Knave/fool redux: back in March of 2009…
…Richard Epstein, who had known Obama at the University of Chicago, had Obama’s number to a great extent.
At the time, Epstein was also one of the few people who could be said to have “known” Obama at all, although one of the main points Epstein was making was that Obama was excellent at making himself unknowable and presenting a controlled mask in most of his interactions.
It wasn’t the first time Epstein had criticized Obama, either; he hadn’t waited till Obama was elected to spill the Obama beans. But I guess not enough people were listening.
Epstein’s description of Obama in the following excerpt dovetails rather well with mine, then and now. It also impacts on the “knave or fool” question that still seems to preoccupy a lot of people and to which way too many people (IMHO) reply “fool.”
I especially note this from Epstein (remember, this was said in March of 2009, not long after Obama first took office):
Epstein:…Obama…can sit in a room with you, he can listen to you, and he can talk to you, and you really get the sense of a man who is in complete self control…
He is a fierce competitor and he likes to be in control of his environment.
His positions are not close to the middle, and so he sees no reason to compromise with Republicans unless and until they can mount a veto threat in the Senate. He is very, very dogmatic about his substantive positions. He knows what he believes and he knows why he believes it, and it is extremely difficult for people on the outside to change his mind…
Robinson: He has a reputation as a brilliant orator. We now know that he will not give even brief remarks, the kinds of things that chief executives from Washington, through Reagan, through even George W. Bush would give with only a note card or even off the cuff, he won’t speak without a teleprompter. How come?
Epstein: Same point. He is very much a man who wants to be in total control. The moment you start to improvise, you are like me, and you will start calling the President “this guy”, and then you will say no, that’s not the phrase I should have been using in this circumstance.
Robinson: Charles Krauthammer described the dinner that Obama attended at the home of George Will with a number of conservative journalists shortly before the inauguration.
Krauthammer said that after Obama left, some stayed around and talked for an hour or so, and they could not decide whether he was a centrist who wanted to throw bones to the Left, or a Leftist who was willing to throw bones to the center. Which is it?
Epstein: The reason they couldn’t figure it out is the same thing that I mentioned before. Obama has a sort of stone-faced experience, and it is quite on purpose.
The answer is pretty clear. He is a man on the left who will, if necessary, throw bones to the center. He is not a man from the center. Some of the appointments of his may sound centrist. But again, I just don’t believe in this as a serious indicator.
So, even conservative journalists, talking among themselves, couldn’t figure Obama out by that time. I’m not sure who those people were (I can certainly give a few guesses, such as George Will and David Brooks, and the latter isn’t what most of us would call “conservative” but is conservative compared to most journalists), but Obama’s con routine apparently worked on them.
It didn’t work on everyone. I have long been impressed by this column of Tony Blankley’s, written right after Obama’s first inauguration. He takes the same information as Epstein—Obama’s purposeful “blank screen” inscrutability—and draws the logical, and it turns out correct, conclusions:
President Barack Obama is a beguiling but confounding figure. As he said of himself in “The Audacity of Hope,” “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
It is indeed audacious that he should proclaim this consciously disingenuous attribute. And as one reads his inaugural address, it is hard not to conclude that it was crafted shrewdly to perpetuate such confusion.
Run-of-the-mill politicians try to hide their duplicity. Only the most gifted of that profession brag that they intend to confound and confuse the public. Such an effort is beyond ingenious; it is brazenly ingenuous.
And it is working. Many of my fellow conservative commentators are embarrassingly eager to search Obama’s words, groveling for hopeful signs that he is not a radical intent on changing the face and nature of our republic. Some of our Tory conservatives have clung to his words (“hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old; these things are true”) as evidence of a deep conservatism….
Blankley goes on to describe many different ways in which conservative pundits looked for the silver lining in Obama, and found what they were looking for. This is somewhat of an old story, of course; something of the sort occurred in Germany and around the world with Hitler (and no, Obama isn’t Hitler; I’m describing a process—dissemblance—that both used, however).
More from Blankley in January of 2009:
I believe that Obama intends to craft a new nationalism, using the disassembled timber of our traditional values to build a new, more collectivist and less individualistic ship of state. The planks will look vaguely familiar, but the ship will be quite different. It is as if he would disassemble the warship Old Ironsides and build with its timbers a collectivist’s ark.
…[Perhaps I] have misread Obama. But one is entitled to be suspicious of a politician who openly brags, “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” That strikes me as a conscious intent to deceive in order to diffuse opposition to his designs until it is too late to block them. Ronald Reagan never hid his policy intentions from public view. Neither, in fairness, did Lyndon Johnson or Walter Mondale or Barney Frank or Nancy Pelosi.
A politician who will not sail under his own flag sails, in effect, against all flags. Such a strategy may, in time, undercut his support from increasingly suspicious progressives, liberals, moderates and conservatives — once they recognize the deception.
