What does Obama want?
Commenter “janetoo” asked a good question in the thread about Obama’s Cuba “negotiations”:
What I want to know is this: what is Obama’s end game? What does he want from all this discourse with our enemies?
My answer, which I will expand on a bit now, was this:
The transformation of America, just as he said. He wants to transform it by weakening it and its allies, and strengthening its enemies (particularly those on the left), and he wants to do it so thoroughly that there’s no turning back.
It’s easier to wreck than to build. A president whose attitude towards this country and its power is malignant, who has the support of the press (as Obama has most of the time), and who is immune from worrying about any election consequences (which he is now), can do a lot of damage in the two years he has remaining.
His motive is both ideological and personal. His ideology is leftist, his methods Alinskyite plus Orwellian rhetoric. He knows the attitude of the press towards him, plus his race, has made him immune from the usual checks and balances.
Some think he is also a closet Muslim, and that is part of it. I don’t know; that has never seemed quite right to me, although he does identify with Muslims because of his upbringing. I see him as an agnostic or atheist, however, who sees religion as a prop to use politically, rather than a believer of any sort.
Why does he want revenge on the US? Dinesh D’Souza has a theory about anti-colonialism that may have some validity, but I’m not at all sure about that one either, not as the leading motivator anyway. Leftism (and even liberalism, as I’ve observed it in recent years) involves hatred of America in general and seeing it as the source of much of the grief in the world. When I write “as I’ve observed” I’m not just talking about Obama or the more leftist members of Congress, I’m also talking about my relatively non-political friends and acquaintances who trash America with a certain kneejerk regularity. That attitude, writ large and augmented by true venom, appears to be the viewpoint Obama holds.
Obama could never have gotten elected if he’d been upfront about this in 2008. And even though discerning people realized it in 2008, and more realized it by 2012, even then not enough were paying close attention and/or not enough were discerning enough. Obama knows that, and was counting on it. Obama is the first president who didn’t merely disappoint and fail to follow through on certain issues, but who fundamentally lied about who he was in the most basic sense, and about what he had planned (sometimes he was just vague; “hope and change” doesn’t tell you what the hope is for or what the change is to).
I challenge you to find a president who offered a more basic lie about the self than this one from Obama in 2008, for example:
The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m president of the United States of America.
I called it a lie. But it was not necessarily a lie, it may have been one of those cleverly ironic hidden Orwellian messages. From David Bernstein at Volokh:
Some foolish voters thought that Obama meant that the big problem was that George Bush was bringing more and more power into the executive branch and not go[ing] through Congress. In fact, Obama obviously meant that the big problem was George Bush bringing more and more power into the executive branch and not go[ing] through Congress. So Obama kept his promise. George Bush is no longer bringing more and more power into the executive branch and ignoring Congress. President Obama is.
Here’s another comment worth discussing:
Sometimes I think we give Obama too much credit. He wouldn’t be able to transform America if she hadn’t already been teetering on the edge. He was just the right guy at the right time. If he was as talented as people make him out to be, what he is doing wouldn’t be so obvious (to those not willfully blind).
My reply:
I completely agree that Obama took advantage of already-existing weaknesses, many of them the result of the left’s Gramscian march through our institutions (education, media, entertainment, religion, etc.).
But he is also politically brilliant, or at least very very smart. Politics is his focus and almost nothing else, and in that regard he has finessed his opposition nearly every time.
Even the 2014 election meant absolutely nothing to him in terms of his ability to wreak havoc. He has understood that a very audacious president can trump Congress every time unless they have the votes to override his veto. Most of the time when government is split and the president is one party and Congress another, Congress lacks a supermajority. Previous presidents in that position have been more interested than Obama in public opinion and catering to it, in part because of fear of impeachment, in part because they are patriots, in part because they care about the election prospects of fellow party members, in part because of fear of the press’s criticism. Obama has no such reservations, and thereby exposed a weakness in our entire system of government (a weakness the Founders realized was there, but which was unavoidable).
And by the way, what Obama is doing still doesn’t seem to be obvious to the majority of people, although they may have some vague sense of unease and disapproval. The rest approve, because they believe the ends justifies the means.
