Obama the con artist
After I asked that question the other day about why so many people still consider Obama likeable, I remembered this article I wrote for PJ back in November of 2009. I thought it might be time to recycle it. Sort version of the answer: he’s a con artist.
A little short on sort.
There was an interesting interview with John Lott a while ago about his time at U Chicago Law school with Obama. Lott is a conservative specializing in Gun Rights, but loves to be with law school leftists as he says they are congenial and love an intellectual argument.
The thing he found most off-putting in Obama was a lack of intellectual curiosity. This is perhaps explained that Obama was quite openly brought into the school as political favor and the faculty was informed that he would not be there long. Obama didn’t want to be there, possibly felt unqualified, and did not interact at all in the faculty lounge and events.
BY being used all his life by others, Barack only had to project an image. There was no requirement for deeper relationships with collegues and the public.
Yep a good con artist.
Neo,
Slight typo: I think you intend “Short version of the answer…”
Jamie Irons
Oh, I see vanderleun beat me to the punch, and did so in a more intelligent and humorous manner!
🙂
Jamie Irons
Apropos of nothing, I highly recommend Andrew Ferguson’s piece in the Weekly Standard, “Learning to Like Mitt” (Ferguson is the author of the wonderful book “Land of Lincoln”) on the kind of person Mitt Romney is.
Short version of the answer: He is hardly a “felon”…
🙂
Jamie Irons
The “con” in this case comes from confidence, hence the name. The only confidence Obama ever inspired in me is that I should keep my hands firmly wrapped around my wallet. The more I heard and saw him, the sleazier and phonier he became. My only question is how many of the 52% who voted for him now have enough buyer’s remorse to view him as I always did.
It is a baffling phenomenon. I have come to suspect that many of Obama’s admirers simply like the idea of themselves–liking him. That would possibly explain why no matter what he does, the beat goes on.
If I read him correctly, Vanderleun also suggested in another thread that it is simply racially correct to like him; or at least claim that you do. I am convinced that that also plays a role, and particularly in the case of the Republican politicians who have persisted in announcing that Barack is actually a good guy, even though his actions are putrid.
waltj: The short version of the answer to your question is that while many who voted for him now have buyer’s remorse, far too few do. In other words, there are far too many out there who are still committed to the Democrats’ leftist agenda, no matter how much of a disaster Obama has turned out to be.
What’s even more troubling for me, though, is the so-called “moderates” and “independents” who are still considering voting for Obama this time around. I can’t see how or why anyone who claims to care about things like “moderation” and “bipartisanship” could overlook Obama’s record of partisan divisiveness and his dubious legislative accomplishments. The most bipartisan thing about the Obama administration has been the unanimous rejection of his last budget by both houses of congress. In other words, how can the “moderate” and “independents” fail to see what a terrible leader Obama is. He is ONLY a “community organizer,” and a “community organizer” in the Alinsky mode only knows how to divide and how to demonize his opponents. That’s all Obama has ever been. That’s why he had no record of accomplishment as a lawyer, that’s why he wasn’t able to be successful as an academic, and that’s why he jumped from one legislative job with a slight track record to the U.S. Senate with even less of a track record to the White House, where he outsourced leadership to the likes of Pelosi and Reid.
The con-man aspect of Obama’s likeability ties three recent posts on this blog together:
Obama’s likeability factor (Aug 23)
The Press “turning” on Obama (Aug 22)
The Obama campaign not able to take a joke (Aug 25).
The first job of a con man is to be likeable in order to affect the con; remember your “good friend” wouldn’t treat you as a mark. The second is to have a following, be it a group of “suckers” around a sidewalk stand or the national press corps (but I repeat myself). Jokes have the ability to pierce the delicately crafted facade unless they originate with the con-artist in the service of the con, so jokes must be opposed as thought they were serious allegations. Only the truly confident can genuinely laugh at jokes made at their own expense.
I can only repeat what I wrote under the Obama liekability post:
“. . . just affect the behavior patterns of likeability to appear likeable (drop your “g”s, tell a cute joke, chuckle, play some hoops, be seen bare-chested on the beach, etc.) just like all of us average kids down the block who were also raised in Hawaii and Indonesia and went to Columbia and Harvard.” If this doesn’t categorize Obama’s con-man persona, nothing does.
One final note, many years ago on the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson asked Alfred Hitchcock if anyone would ever commit the perfect murder. Hitchcock responded that it’s done every day; that the perfect murder is not one which can’t be solved, but one which is never identified as a murder in the first place. So too with scams. The perfect scam is one which is never discovered as such, and Obama & Co. just arent that good!
As I’ve posted here before.
The con works best if the “audience” is intellectually disarmed, and that “disarming” has been the work of the Left’s invasion, subversion, and current occupation of our Educational system/the Academy, ongoing since WWII.
For, if you abandon intellectual rigor, if you water down/twist/ remove History–Greek and Roman, Ancient and Modern, European and American, Economics, Rhetoric, Logic, Philosophy, Religion and Ethics, Government and Politics, Geography and Literature from the curriculum, and substitute Leftist, anti-American propaganda and twaddle, well, you get an audience with greatly reduced historical remembrance and, therefore, no remembered parallels and precedents to compare today’s statements and actions to, and an audience with stunted or even absent analytical capabilities; an audience that can be much more easily fooled and led, such individuals as apparently comprise an increasing proportion of today’s audience; figurative “country bumpkins” who get swindled when they buy the proverbial “pig in the poke.”
Had members of the audience even had a little background in Greek and Roman History and in Rhetoric and Logic, I think that Obama’s slogans, and ideas, and promises would have been laughed off the stage, Styrofoam Greek columns and all.
