Obama’s negotiating style
Is it possible that Obama thinks that agreements have some worth in and of themselves, irrespective of what’s in them? I think so.
Obama has spent nearly his entire life as a Potemkin (cargo cult) achiever and leader. Even when he was a young man, people unaccountably told themselves on meeting him: “This man could be president—and this man should be president.” On first meeting him, many Americans seemed to have felt much the same thing, although he had no record of political achievement except winning elections and making speeches in a sonorous baritone.
Obama is accustomed to casting a spell—a spell to which I’m oblivious, but which I’ve seen demonstrated convincingly. He is used to being lauded for producing absolutely nothing of value.
So why should he not think he can get away with presenting America and the world with some sort of non-binding, not-yet-agreed-on “deal” with Iran as a great accomplishment and have people believe him? It may even be that by June nothing more definite will have been decided but that he’ll declare an even more wonderful interim agreement and then kick the can further down the road.
What’s more, by the time Iran actually gets a nuclear weapon and demonstrates that this is the case, a Republican administration could be in power and can be blamed for it. Obama has never had to face any consequences from his lies and missteps and outright betrayals so far, except for the loss of Congress in 2014, a setback he seems to have weathered quite creatively by going around them.
So what’s the downside for him in the Iran deal? I really don’t see one. The only downside would be if Congress decided to impeach and convict him as a result, and let’s have a show of hands on how many people believe that will happen.
[ADDENDUM: Richard Fernandez has some thoughts which are somewhat related:
While the president may vaunt America’s strength it is equally apparent that by almost any measure, that strength has been declining ever since he set foot in office.
He is like an aristocrat who inherited a great fortune and done nothing but lose money at cards since he assumed the title, spending his hours presenting the high presence when not busy at golf. Now, even as he boasts of his still considerable wealth, Obama appears to remain carelessly indifferent to the foes who have driven him out of Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. He is going to play against the same people who beat him in the past, yet without taking any special precautions, is confident of victory this time.
Why? Perhaps Friedman should have asked the president, “besides America strength, which you did not create, from where else do you derive your confidence? Is there some success you’re not telling us about?” We will be assured that these successes exist in abundance in some secret archive, though under seal together with his school records. We’ll have to take it on faith, What Jaffe called “the limits of the administration’s approach” are after all the limits of Obama’s mind. And the limits of that mind are a closely guarded secret…
If Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Syria are any guide, Obama’s “model” nuclear agreement may be a similar bust. Even the fact that he never ceases to talk about the glittering possibilities of that “once in a lifetime deal” with Iran is vaguely disturbing, reminiscent of those people who are almost stock characters who prattle on about some “sure thing” ”” a gold mine, undervalued stock, perpetual motion machine or some Nigerian bank transfer ”” they learned about down at the corner, eagerly pawning their property and borrowing all the money they can to make the Big Bet. These are people who in reality about to be taken to the cleaners, cheated, or rolled in the ditch when they leave the building. It is, as I have written elsewhere, almost too painful to watch.
At the moment, Fernandez seems to be leaning heavily on the “fool” argument.]
Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I’ve heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence…. OBAMA’S GIFT.
Note: nothing to do with Chauncey Gardner, all to do with the beholders …
OBAMA’S GIFT.
given we dont include the facts below, what we will mostly talk about here will be fantasy… it certainly cant be real if the facts are left out and not included, and it cant be meaningful if that is true either. about all it can be is masturbatory pleasure obtained by pretending to talk about critical things… but not really… since any critical converstation MUST include the salient facts…
and not one point above in neos post has the salient facts!!!!!!!! we ignore the facts we dont like then have fantasy discussions… no less fantasy than “hands up dont shoot”… how did that fantasy help conversation?
He is just helping the winners of the new world order. he has been on their team since before birth… when his parents met in a russian language class, fought for a soviet world, and made a red diaper baby groomed for the roles he may play later on…
shhhh… we cant discuss that stuff… only the party line is allowed… we cant discuss that he has coordinated his move with the country that has fund more terrorism, started more terrorism, refined the practice of terrorism, enabled terrorism, and more…
and is ignored for it because we dont talk about it in detail (meanwhile that same country is gearing its people up for war with the US… )
The Russian Roots of Terrorism
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-russian-roots-of-terrorism/
that kind of blows most of what we discuss here, as most of what is discussed pretends the soviets and their contributions never happened!!!!!!!!!!
think about it… when we talk obama and Iran, do we talk that russia has been building their nuclear system, protecting them in the UN, feeding them supplies ignoring sanctions, and pretty much run the islamic jihad business?
of course not… why would we discuss the truth of things and read the records providing that truth, and discuss real facts? better to ignore 90% of the story, and pretend its Au Natural… like everything else… schools are bad, and the CPUSA and bella dodd running the teachers union and all that favoring the soviets over the long haul isnt relevant… why? cause if you DO talk about it then what? you ahve to confront it… better to let them annex countries and start a world war rather than discuss it and halt their progress from the get go… right?
and not only that, but they have a large section of our country ready to fight its own people to make the soviet rule the rulers…
[edited for length by n-n]
Kicking the can down the road?