I think the last paragraph is spot on. This country will happily elect the means of its own destruction. In fact, you could say it already has, but Obama won’t be able to finish the job himself.
The thing I keep coming back to, and even before Gruber came along is that a country that could elect Obama twice has to be pretty stupid. The other option is evil, and I don’t believe the American electorate is evil.
Neo,
You said,
I say it’s further proof that perhaps John Gruber was correct.
You later said,
While I agree that Obama took advantage of a condition in our country that has been metastasizing for some time, I do not think he was brilliant. I see him as the front man who serves as the ‘face’ of a cause, organization, what have you.
He was a red diaper baby leftist who could also pass for black when he needed to. Obama had lots of help. More help than any previous candidate. The press had never gone in the tank for anyone like this. I am of the opinion that he could not have gotten even close to where he is, on his own.
Clinton, love him, hate him, was politically brilliant. He had the ability to be able to tell you to go to hell and have you anticipate the ride. Obama is clever, but nowhere near brilliant. Obama was just the perfect front man for the time. He is aloof, condescending, has a tin ear, and is a stiff necked ideologue.
After all, the left unsuccessfully ran the AlGore in 2000 and he lost, though just barely. Then they ran a phony war hero in 2004 and lost. So they pulled out all the stops, adopted the bro’s before ho’s approach, threw Hillary under the bus and ran Obama. As Biden said of him in the primaries leading up to the 2008 election, ” “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American presidential candidate who is articulate and bright and clean-cut and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man,” An the left used race to flog anybody who opposed him as racist. They still do.
While Obama has done a lot of damage – he has had plenty of help. He signed the ACA – he didn’t pass it, or write it, etc. He has legions of fellow travelers to assist him. All the judges, EEOC members, NLRB members, etc.
I don’t buy that he’s as brilliant as Valerie Jarrett and many say. There have been too many mistakes and miscalculations along with way. However, what he has is determination. Jimmy Carter did great damage, but I don’t think he was really trying. Obama is trying. He knows that the president should self limit out of respect for the country and follow the constitution. There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the administration that says “No, we can’t do that.” They say “who is going to stop us?” or “What are they going to do, impeach me.” Of course, the 4th Estate can be counted on to provide plenty of cover for him.
As you know neo, I responded to both those comments and had much the same thing to say. Since you just reiterated them, I’ll respond to some other points you make here.
“Some think he is also a closet Muslim, and that is part of it. I don’t know; that has never seemed quite right to me, although he does identify with Muslims because of his upbringing.”
I too don’t know and also agree as to his obvious sympathies. But I found this article persuasive that Obama’s allegiance to Islam may well extend beyond simple identification. Few in the West know of the Sunni doctrine of Muruna, which extends to behavior, rather than simply the lying and verbal obfuscation of Shia Islam’s ‘Taqiyya’.
That Indonesia Muslims are 99% Sunni, makes it likely that if Obama is a closet Muslim, he is a practitioner of Muruna. That would go far in explaining his animosity toward Israel, just as his paternal Kenyan familial background would explain his animosity toward the English.
However, I also think he’s more of a ideological leftist than anything else.
“I called it a lie. But it was not necessarily a lie”
No, it was a lie. Bernstein leaves out a critical line; “And that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m president of the United States of America.”
Regarding Obama’s apparent lack of care about the election prospects of fellow party members, I suspect he sees them as unavoidable collateral damage. If he can lay the framework for gaining citizenship for 35+ MILLION “undocumented” democrats, it’s game over and the left wins. Any ‘real’ leftist should be willing to sacrifice themselves to achieve that goal but if they aren’t willing, then Obama probably thinks they’re getting what they deserve.
Tim P. stole some of my thunder! If Obama was brilliant we’d have seen his school grades and test scores by now.
I agree with Tim P that Obama is not a brilliant politician in the way that Clinton was (is). But Clinton was playing the short game, which has natural constraints. Obama is playing the long game, and he (or somebody in the shadows behind him) is pretty brilliant at that.
It should have been a red flag for everybody in 2008 when Obama talked about a “Civilian national security force larger than the combined military.”
You must admit that Obama has certainly brought change. Our former allies now fear us and our former enemies sneer and ridicule us.
Ain’t that the truth.