It’s only in that last sentence that Blankley shows a lack—and a slight lack at that—of foresight. His statement is conditional; “may.” And certainly many moderates and conservatives have stopped making excuses for Obama. Liberals, not so much, although again you have a few, a very few. But progressives? They have no problem with the deception; they applaud it, and understand that as time has gone on it has become less and less necessary to deceive.
[NOTE: Unfortunately, the prescient and perceptive Blankley died in January of 2012. By the time he wrote that column I quoted, he’d had some impressive experience that probably made it easier for him to spot Obama’s fraud and the reasons behind it than it was for most people:
…Blankley served President Ronald Reagan as a policy analyst and speechwriter…Before coming to Washington, D.C., he spent 10 years as a Deputy Attorney General with the California Attorney General’s office.
Blankley’s political opinions were generally considered to fall within traditional conservatism although he was labeled as a neoconservative by some critics. He denied that label by claiming that his views are more comparable to a classic conservative such as Reagan. His political career spanned several decades, and his most prominent position was a seven-year stint as House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s press secretary.]
Obama himself is a foolish knave… his playbook is 75 years old at best… with a bit of an update from the 1960s-70s, and thats that… nothing new under the sun as he is being played as the opposition who wrote the book, injected the teachers, and all that, is now using what they invested in from long ago.
funny. people can enjoy and be awed by a gothic cathedral, but cant imagine people actually being able to pay, plan, and execute the design over several lifetimes in which the peoples efforts are mostly by those who would never see it completed.
here is one for neo:
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine s located in New York City on Amsterdam Avenue between West 110th Street and 113th Street in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood
Designed in 1888 and begun in 1892 and we will not live long enough to see it completed.
but right now while we are distracted with elections we are missing the start of the war…
NATO launches biggest exercise in more than a decade, 36,000 troops from 30 member states
“We are very concerned about the Russian military build-up. The increasing concentration of forces in Kaliningrad, the Black Sea and now in the eastern Mediterranean . . .” Dep. Sec. Gen. Vershbow
Qatar threatens to invade Syria in cooperation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia / “If Qatar carries out its threat to militarily intervene in Syria, then we will consider this a direct aggression … Our response will be very harsh” – Syria
Pentagon deploys at least 6 A-10 Thunderbolts at Incirlik, bolsters West’s anti-ISIS air war, USAF F-16s conducting bombing runs over Syria from Turkish air base
[its NOT good that russian and us troops as such are in the same theater overlapping their operations… at least last century it was proxies, in which any russians were deemed to be from the country they were assisting, and if russia was their first (like israel war), america just stood on the side to avoid the issues that can come up… ]
the foolish knave hasnt the common sense to lose gracefully in terms of his desire to return to the drivers seat after his lack of action got him knocked off.
on the other theater.
A Chinese general sees a ruthless America striving to contain his nation’s growth
Three Chinese vessels intrude into Japan waters around disputed Diaoyu islands: Kyodo
‘Diaoyu Islands are Chinese’: Vietnam rejects China’s ‘political’ apple packaging
Chinese Coastguard Ships Approached Disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands
Plus, Russia-North Korea ties, a U.S. aircraft carrier switcheroo, Indian Ocean geopolitics, and more.
The USS Ronald Reagan arrived in Yokosuka, Japan last week to replace the USS George Washington With its arrival in Yokosuka, the USS Ronald Reagan becomes the U.S. Navy’s sole forward-deployed aircraft carrier and the fifth to be based in Japan.
the chinese have been building a military base on japanese islands, which at some point will necessitate arms to take over or remove, or they will have to give them up and all the oil around them…
there is so much… and we are ignoring it.
Beijing’s land reclamation in the South China Sea has prompted reports that the U.S. Navy will soon conduct freedom of navigation exercises
[for those that dont know what this is, one country says thats my area you cant go, then the other country goes into it and sails around going nyah nyah you try to stop me… ]
Russia’s deadly new weapons striking fear into heart of the West
All this academic guessing of obama is kind of a waste given his lame duck status…
in fact, the effort is better directed to what kind of advantage will countries use as things move towards the elections and the US people are distracted, the dems dont want to look bad and have war like conflict, and so on.
a foolish knave being played by a kgb man who literally has several armies of people working day and night to play games in a way that US is limited from legally and ideologically due to the president and dems infatuation with the state that has no love of them… not to mention china ALSO haveing a huge army of on average smarter people (like israel), working on things and doing similar.
back to back russia and china look out to whole of the world, and i dont think china or russia will make the mistake hitler did and attach each other.
they are serious… even if western people dont want to believe HOW serious they are… but both regimes regularly assasinate their own people for speech, imprison them for acts of freedom, and are using huge numbers to accomplish what our dumbed down population cant even think of.