Um, no, I don’t think so.
If all goes to plan, there will be no can to kick and no road.
And no kicker.
If all goes to plan.
(True, plans have a tendency to go awry, especially if one has a tendency to tell all lies, all the time…. But methinks we’re going to have to get very, very lucky to dodge this particular bullet.)
@g6loq
The problem with great oratory is that you must fullfill. Churchill had great oratory, but he won a war. Obama´s legacy is terrible. One of the things people hate the most is to feel they were fooled. I bet that Obama will become one of the most hated presidents in US history, specially by future Democrats.
And US still can´t suspect how terrible is his legacy (and Bush´s) gonna be. From here, in Europe, US has become unreliable, erratic, inane, not trustworthy. I don´t think US will be able to recover the influence once had over western world.
We have heard repeatedly about Americans and Europeans fighting for ISIL, but little attention is being devoted to the Russian-speaking foreign fighters that make up the group. Their numbers are estimated at 500 or more. Omar al-Shishani is usually described as a prominent Islamic State fighter who is Chechen. In fact, he was born in the former Soviet republic of Georgia and was trained there.
so are we trying to figure out Obamas negotiating style given the soviet protections he gets from the press corps? the soviet deals he is making behind the scenes and avoiding doing anything about their people?
want to know why we are not doing much for ISIL? cause obama is in russias back pocket from before birth, and that he wont use american forces and strength to negate russian strength.
so if russia wants isil to topple a country, let them…
this has nothing to do with his negotiating style because behind that stuff is the huge created soviet machine that controls the press and lots of other places..
in fact, we cant talk about the sources of the press favoring communism and soviet games and ISIL… but they are just following the party line like communists did last century when we were at least brave enough to mention they exist…
now we are too afraid to have that honest discussion
which means that any dicussion we have that ignores those facts, and the facts of who is running the ISIL stuff, and who is supplying them with weapons, and so on.
why is Russia opposed to U.S. bombing of these terrorists? NBC News reports that the Russian foreign minister says airstrikes “should only go forward with Syria’s consent.”
and Obama obeys… his behaivior makes perfect sense IF you include russia and soviets… it makes no sense if you dont… giving one the entertaining game of who can make up a story, negate russia, and make it sound real enough it becomes real int he publics mind
It is indeed fascinating that ISIL has been targeting Americans and that the state-run Russian media, always anxious to label the freedom fighters in Ukraine as Nazis or fascists, are not rallying the Russian people for action against ISIS. Why?
cause they wont bomb their own people?
and since we wont talk about their people being there, and pretend otherwise, we cant talk about anything real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
imagine trying to explain how a car works but not being able to discuss an engine… the thing that makes it go…
thats what our talks are like as we ignore the engine of the russian games of the past 50 years… ignore their troops taking over states… ignore their spies… ignore their press games… ignore their people in high places reporting to us… ignore their threatening nuclear war… ignore their funding terrorists… ignore their siding with them… ignore their coordinating things within our state with people that side with them, and are in the state department… ignore they managed to remove all anti communist laws… ignore that we are so soviet that we discuss that, but not how its induced from such games…
just ignore the truth, discuss the high points, make up crap about why its the way it is, and negate one of the largest budget items in the largest countries as having any meaning and their work always amounts to nothing… isnt that the party line on the NSA, CIA, etc?
we have talked about beheadings in the middle east
why did we not talk about the beheading in oklahoma?
A beheading in Oklahoma: Was it terrorism or workplace violence?
In the aftermath of tragedy, the residents of Moore don’t want to be drawn into a politically charged debate
http://news.yahoo.com/oklahoma-beheading–terrorism-or-workplace-violence-184638839.html
As horrified employees watched, Nolen, a 30-year-old production line worker with a criminal history, savagely sawed at Hufford’s throat with a large kitchen knife he had gone home to retrieve, severing her head.
Nolen then went after Traci Johnson, a 43-year-old co-worker, viciously slashing her face and her throat in an attempt to decapitate her, too. But his bloody rampage came to an abrupt end when he was shot and wounded by the company’s top executive
oh yeah….. this became an avoid the implications, avoid the facts and completely bury it as a citizen with a gun halted the jihadi… also, like the fort attacks, claim its workplace violence…
how clever are they to get even neo to avoid the conversation on it?