It is a hell of a thing when it finally dawns on you that half of your everyday “friends” and plenty of shirttail relatives as well, are morally worthless at core – incapable of grasping virtually any operating principles at all beyond what imperatives drift to their attention as a result of the upwellling of their own more or less inchoate mental, and always unexamined, physical urges.
How did this country become so full of amoral grazing animals? Animals distinguished from the beasts in the field, mainly by their greater level of cleverness, and by a self-regarding cynicism no simple brute would be capable of.
They wish to “evolve” the entire life-world in the manner they would have it. And if that means selling you into a kind of bondage, then that is simply the price ‘they’ (irony flag) are willing to pay for progress. “Progress” here, being a synonym for their greater ease.
They’ll let you bible clingers worry about the ultimate right and the wrong of it.
Christians may get this reference: When I was a little boy I encountered a doctrine that announced,
… and I was never able to make sense of it.
The Church amplified this saying in no uncertain operational terms, declaring that the vast majority of pew sitters were likely themselves doomed.
Therein is contained a very alarming implication: that the vast majority of people participating in this “program” – and perhaps by extension most – are self-dealing frauds.
Could many of the acceptably behaving people whom I encountered on a daily basis really be cynics, hypocrites, pantomimes and opportunists masquerading as sincere, in the way that the principle hypothesizes?
Could it be that they were not only indifferent to the fate of others [which I could well enough understand] , but actively gaming the system in a way which they knew would exploit and harm others, if they figured they would gain from it?
What kind of mentality would be involved?
I figured, and figured most others figured as well that there is no reason to join and become a subversive, when you can stand outside, make your own way, and in most instances no harm is done to anyone.
Well, if I have not yet resolved the matter of the validity of the supernatural aspects of the paradigm, I now have no remaining doubt whatsoever that the stated implication for associative systems, for moral grouping themselves, is settled beyond a doubt.
I said Obama is brilliant at politics, or at least very smart. I did not say he is brilliant, period. Nor did I say he works alone. Of course he has backers and helpers.
Obama is an avatar, company rep of the Left. It’s the activist social movement, not the man. Over-focus on the man and your distraction will lose you the activist game from go.
Obama’s religion is self-worship. Anything that validates Obama is Good. Anything antithetical to Obama is Bad. It’s just that simple. Objective truths, constitutional imperatives, the Will of the People, prior contradictory statements, other peoples’ lives and livelihoods – none of that matters. All must be swept aside by Obama and his followers for the greater Obama good.
It’s a cult.
Obama has always gotten validation for spewing leftist cant and doing leftist deeds so that’s what he does. He doesn’t do and say this stuff because he actually wants to help people, promote peace, love, and understanding, or even to lead the nation to a better place. Does ANY leftist leader actually give a crap about the fate of the people or the nation? Those are just things you say to placate the peasants. Other leftist leaders remain in power for years and therefore can’t let the nation fail altogether. Obama does not have that problem. He’ll be leaving in 2 years and retiring to a well-compensated life of pompously lecturing the players on the field from the sidelines. As for his supposedly brilliant political skills, I say show me one original Obama political idea. ONE! It’s all recycled albeit amplified dishonest leftist hackery and cant. Delivered off a teleprompter. (Or in the middle of the night by Reid and Pelosi.) All perception, no substance. And it works (for certain people) because Obama is THE perfect poster child/spokesmodel for the leftist notions that our culture has been marinating in for years; a good looking black guy of reasonably above-average intelligence. This is the only reason why he has risen to and remained in power. He’s the left’s own personal Jesus. That’s why he was directed to Columbia, to community organizing (after a brief and soul-wrenching stint in the horrible very bad awful private sector a/k/a “hell”), and then promoted to Harvard Law and then on to politics (sneakishly winning early contests on procedural ploys and/or by disclosing his opponents’ private lives). That’s why the media protects him. That’s why his followers excuse his obvious lies, hypocrisy, and various excesses. That’s why Republicans worry about contradicting his will.
All by way of saying: I think you give Obama far too much credit, and not enough credit to the power of the cult.
On the plus side, I think (hope?) the number of die-hard believers is relatively small (though vocal and belligerent). I think a lot of people are simply not willing to tangle with these cultists and once their savior is out of power will not be eager to replace him with another “chosen one.”
