, stalinistic, maoist end?”
Voila.. its not that the personality trait brings them to greatness, its the wanting of such, that allows one with such to step forward and say, i will be your messiah, i will make the seas calm, i will make the nations friends, etc.
he is what they dream they want
“The new man is endowed, first of all, with a new ethical outlook.” – Bernard Byhovsky, Ph.D
and so, not only is he who he is to fill a hole in their hearts and step forward and be that messiah… his newness and such, allows him to make choices that prior to him, whould be horrific!!
that is, since he is greate than us all, like god, whatever he does is ok, no matter how bad, heineous and such it may appear to us, for the new man will be making the new world for us, and setting us an example… isnt that what they said to us? he will move us out of our comfort zones, and so on?
The three major changes postulated to be indispensable for the building of the communist society were economical and political changes, accompanied with the changes in the human personality
now… lets read about what obama has learned he should be if he is to be what he dreams of, and so be what his father dreams of, and the rest of his fathers generation!!!
thats why the border is open.. he has lost any nationalist sentiments which require borders…
everything is opposite and inverted from the norm, as its the norm they are erasing…
and of course..
new soviet man, would also have to have a new soviet woman
[though his superior and different values would allow for infidelity with other new soviet men, and so on… – often i have read these things and realize that new soviet man, is new sociopathic man narcisisistically dreaming of the position and power that would make such real]
feminists… duh..
i can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never ever let you forget your a man…
if you knew the soviet marxist thing you would know what that was about…and advertising has a way of playing on the natural higher rate of narcissism among women… (go ahead. rub some more combinations of fruit all over for the fountain of youth – cause i guess thats what a primate would think had that value… not to mention the concept of magic where things are parallel, peaches hae nice skin, you get it too by using peach cream]
feminist society promote female narcisism
as it defined the new soviet woman, the women, like obama, thought they too were examples of such. that they somehow left their mates and became superior beings, able to work, have a family, not need a man, and so on…
by the way. everyones desire to fill in blanks rather than know the history and comment from its detail is also an example of people striving to be new socialist person… knows things and how they work and has no worry that what they posit is undone by the history.
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
― George Orwell
its not like others dont know this and have not written
they do write, but its like the old addage that if your mouth is going, your not actually listening to others.
from common core to open borders, he is just trying to ‘be’ the new communist man that marx spoke about.. the archtype of the people to follow.. the messiah, etc.
and sadly… you guys and i are the old guard, the conservative oldsters that have to be swept away. of course we cant see his greatness… we were raised in a society of selfishness, and cant see his acts as the selfless thing they are… (under their world view)
We already know Obama is a full blown narcissist, don’t we? What we might learn from analyzing this point to death is how to cause him to implode. Why doesn’t the House file a string of lawsuits challenging his lawlessness? I am sure Obama will lose. Being held accountable is something he does not handle well.
Suicide? Seriously? Please tell me you’re not just toying with me.
Obama had a resume that would fit on a post it note. He had lots of enablers to advance his career. The media just swooned over Obama and would never write anything critical of him. It reminds me of the media treatment of JFK. The media would write gushing worshipful stories about JFK and he could do no wrong. Now we see Obama worship. It’s like the Jim Jones cult.
@ George Pal,
That’s what you get when you are the consummate Alinskyite. You cannot tell the truth about what you believe because the people would reject it, so instead you lie.
In order to be a world-class liar, you must live the lie. Never having a moment when your guard is down, lest the truth of your beliefs slip out.
This is an unsatisfying way to live, so the Alinskyite is prompted to speak in code words and dog whistles that only the initiated can understand or hear.
Hence, all the talk of “fundamental transformation.”
This is as close as the Alinskyite can get to discourse.
Obama is wounded, he is hurting. We should feel his pain and offer sympathy.
@ Snackeater,
That would be another historic first of his administration.
C’mon, Barry. Someone has to be first!
Here’s some rope.
neo, perhaps you were thinking of “opprobrium”?
Suicide?
oh please oh please oh please
Unfortuately, narcissists don’t commit suicide.
They love themselves too much.
Yeah, I suppose pulling a Budd Dwyer on national TV is too much to hope for.
Where there’s rope there’s hope.
Audacity of hope.
Yes we can, we should.
We can, we will: shove.
Media sympathy:
“I remember going to a bar, club, or honky-tonk around here and singing on stage. I wasn’t very good. But people were enthusiastic,” he said at a fund-raiser at a private home in Austin.
(Interlude: OHH ICH)
Obama is finding his travels out of Washington to be cathartic, a way to connect with people who helped put him in office.
“What I’ve said to my team is ‘get me out of Washington,’” the president told donors at the event. He said wanted to talk to people who are doing the right thing and struggling so they know they are being heard.
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-lets-rip-trip-washington-213941864.html
Washington is just beating up on little ole Obama.