“He didn’t like white people,” Cleveland County District Attorney Greg Mashburn said at a press conference last week While the FBI says it has found no links so far between Nolen and the Islamic State or other extremist groups, there is little doubt he sympathized with their cause. Nolen, who had recently converted to Islam while serving time in prison for drug and assault charges, posted long anti-American screeds to his Facebook page, where he was listed under the name Jah’Keem Yisrael.
its like they say “these are not the droids your looking for”, and voila… no one looks
Artfldgr:
Of course Obama has plans, strategies, and goals.
This is just for if it doesn’t work out quite as he has planned—and also how he could present a “deal” to the American people without revealing his plans and goals. He believes he can get away with just about anything.
Obama does not have plans strategies and goals…
this is the difference between a collective and individuals
individuals have such, collectives execute others plans
of course you never got that part of the stuff i keep posting… you would rather analyse them as if they are like you, but your not a collectivist… you follow your own path, they dont… this is how they are coordinated, but never linked… the movement defines the plan and they execute it.
you did not take to heart the catechism of the revolutionary… did you? it explains this part, and of course, analysis without getting this right is worthless.
which is why we are losing…
you think that they are the same as you
that they have individual goals, and wants…
they dont… they live for the party and collective
they follow the collective wants, and the leaders
they do not have to think or be great, they only have to follow the formula, do what they know they have to, and be protected by a million others doing the same collective thing…
the VERY FIRST POINT of the chatechism of this religion is:
The revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no personal interests, no business affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property, and no name. Everything in him is wholly absorbed in the single thought and the single passion for revolution.
so that would mean that obama has no personal strategies… to have such is to be an enemy of the collective..
if your hand had a personal strategy of how to behave, would you consider it a part of your body? if it grabbed things and you could not control it, and it had its own goals and ignored you and your goals, would you still call it a part of you?
your body is a collective of cells….
the minute one has its own initiative, its own goals, its no longer part of the collective, no longer part of the plan, no longer on the side of the body politic…
the document has lots and lots of explanations that fit whats going on, but so far, in years, i have seen no on APPLY THE KNOWLEGE…
the reason they win is because of this collective coordinated action… it would be the difference between a ballet dancer doing a fouette and a person with a spastic condition trying to do fouettes.
This is just for if it doesn’t work out quite as he has planned–and also how he could present a “deal” to the American people without revealing his plans and goals. He believes he can get away with just about anything.
everything is him… not the people informing him, guiding him, training him… but all him.
a soldier is a free will person who does what they want, right? a collectivist is an individual who acts out their personal things, right?
your not getting the essential part of this.
he has no beliefs… no personal goals… he can turn on a dime if given the order… he can destroy his own people… he can start nuclear war.
he is not responsible for any of it…
he is just following the plan and orders and stuff of others
which is number 2 in the catechism
The revolutionary knows that in the very depths of his being, not only in words but also in deeds, he has broken all the bonds which tie him to the social order and the civilized world with all its laws, moralities, and customs, and with all its generally accepted conventions. He is their implacable enemy, and if he continues to live with them it is only in order to destroy them more speedily.
he has broken all the bonds with the state and peoples he is acting on… he is clear headed.. harbors zero romance…
The revolutionary despises all doctrines and refuses to accept the mundane sciences, leaving them for future generations. He knows only one science: the science of destruction. For this reason, but only for this reason, he will study mechanics, physics, chemistry, and perhaps medicine. But all day and all night he studies the vital science of human beings, their characteristics and circumstances, and all the phenomena of the present social order. The object is perpetually the same: the surest and quickest way of destroying the whole filthy order.
The revolutionary despises public opinion. He despises and hates the existing social morality in all its manifestations. For him, morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way.
[edited for length by n-n]
Yann: “…how terrible his legacy (and Bush’s) gonna be.” O & B similar in ANY way??!! Oy.
One note on the true giant, Sir Winston: His grateful nation voted his party(and, therefore him)out of office literally while he attended the Potsdam Conference with Truman and Stalin in the summer of ’45 shortly after Germany’s surrender yet before Japan’s. The new Labour PM Clement Atlee took Churchill’s seat at that table. Ahhhhhhhh…Gratitude.
(*Not unlike the use of Obama and George W. Bush in the same comparable way. A Vast Testicular Concavity and pathological Liar & Narcissist vs. a strong, steady, forthright, warrior-leader respected and trusted by our friends and allies and Respected & FEARED Big-Time by our enemies and potential enemies. Duuuuuuhhhhhhh..*)
Artfldgr:
Who said Obama’s goals are completely individual? Nothing I said precludes the ideas that Obama’s plans, goals, and strategies are in line with those of the left, or of another world power.