ConceptJunkie: “The thing I keep coming back to, and even before Gruber came along is that a country that could elect Obama twice has to be pretty stupid. The other option is evil, and I don’t believe the American electorate is evil.”
DNW: “How did this country become so full of amoral grazing animals? … I now have no remaining doubt whatsoever that the stated implication for associative systems, for moral grouping themselves, is settled beyond a doubt.”
Stupid, evil, amoral … the American people is people. We The People today are no less and no more people than We The People at the Revolution and the Founding, at Union v Confederacy, at Manifest Destiny, and at the Greatest Generation.
Americans are not inherently America. It’s not genetic. Rather, shaping the general will, the zeitgeist, of We The People is a social function. It’s a sociological process. It’s activism, which is merely sociology weaponized, or said another way, “behavioral economics”:
http://facultyfiles.deanza.edu/gems/abrahamsmatt/HowObamaIsUsingTheScienceofC.pdf
Our nation was separated from England and founded by activists who won a nation through competition not only with the British but fellow Americans (loyalists). Throughout our history, beginning with the founders, America has been shaped by activists.
In that sense, the Left by being activist is merely being essentially American. If you lament the changes to We The People that are wrought by unlike-minded activists and blame them for being activist, you are lamenting and blaming the essence of America.
Whether you wish to the save the nation’s fundamentals or fundamentally change it, the requirement is the same: you must be an activist to compete for control of the general will. When you blame activists for winning the activist game, you should equally blame the people who concede the activist game to them by declining to compete in the only American social cultural/political game there is.
AMartel,
I lean in your direction. I doubt that there was a time in his life when Obama has not been made to feel special, starting with his mother’s tutoring him when he was young and hearing her berate her husband for associating with American businessmen. He has always milked his “special” background and he found plenty of people to tell him what he needed to hear. He may be above average in intelligence, but he has always had such an easy path that he never had to question anything. That is why he is so superficial and incoherent. He really believes that he and only he can save the world. All he has to do is sign Obamacare into law or re-establish relationships with Cuba. There is no need to look further into specifics. If his side is for it, that’s enough for him. Since he and his team protect him from any dissent, he just keeps on going.
I’m just wondering whether this Cuba deal is going to progress to a deal to cancel our lease on Guantanamo. Then he would have no alternative to releasing our prisoners, and it would all be for the good of the suffering Cubans.
I think someone knows exactly how to feed stuff to Obama so that he thinks he comes up with all these brilliant ideas.
“Why does he want revenge on the US? Dinesh D’Souza has a theory about anti-colonialism that may have some validity, but I’m not at all sure about that one either…”
People want to rationalize away evil. I don’t think it can be done. To call it anti-colonialism is to justify and rationalize it. Fact is – he just hates and he likes to be powerful and he enjoys seeing people suffer. He is truly truly truly a disciple of Rev Wright He is the first and only “God damn America” President.
But on a broader note, people are generally wicked and bad. All of us. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” – Jeremiah.
The fatal conceit of the contemporary world is that we began to actually think and believe that we were not also corrupt and rotten. That is almost funny. Anyone who glanced at headlines in a paper would say otherwise.
Politics is just a field where the run-of-the-mill wicked and evil souls like Obama can do a great deal of damage because of the power.
He is not more evil than other people. He is simply evil like other people.
Problem is he is diabolically motivated and he’s the President.
The only good news? He will destroy the vehicle for power that allows him to perpetrate his wicked deeds. The Presidency – after DeR Obamafurher – will be weaker and less able to harm.
For someone who “isn’t” a Muslim, his early backers and the people who funded his time at Harvard Law are very peculiar.
http://www.newsmax.com/KenTimmerman/obama-sutton-saudi/2008/09/03/id/339914/
AMartel; expat:
These are the brilliant—or at least very smart—political skills I’ve seen.
(1) His ability to mouth Orwellian lies and get away with it. I’ve never seen this before in any major politician in America. Prior to Obama, I would have thought it very difficult to pull off. What it consists of I don’t know; some say a kind of hypnosis, some say it has to do with his voice or his race or whatever. But whatever it is about, he has it and knows how to use it very very effectively.