No, Matt, he doesn’t have to keep his guard up at all. To a tranzi (transnational progressive), “truth” is anything which helps the Cause, a “lie” is anything which hinders it. So when Barry said “If you like your policy, you can keep your policy,” that was a truth, because it helped get Obarrycare passed. When Harry Reid said anyone who reported their insurance premiums went up was a liar, they were — because they were hindering the Cause.
See, once you wash your brain throoughly, it all becomes automatic, and you never have to think again!
My ebay purchased “Blood Feud” by Ed Klein arrived yesterday and I’ve been chewing through it. Billy Clinton & His Infantile Majesty Obama hate, loath and despise each other, naturally. The read is making me very, very, VERY Tired. Hillary & Michelle are nausea provoking, but the two Massive Narcissists are Loathsome. Vast Insatiable Appetites. High Chair Pounders, both. Rage & Fit Tossers, both. Horrible for our republic, BOTH. Malignant Beyond Mere Defining, BOTH.
Are we not blessed, America??
Narcissists don t commit suicide
Think OJ & the *slow speed chase*
AC Cowlings OJ buddy exclaims !
“He has a gun to his head”
( guess OJ told him to say that !)
Neo, I don’t disagree with anything you say; although we should not rule out the the possibility that the answer may be a lot simpler. Since he has no idea how to clean up the mess that he helped create, he is falling back on the age old tactics of: look cool/detached, and demagogue the opposition.
Has Clinton gone away yet? So why would Hussein.
attacking the people you have to work with.
They have to work with him, not the other way around.
Molly NH and Matt_SE:
Narcissists certainly do sometimes commit suicide when their world crashes down hard. Did you read the linked article?
I’m not suggesting, by the way, that Obama is anywhere near that point. But narcissists do sometimes commit suicide.
Well another fine read, thank you Neo. However as well said as all these thoughts and opinions are, at the bottom line of it all is that there is no unity in the GOP right now and unfortunately the time is now. There is a little over 2 years till the next head count and I’m not feeling the coming together that I believe needs to start happening if the GOP wants to put their candidate where these comments are. I believe the Tea Party and the GOP need to start pulling in the same direction or they will, again pull the party apart and that is a bad “strategery” for the next Republican candidate.
“But narcissists do sometimes commit suicide.”
I’m no clinician, but I would guess they do it much less frequently than the rest of the population.
…but hey, the audacity of hope, huh?
A psych link for you:
http://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/malignant-self-love/myths-about-narcissism/
“Narcissists very rarely commit suicide. They react with suicidal ideation and reactive psychoses to severe stress – but to commit suicide runs against the grain of narcissism. This is more of a Borderline (BPD) behavior. The differential diagnosis of NPD from BPD rests on the absence of attempted suicide and self-mutilation in NPD.”
I don’t have a psych degree; just a narcissistic older brother.
Matt_SE:
It’s certainly not common; it takes a LOT for a narcissist to commit suicide. But they certainly do, in certain cases. Take a look here to see a discussion of what dynamics might motivate a narcissist to commit suicide.
Neo, an excellent read on narcissism but alas when you
apply it to Barack Obama, I despair. (Sigh)
You mention Self-destructive here. But we know Obama has used Drugs in the past and continues to be a hard smoker err Golfer.
Think back to 70th D-day a few weeks ago. Obama was crewing gum. Doesn’t that strike anyone as odd. Most public speakers avoid gum like the plague no one looks good crew gum and to my knowledge its not something Obama normally does.
Well surrounded by unfriendly foreign press that might publish pictures of Obama smoking rather than just hiding this Fact like the msm does. He had to use Nicotine gum and likely a patch. Patch is good but does doesn’t always take the edge off.
Not sure if this is right or wrong but it fits that he keeps smoking in part because its something he can control in the world that just won’t listen to him.
Sid…
Just ANOTHER tell that he’s a Reactive-Dependent Gonnabee.
Booze, drugs, tobacco — on down the line — are par for the course.
(Did I pun?)
Yeah, he’s always been a special snowflake. Or is that now racist to say?
——
I don’t think what we saw with Kennedy is nearly so bad as what we see with Obama. With Kennedy, we had the mythical ‘Camelot’. What we have now with Obama is a full blown Cult of Personality.