Obama & Bush comparable ?!?!
Euro idiocy is alive & well !
“Since I lived and worked in high ‘orbit,’ including the highest — in the Politburo under Gorbachev — I knew very well that all these Marxist-Leninist … theories and plans were nonsense.” Alexander Yakovlev head of the CPSU Department of Ideology and Propaganda from 1969 to 1973
“I realized that Marxism-Leninism is not a science, but at the very best it is just bad journalism — cannibalistic and self-mutilating.” – Yakovlev The black book of communism
“When my friends [in the Czech Communist government] and I studied the Strategic Plan our initial reactions were identical: we considered it quite unrealistic…. “ Gen. Jan Sejna
this was an illusion. Once Sejna had defected to the West, and saw how the Americans had no counter-strategy whatsoever, he wrote: “I could find no unity, no consistent objective or strategy among Western countries. It is not possible to fight the Soviet system and strategy with small tactical steps. For the first time I began to believe that the Soviet Union would be able to achieve her goals — something I had not believed in Czechoslovakia.”
you have not bothered to actually study things in their terms, and not project your ideas upon it…
let me know how familiar this is..
think Jarret, Obama, Sheila Jackson Lee
Instead of focussing on Western stupidity, Yakovlev saw the whole Soviet system maintained by idiots. To be more precise, he divided the Party elite of the Soviet Union into three categories:
(1) the intelligent (hiding in the shadows)
(2) the stupid (all 57 states)
(3) the very stupid.
“We publicly ‘prayed’ to those idols of ours with ritualistic ‘holiness,’ but always kept our true beliefs to ourselves.”
i am amazed that Neo never read about Yakovlev… he was a changer too… but so far i see Neo only covers recent changers… not soviet heads of propaganda, who had great lives, power, etc… and changed… we cover people like mamet… a playwrite, who served the collective till he didnt.
but what about all the other changers i listed… much more interesting to ask what would make a head of some major area of the state defect… a changer…
War is the “conscious policy of the highest authority” in Russia – Nemtsov (assasinated)
Gorbachev was following a plan, conceived years earlier, to salvage Soviet Communism through controlled liberalization. When reproached with difficulties that later occurred during the execution of this plan, Gorbachev told his colleagues that it wasn’t his fault. How could it be? He had merely followed the two-hundred plus documents outlining the steps already worked out in advance.
see? no responsiblitiy..
[edited for length]
“So what’s the downside for him in the Iran deal? I really don’t see one.”
I agree completely with Neo here.
If there is a leftist Democrat president when Iran builds their first bomb, that will work to his advantage in his efforts to dismantle the United States. The weaker we are the more excuses he will have to capitulate to militant Islam. If by some miracle a Republican wins, then the left will be much better off since Iran will serve them as a powerful ally which shares their goal to advance Islam and to diminish the USA.
Russian Internet holding company, Digital Sky, grabbed 1.96% of Facebook stock in May of 2009 when it spent $200 million at a $10 billion valuation.
For people with money in the Russian investment company DST Global, the focus is social networking.
But DST’s additional $50 million now raises it and its sister company’s combined investment in Facebook to more than $500 million. As a result of their earlier investments, they now own about 10 percent of the company, making the DST siblings among Facebook’s biggest owners.
so the success of facebook and such is a coordinated effort of the owner selling out to the soviets. they now know who you are, what your sexual proclivities are, whether you get along with momma, if your an anti comnmunist, and on and on… including the key information for elites, and so on
its not hard to imagine that so many of the famous people we disparage may have gotten visits in which the KGB explained to them that if they dont do X, then their careers are going to be halted… one way or another. so sean penn may not be a communist, he may be a very scared person who cant bring up what happened to him as no liberal would believe such!!!!
When DST, previously known as Digital Sky Technologies, first started putting money into Facebook in 2009, some analysts chalked it up to an effort by novice Russian investors to burnish their technology credentials and gain entree to Silicon Valley. But DST, which is bankrolled by a coal and steel mogul with Kremlin ties, has placed some ambitious, and so far successful, bets.
imagine that… he pays, and the russian government makes sure he succeeds and the leaders make huge fortunes…
hey… isnt obama doing the same with berkshire hathaway? care to look up how much DST has of that?