(2) He knows exactly how much to push. Not so much to create a backlash in his own party strong enough to harm him. Just enough.
(3) He knows how to use race, racism, and racial animus to further himself while seeming (to most people, anyway) to be above race.
(4) He knows how to use the legal system to challenge eligibility of his political opponents and knock them out of contention (and has from the start—re Alice Palmer).
(5) He knows how to use the press and the legal system to unseal private court records to smear his opponents and knock them out of contention (Jack Ryan and Blair Hull).
(6) He knows how to intimidate the press.
(7) He knows how to cover his tracks and deny involvement (“I just read about it in the press”) and convince a huge number of people that he’s innocent.
(8) But most of all (as this post indicates), he is master at covering up who he is and what his intentions are. Most people still do not understand what’s going on with Obama in that respect.
I believe those are all very special political skills. I see a strong intelligence working behind them. That does not mean there is anything the least bit good about what he’s doing or why. Nor does it mean he works alone. But as I’ve said for a long long time, we underestimate him at our own peril.
Neo,
You said, “I said Obama is brilliant at politics, or at least very smart. I did not say he is brilliant, period.”
Agreed, I for one wasn’t implying that you said he was brilliant, period.
I was trying to say that I do not think he is even smart politically.
If he were, he would have done a much better job of selling us this socialist snake oil considering the legions of fellow travelers he has in the media, academia, and elsewhere.
I think, he is a true believer in the worst Hopperian sense of the word. He is also determined. It is his life’s work.
He was able to ram Obama care through because he had a 71 seat majority in the senate and and overwhelming majority in the house in the first two years of his first administration. And it still almost didn’t make it.
You also said, ” Nor did I say he works alone. Of course he has backers and helpers.”
Again I for one did not think you did not know that, obviously.
What I do think though is that the over the top help he has received is unprecedented. Almost cult like.
I sense the feverish activity on the left is born either of either desperation, or they think they are on the home stretch to victory. I also think the left thinks that their moment is now, or never. Hence the desperation and proverbial blitzkrieg of action. Since his 2012 re-election and especially since his 2014 electoral repudiation.
Unfortunately given the corrupt and degenerate state of our political, academic, and media class, he has no real opposition and may just succeed.
Tim P:
Did you see this comment of mine?
He doesn’t have to make everyone agree with him. He doesn’t even have to make the majority agree with him. He merely had to get elected, then re-elected, then power it through. He has been remarkably successful at all of that, and if amnesty etc. works, he will end up with a majority of leftists here and a basic transformation of the country into his leftist vision.
A final thought about the Obaminations our country is being subjected to, based on the wisdom of Banjamin Franklin, before I open up a bottle of Courvoisier and sit down to watch No Country For Old Men (Highly recommended. I’ve been on a big Cormac McCarthy reading binge and now want to see some of the movies made from his books).
After the Constitutional Convention was completed, A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Thanks to our political class, it appears we are being sold out. Let’s ask John Gruber and John Boehner about it.
Mr. Franklin is also quoted as saying, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. ”
Well, we’ve certainly fallen from that standard haven’t we?
“I think with you, that nothing is of more importance for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are in my opinion, the strength of the state; more so than riches or arms.”
Look at the state of public education today, and what passes for culture & public discourse, and weep.
“Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.”
That, the left violently disputes and is one of the reasons they feel they must destroy God. If freedom is not an inalienable right, then it’s just something to be negotiated and the ‘good of society’ will logically (in their minds) trump individual freedom.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.”
And finally,
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
Something to which I fear we will have to not just ‘talk the talk’ on, but may well have to ‘walk the walk’ on.
It is hard to argue that the American electorate, in the aggregate, is not stupid. On the other hand I know very intelligent, very accomplished people who support his agenda. I know some of them very well because, they grew up in my household, and we share genes.
I have tried very hard to fathom their thinking. Now, I know that much of their political thinking is not based on rational thought. It is emotional; and it stems from big heartedness. Illegal immigrants, welfare Queens, homeless folk, they all just desperately need help. Who else can/will help but the government? They even accept that means the individual tax payer. But, we have so much, and their needs are so heart wrenching.
Once you buy into that, the rest comes almost naturally. Small government Republicans are cold hearted. They also equate to “Corporate America”. Obama means well; but he is thwarted.