With the war in Vietnam accelerated under Kennedy, and the draft still in effect, I don’t think the love affair with Kennedy would have lasted (see LBJ). But with Obama, the love affair is enduring (because he’s so dreamy), in an abused spouse way (he didn’t mean to hurt me). I think a lot of that has to do with the massive changes in the makeup of the media, from somewhat intelligent and serious people when Kennedy was President to the absolute ‘leg tingling’ unserious idiots we have today. Maybe WWII ending only 15 years prior to when Kennedy was elected has something to do with that. How many of today’s media idiot savants even know about WWII, much less any specifics? Unit 731? Never heard of it. Rape of Nanking? Patriarchal sexism! Death camps? It’s the Jews’ fault! Pearl Harbor? #It’s-our-fault (complete with morons on video mea culpa-ing their asses off while blaming the US). With our current media clown crew, History only begins when they were born, and barely that. (Listen to Hugh Hewitt’s radio interview of PuffHo ‘reporter’ Zach Carter, a UVa grad, at the link to hear such full bore pontificating idiocy from an ‘expert’ who has less historical knowledge than an ingrown toenail: http://www.hughhewitt.com/meet-young-journalists-series-huffington-posts-zach-carter/) Carter personifies the ‘I don’t know anything but I’m damn sure of my opinions’ crowd. And on top of all that, these idiots vote (as proven by Barky being elected twice). Such morons wouldn’t know ‘the right side of History’ if they were given a map and a compass because . . . no GPS or Google Street View.
A small follow up. I did find a reference from 2010 where its mentioned that i Obama does prefer nicotine gum
http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0310/deserting_dessert_9f9080d0-42af-49d8-837d-28ed424f2c50.html
Recently pictures of Obama & Hillary’s dead Marxist strategist
Saul Alinsky have been showing up online
A homely man with thick coke bottle glasses and
a CIGARETTE right there in his hand.
It’s merely anecdotal but all the smoker’s I have run across in my life appear to be people with psych issues,
things suppressed, unfulfilled, antsy type people.
Maybe in earlier times it was more of a recreational
habit but with all the health concerns now known it seems to me
only the most psychologically needy would take it up.
Who ‘s surprised that Boehner is one too !
I’m coming in on the tail end here, but will post anyway.
I read Neo’s link on narcissism, and checked the author, one Schmuel Vaknin, who has a PhD in philosophy and a career in financial management. He may be entirely correct in his portrait of a narcissist’s decline, but then again he may not. Portraits really are not science; they are generalizations. It may be a fundamental mistake to project this portrait onto Obama overmuch.
OK, so Obama’s a narcissist. So? That’s not true of other bigtime politicos? Cuomo? any Clinton? Spitzer? Reid? Pelosi? Boehner?
It doesn’t matter whence his evil springs. He is not coming to us for therapy.
Bottom line is that he is evil, a mega child-abuser who has >300 million children to abuse, as long as those kids stay intimidated and feel powerless.
Don Carlos:
My point in writing this post is merely to offer a possible explanation for Obama’s current behavior that seems so puzzling to his supporters. Also to predict that, if his public approval continues to descend, his behavior will get even stranger and both more withdrawn and more unpredictable.
And all or most politicians are narcissists. But that is different from having narcissistic personality disorder, or from being a malignant narcissist. It’s most likely that one of those latter terms fit Obama better than they fit most politicians.
Not sure if this is right or wrong but it fits that he keeps smoking in part because its something he can control in the world that just won’t listen to him.
Could be anything. Weed laced gum. The gum’s for the instinct to do something with the mouth and hands, that is trained into smokers over a long time. Hussein’s wee weeding it up even more, given the stress of “golf”.
I haven’t the slightest admiration for Obama, but diagnosing the man from afar is silly business.
Neo: Who cares what Obama and his Fellow co-narcissists do and will do? We, the Ones-To-Whom-It-Is-Done, ain’t gonna do anything about it, so why care?
Don Carlos:
Speak for yourself. I think that in order to mount an effective opposition it helps to study what you’re opposing. Trying to predicting what they will do is part of that.
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I find it notable that Barry is, apparently, NEVER around grey beards. All of his staffers are ten or more years younger than he, and he’s in his early fifties.
First-rate leaders choose first-rate subordinates. Second-rate leaders choose third-rate subordinates — they don’t want to run the risk of being shown up … or deposed.
Barack Obama has told us how he sees himself: “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.” Yeah, right.
I think I know why Obama is an insecure sociopath: because his father barely acknowledged that he even existed. He certainly didn’t love him, and little Barack knew it.
Thanks Neo. I trust I do not speak only for myself when I ask, Now that we have predicted Obama will do X (as you, Neo, have done, starting some 6 years ago), what are we going to do about that? My point is, not much. The little that we do has not stayed his hand to any useful extent.
Sad fact is we are quite powerless. We haven’t even been able to change a lot of minds.
In other words, our opposition has not, emphasis not, been effective. Please don’t anyone say that without our oppo Obama would have done worse, either, since that is pure pathetic conjecture.
In a war, the tacticians and strategists will be learning the high level info. The rest will be around to march to the drum when the orders are given. To them, thinking isn’t particularly required.
You are right, Obama has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). One of the comments, discusses how Obama is laughing when meeting Gov. Perry to discuss the border crisis. It strikes the observer as odd. That is because the NPD lacks empathy. Watch the video of Obama announcing the loss of Malaysia Air 17, and how he immediately goes into his canned speech of jokes. The guy is not mentally healthy.