Make no mistake: Experts agree that the U.S. military’s globe-spanning force would clobber the Russian military in any toe-to-toe conventional fight. But modern wars are not toe-to-toe conventional fights; geography, politics and terrain inevitably give one side an advantage
yes… but how many people did russia put in the US ready to act, and how many people do you think we have in russia? think hard, as there have been russian sympathizers, sleepers and such being injected for over 30 years… how many? 1000 a year is not unreasonable… its just 84 people a month… how many illegals we have no names for and such come over an open border. with just 84 a month there are over 30,000 potential operatives here in the states.
anyone bring in a nuke with that 20 ton load of cocaine?
even bigger.. what would the foolish knave do if something “surprising” happens? would he act to do the right thing, or ignore the right thing as he drools over the crisis that he can use? that is, would his selfish desire to make use of things for personal reasons cloud his judgment as to the right actions to take.
we already know his red lines are worthless…
and so does everyone else.
the only reason its not scary is that we arent looking at it!!!!!!!! we are being distracted by other things…
damn… too long…
go ahead… kill it. sigh…
And don’t forget where Tony Blankley got his most valuable political insights: the Machiavellian world of the Hollywood child star.
I saw him once on either Hitchcock or Twilight Zone. Anyone who can survive those shark-infested waters has completed a good primer on decoding desperate phonies.
btw: with Barack, here’s a tell. Folks. You see or hear that and it’s like Mary McCarthy’s take on Lillian Hellman.
Yep, when bho uses the word folks he is pissing down your leg and telling you its raining.
I’ve never been impressed with Obama. I don’t think he’s very skilled, I think instead that America is full of credulous morons. I have one brother who was a borderline sociopath; from that experience, I learned to not tolerate bullshit.
This is America’s weakness: they feel compelled to know Obama’s mind, and he uses that as a weapon against the audience.
The proper response is to cut the perpetrator off.
Blankley was ever the gentleman scholar.
I was mighty surprised when he responded to my defense of Chamberlain. (WRT Munich)
Like Fred H Jr., a soul to be missed.
As previously related, Barry put vibes down my spine — way back in 1983… the only person to strike me as being on the way to the presidency.
Barnum said it, one born every minute.
Barry was never that hard to figure out. all you had to do was look at his voting record, and look at his interviews.
The Mr Cool stuff was for the gullible. If you were one who was one of the”conservative commentators are embarrassingly eager to search Obama’s words, groveling for hopeful signs that he is not a radical intent on changing the face and nature of our republic”, you deserve what you got.
6 months after he was in, the answer to the oft-asked question, “Is he TRYING to destroy this country?” , was so obviously, “Yes!”, and yet people need more time to figure it out.
And that “in control” thing is part of his pose. There’s a lot of the punk and the ignoramus in him. A man “in control” would have had more of a track record. The “blank slate” thing is also an act. It’s part of being a sociopath.
formwiz:
I agree with you generally in that comment—except for the “in control” thing. Epstein isn’t suggesting Obama is in control internally, or even in private. He is describing his public demeanor in terms of emotion and purposeful public statements, which are indeed very controlled (even the ones that seem uncontrolled). The only public exceptions are gaffes like “57 states.”
I dunno.
Despite all the many, many legitimate and still unanswered questions about Obama’s past, his education, his associates, it was pretty easy to see all the way back in 2007.
A boy, abandoned by his father, then suffering the death of his stepfather, then abandoned by his mother, all while being brought up in a half Marxist/half Islamist bubble, was going to lead to one mighty effed-up adult. If he hadn’t been such a narcissistic sociopath, he would have ended up an early casualty of drug violence.
And the entire planet would have a much better place for it.
Tagging on to geokstr’s comment… The mannish boy would be a sorry, confused, unhouse trained puppy were he not the affirmative action POTUS. Instead he is the utmost narcissistic affirmative action POTUS.
Neo-neo:
“The only public exceptions are gaffes like “57 states.’”
These “gaffes” only occur when he is off the prompter. It’s pretty easy to always be in control when your a highly practiced reader.
Did you know that there are “reading the teleprompter with sincerity” classes available in acting schools for those who wish to do narration for documentaries and commercials, most of which are done with TPs? And the old saw for actors is that the only tough part is the sincerity – once you’ve got that down, the rest is easy.
In addition, his most damning gaffe is the “my Muslim faith” miscue, for which Stephanopolous the Midget “Journalist” had to pull a Candy Crowley out of his a** and instantly correct him – “You mean ‘your Christian faith, right'”?
And when you look at all he’s done to crater our relationship with Israel and paper over the vicious, virulent, aggressively expansionary nature of Islam, which is already on the verge of destroying Europe, what would he have done differently if he actually was a a radical Islamist?
There is so much in his upbringing, background, associations, statements, policies and actions that point to him being far closer to Islam than Christianity. Being a member of a church that preaches Black Liberation Theology, another spawn of Marxism according to its own founder, hardly qualifies him as being a Christian.
His totally ignoring the slaughter and displacement of Christians in every country with a significant Muslim presence, even “moderate” ones like Egypt who threw out the Muslim Brotherhood, while he hypes the “Religion of Peace” at every opportunity, gives the lie to his “Christian faith.”