As already noted; the other prong is the educational system. I have had occasion in the past several months to have fairly serious discussions with two grand daughters for projects exploring personal experiences with 20th century history; since I have lived my share of it. One young woman is an honors high school senior; the other is a graduating college senior. Their ignorance was astounding. Keep in mind we were discussing the historical events during my life span; i.e. 79 years. It is not only a disgrace; it is a monumental problem when our brightest youngsters really have no idea of how we fit into the world. Just one example; they were amazed at the story of the “Berlin Airlift”. To most of us it is simply one exemplary example of generosity, courage, and ingenuity–one of many. To them it was a revelation.
Neo,
I just saw your latest comment.
I agree with you.
But he was only able to do it by virtue of the huge amount of help he received from the media.
I still maintain he’s not brilliant, or even especially smart.
Look how he stumbles when his teleprompter isn’t there and he has to think on his feet. (i.e. 1st debate with Romney)
It’s just that I think he’s only the front man.
We are not seeing the ‘real’ powers behind him.
Just as an actor cannot be credited lines.
Simply the delivery.
Being a good liar requires more cunning and scheming calculation than genuine intelligence.
Have you noticed that the GOP establishment is in favor of many of the unilateral actions taken by Obama? They make noises like they oppose these actions but then they cover for Obama. What about that Benghazi report? Immigration reform? Are they really going after Obama for the IRS scandal?
The dems and the GOP progressives (including Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush) are both against the tea party. Why? Because the tea party is for real reform: limited gov’t.
The key players think that they can actually roll this ball forward — forever.
Such is cowardice.
I think we can all agree that obama is a world-class con man with bottomless hostility towards us and our nation. I think is is brilliant at the con — he’s a lot slicker than Slick Willie, and I’ve never seen him sweat. Intellectual? no. I think that professor in Chicago had him pegged: he’s real good at “seeming” intellectual.
Anyway. Our basic problem is that power tends to accrue; agglutinate. People who have it don’t want to let it go, and it corrupts them, ineluctably. America is the most powerful nation in the history of the world.
Think about that for a minute: That one fact means that no human devilment is off the table. Men will do anything — anything — to get their hands on that much wealth and power. Think of what you know of history, and the horrors and atrocities men have committed in order to attain even a small fraction of the prize that is America.
Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.
So how do we prise the grasping fingers of the powerful off the throttle? Will they release it voluntarily? I say never, alas. That’s why I’m also none too sanguine about Mark Levin’s idea of having a constitutional convention: the people we would need to get onboard with it are the very ones who would lose power if it succeeded.
It’s a dilemma, all right. A good friend of mine, a Protestant Christian, says we need to have another Great Awakening in order to find the strength to walk away from the abyss, and I’m coming to believe that she’s right.
Neo,
I don’t disagree with you about Obama’s skills. I just think that his lack of coherence means that his aims are all about him, not about a carefully thought out set of principles. He loves to feel his power when he deceives and manipulates people. And he surrounds himself with people who protect him from ever having to question what he is doing. The cool thing keeps many of his supporters in line, be they blacks or Upper West Side artsy crafties.
He is the very charismatic leader of the Church of Obama.
What has evil ever wanted? To build for the sake of building or to destroy things for the sake of destroying them? Entropy or Creation? Balance or Imbalance? Ourobus welfare?
expat:
It’s not mutually exclusive.
Obama is a leftist ideologue AND a narcissist for whom it’s mostly about him. It’s just not ALL about him. It’s about him as the one person who can bring about the leftist ideal in the US because (in his mind and that of others) he’s such a charismatic genius.
I am immune to his charisma. And I don’t think he’s a genius. But as I’ve said before, I think he’s very smart about what’s important to him: attracting fawning admirers, pushing the envelope to more and more abuse of power, and advancing the leftist agenda (although not necessarily by convincing people that leftist ways are best; just by entrenching leftist power).
Really quite brilliant work by neo.
And there is in-fighting and no leader on the Right. Paul is a show-off and many other senators hate Ted Cruz because he made them work on Saturday or something.
Only immediate hope is with a federal judge in Brownsville, Texas on the immigration executive “memo.”