It now owns about 5 percent of the popular online gaming company Zynga and about 5 percent of the prominent shopping-coupon company Groupon. And it is said to be interested in investing in another privately held phenomenon, Twitter.
you too can be successful, just follow the FSB/KGB/ etc
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/russians-large-stake-in-facebook-grows-larger/
There’s a distinctly Iran-boosting pattern in Obama’s record:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/obama-iraq-116708.html#.VSQFyrt0x0s
Out here in California, Governor Moonbeam is declaring that we need gov’t imposed and monitored water rationing and that and(surprise, tres surprise) and that man made”Climate Change” is “settled science” and “scientific consensus”. Our current drought is man made, don’t you know, blah-blah-blah. Accidentally Jerry-the-Genius did get some of that nonsense right. Reservoirs, aqueducts and unhindered access to water for crop growing in our lush-rich-fertile San Juaquin Valley have been vastly hindered, limited and sabotaged by the environmentalists and their gov’t/bureaucratic lackies for decades. Business have been vanishing from our Nutter Paradise and settling roots in other states for many years now. All of this a dandy microcosm of what Mr. Obama and his idiotic koolaid swillers want nationwide.
Beyond horrific.
Oh, and Yann: Obama and G.W.Bush as legacies alike? That planet you populate must be a very whiskey laden place.
Obama does indeed believe that agreements have intrinsic worth, independent from real world confirmation.
Obama is ideologically opposed to using military force against Iran for any reason. But he knows that to be the only method that will actually stop the Mullahs. All that leaves is delay and appeasement.
The appeasement he offers is a dropping of sanctions for a formal, written but intentionally vague promise to delay. All Obama wants is to leave office before the Iranians announce that they have the bomb. Thus the need for delay. Then he’ll be free to accept huge speaking fees, ghost-write a few books and lobby for the UN Secretary post. The sole duty of which will be giving speeches, providing him the platform (no term limits) from which to lecture the world…
A secondary consideration for Obama is that he is in favor of anything that assists America’s ‘chickens coming home to roost’. And, nuclear terrorist attacks are the biggest of ‘chickens’ that can come home to roost.
Artfldgr,
It always comes back to the Russians for you doesn’t it? They’re certainly bad guys but Putin and his cabal are not leading a vast-Marxist conspiracy against the West. Nor are Western Marxist/Progressives all ‘collectivists’ without individual motivations. Your theories are flawed because they fail to distinguish between theory and the real world of human nature. Marxists are certainly employing their tactics and strategy, ala Alinsky but the Left is not ruled by a collective Russian SPECTRE.
“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” Winston Churchill
“Obama is accustomed to casting a spell–a spell to which I’m oblivious, but which I’ve seen demonstrated convincingly. He is used to being lauded for producing absolutely nothing of value.”
I, too, seemed to be oblivious and always wondered who could have been “seduced” by him – and twice no less.
Well, today, for the first time I actually met a white person who has been “seduced” by him.
I’ve met plenty of black folks who still think highly of him; but, that is more of a racial solidarity thing than any real admiration for his accomplishments – other than pulling one over on the “man.” I’ve also met plenty of white folks who voted for him and thought highly of him; but, they now keep their mouths shut.
But, this woman just raved about what wonderful things he has done (Obamacare) and now the deal with Iran! Wonderful!
And then, she very quickly turned the topic to who might be the next president contender from the Republicans. Cruz is, in her words: “Just, well, too Republican“
Republican said as if it was a dirty word or something.
And how dare he (Cruz) try to get rid of Obamacare when he uses it himself.
I didn’t counter any of what she said – she is a new co-worker and the boss (who seems to hate men) just loves her.
Good Grief! What an eye-opener for me.
This ‘deal’ is the 21st Century equivalent of the emperor’s new clothes-with the toadies and sycophants ‘seeing’ how good it is…even though most of those with any discernment at all have recognized the administration has been ‘naked’ for 6 years!
“Fernandez seems to be leaning heavily on the “fool” argument.”
We always seem to have the “knave or fool” argument and I will say once again that people seem to vastly underestimate the extent to which Obama can be a knave *and* a fool. I think some people are afraid that if they say he is a fool they are somehow mitigating how much of a knave he is. I don’t think his foolishness reduces his knavery an iota.
He is not stupid but he is very shallow. He never ran anything before he became President and still does not have a clue about leadership except to give his emptily pretentious speeches. He has no plans, only schemes. He makes it up as he goes along, especially in foreign policy. He gets away with it because the MFM has abandoned all pretense at journalism to serve as his obsequious bootlicking toadies.
FOAF:
I’ve written quite a few times that I think he is both.
However, one or the other can predominate, or seem more destructive. I think “knave” both predominates and is more destructive.
And, as I’ve often said, I think he’s fairly smart. One can be smart and a fool,smart and a knave, or smart and both.