Clinton and Obama are incompetent at politics. They benefit from a media vanguard that covers from them at every turn.
Christie is supposed to be ruined by traffic jams he didn’t cause. Obama and Clinton have genuine scandals that number in the dozens. Brilliant politicians simply don’t screw up so royally so often.
Obama was the idiot who endangered the lives of schoolchildren and evicted elderly during the shutdown. An honest media would have sliced him into little pieces. The examples are endless.
for them
stan:
There is no question the partisan press is extremely instrumental in Obama’s ability to get what he wants. They are a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to his success.
He is also very good at politics, but not in the conventional sense. I’ve already listed how he does it, so I won’t repeat myself here.
People good at politics don’t f*** up massively on a regular basis. They just don’t.
People good at politics vote on legislation. They meet with other politicians. They maintain lines of communication. They make a minimal effort to check up of the stuff they are responsible for. They don’t regularly lie about stupid things that come back to bite them — especially when the lies aren’t necessary to accomplish goals. People who are good at politics don’t make all the brain dead stupid mistakes that Clinton and Obama have made.
Because if the news media didn’t cover for them, their political careers would have been over long before we ever heard of them. If you make such stupid mistakes that you political career would be over but for the corruption of the news media, you aren’t good at politics.
Stan:
“People good at politics don’t f*** up massively on a regular basis. They just don’t.”
I don’t know. If you know the media’s got your back, why bother reaching out? Why bother telling the truth? Those things take effort, after all, and if you know that you won’t suffer any consequences for misgovernment, you might as well just take the easier option.
stan:
I see that we have a different definition of “politics.” You are not thinking outside the box, but Obama is.
You keep assuming that Obama is thinking. I haven’t seen any evidence of it. Seriously. I haven’t seen any evidence that he does any thinking. And lots and lots of evidence that he is incompetent and foolish.
Just because a lot of people are working incredibly hard to pull his brain dead form over the finish line doesn’t mean he’s the orchestra leader.
Barack Obama isn’t a Muslim. If he acts like it, it’s part of his “Hate America” schtick. He’s not a Christian, either; anybody who could sleep through 20 years worth of Jeremiah Wright’s racist sermons couldn’t possibly be Christian.
The facts are clear; he’s a Communist, like his mother and grandparents before him. He believes in nothing beyond himself.
Neo, are you hinting that Obama is a shape-shifter like Proteus? If so, the image of Jamie Gumb in Silence of the Lambs comes to mind.
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mchenrybob said:
“It should have been a red flag for everybody in 2008 when Obama talked about a “Civilian national security force larger than the combined military.””
Being “Red Diaper Baby” myself turned constitutional conservative when I grew up, I knew who Obama was when he first opened his mouth. All of the indicators of Gramiscian Marxism are there. Every. One.
You all thought he said:
“Hope & Change”
He really said:
“Rope & Chains”
Here’s some of Obama’s brilliant politics, from this morning’s Drudge Report Headlines,
That kind of renders this quote inoperative, ” He knows how to use race, racism, and racial animus to further himself while seeming (to most people, anyway) to be above race.”
From Byron York, “In Cuba deal, why did Obama back down on political prisoners?
From Variety, ” How Obama Took Sony’s Crisis From Bad to Worse.”
Again, statements like this,“He knows exactly how much to push. Not so much to create a backlash in his own party strong enough to harm him. “, are really rather moot in the face of present events.
No, Obama is not, was not, and will never be brilliant, or even very smart. As I and others have said, Obama was carried to his present position on the backs and by the sweat of others. One only need to see how often he goes on vacation, or golfing to discern his work ethic.
He is the front man and the fall guy. He will ultimately be the one who will receive the blame for this mess. The real culprits, those who got him into his present position will vanish like fog.
Tim P:
Do you think Democrats, liberals, leftists, are blaming Obama? When last I checked, Giuliani et al were Republicans.
I have yet to see any Democrats blaming Obama. I suppose there might be one or two, but I haven’t seen them, and I certainly have seen nothing of any magnitude. I’d be curious to see some links if you have them.
I haven’t seen any evidence of it. Seriously.
Next thing you’ll say is that you haven’t seen any evil either.
You still think his goal is some kind of compromise or “good of America” BS, like the rest of the sheep.