But the knowledge wasn’t there, the analytical tools weren’t there, and people fell for the oldest trick in the book, a demagogue playing on their emotions and uttering all sorts of sweet sounding promises of “pie in the sky by and by,” and people swallowed the bait, hook, line, and sinker.
Will it be different this time? Have enough people awakened to what is really going on, ans what has happened since Obama & Co. took over?
I wish I knew.
Wolla Dalbo,
I absolutely agree. I happen to have a strong background in history and at this blog have often repeated my assertion that there is nothing new under the sun (Nihil sub sole novum for the classicists out there). Those with historical background can look at current events and see the re-creations of victories and foibles of the past. Perhaps it’s why many of us commenters on this blog can see past the artifice while many in the population are immersed in the superficiality of a “fake it ’till you make it” syndrome.
In his book Arrogance Bernard Goldberg cited a study which showed that patients rated physicians who wore white labcoats as better physicians than those who wore blue labcoats. He explained this by noting that most people have no basis on which to judge the competence of a physician, so we grab for any reference on which to base a judgement. Perhaps this explains the belief of the general populace. Remember, one the the skills of the con-man is to create a “reality” on which the mark thinks he’s making a sound judgement.
I suggest that this is why the internet has become so important. The MSM no longer controls the flow of information and as such, the populace has the opportunity to ascertain truth from fiction instantaneously (not that all the populace does, or even cares to). We can now step back, make our own decisions and realize that many “Journalists” are more concerned with supporting a political agenda than reporting the 5 “W”s of the journalists creed.
I enjoy reading science fiction and fantasy novels. I don’t believe in fairies, elves, demons, or faster than light travel, but I can set that aside and get immersed in the story. In some sense I think the folks who like and admire Obama are immersed in a fantasy and enjoying the story, but have yet to recognize that it is just that: a fantasy.
You make an excellent point, chuck. I think there is a cultural aspect at work with respect to the willingness of some people to get lost in fantasy. Although both my undergraduate and graduate degrees are in English, and although I know a lot about classic literature (and especially English and American literature), I find that these days I have very little tolerance for reading most of what passes for contemporary literature. The reasons for this are diverse, but two of the main ones include: 1). that most published writers of fiction are doctrinaire leftists, and it is evident from their work, and 2). that even though I spent much of my young adulthood reading, writing about and reflecting on great literature, I’d rather use the critical perspective I gained from that to read, learn about and reflect upon a variety of contemporary issues in the world today. Unfortunately, many readers of fiction never take the step of recognizing how the fictions they read shape their worldviews, nor do they bother to take time to learn more about the reality around them–at least not beyond what is reported in the lamestream media.
Chuck,
You have a point there. I believe that clear-thinking people understand that utopia is, by definition, a fantasy, however, the left has pushed it as an achievable goal for nigh-on a century.
As life in this country has become better and more leisurely perhaps utopia has taken on the appearance of actually being achievable. After all, the concept of reitrement is a uniquely American idea. What other culture in any other historical period ever conceived of the last third of one’s life as being a period of vacation?
I might also add that Obama couldn’t have pulled off winning the Presidency if he didn’t have the almost 100% cooperation and pro-active support of the MSM.
Without their complicity and essential aid in creating, propagating, and defending Obama’s artificially crated “legend,” without their studied and monumental lack of curiosity, and deliberate looking away from almost every aspect of that legend, without their ridicule and dismissal of, without their running interference for Obama against any who dared question Obama, his legend, his family, his associations, his actual record, his credentials and paper trail, his claims, or his proposals, he never could have even been nominated.
Because, if subjected to a real, searching, and honest inquiry, Obama would have been discovered to be the farthest Left, the least qualified, and the most dangerous candidate to have ever run for the Presidency, far more corrupt and dangerous than, say, an openly Communist Earl Browder, or the demagogic, “share the wealth” Huey Long would have ever been.
But, the MSM, in particular, and almost to a man, totally abdicated what was supposed to be their responsibility in our Republic, to keep the citizenry informed, to fully, honestly, and vigorously investigate things, to find out the truth, and to completely, honestly, fearlessly and fairly report it and, instead, the overwhelmingly Leftist MSM betrayed–and still betrays–all Americans and America.
Their “selling us down the river”–selling us into bondage– should never be forgotten.
This begs the age-old question, does the con man believe his own con? We would like to believe the worst about BO, that he is utterly cynical and knows how much he is lying. But I think the best con men – and BO is one of the greatest ever, spinning a gossamer resume all the way to POTUS – do believe greatly if not in their lies at least in themselves.
That is why I have never thought the “Obama meltdown” scenario would come to pass because if there is anything he believes in it is himself. He *really* thinks he is the smartest guy in the room, the Lightworker who will stop the rise of the oceans etc ad nauseam. If he loses it will be only because Americans are too stupid and ra-a-a-a-acist.
Gary Rosen,
I understand what you’re saying. I think, however, that there is a difference in believing in one’s own con and actually knowing the truth. As I noted above, someone who is fundamentally sound in their own knowledge of themself is not easily flustered when things don’t go the way they want them to. Obama is easily flustered with any obstacle, with any criticism of himself and with any parody of himself. He has been described as having skin the depth of a Planck’s length. This is might be the sign of someone who accepts their own con but not necessarily the sign of someone who fundamentally believes it.
Perhaps his presidency was to be the opportunity to finally prove this to himself, but as Sarah Palin noted years ago, the presidency is not intended as a journey of self-discovery.
T, good points. Remember all the “President Elect ” seal and signage Obama used between the election and inauguration? I always thought it was as much for the public as it was for him. Like – you really did it champ, you won, now go out there and play president.
I think you’re right that Obama is a con man. He even mentions in his book that he learned to be vague so that he is all things to all people. As for his charm, I think there’s also a bit of a Chauncy Gardener effect, where people take his vague statements and attribute all sorts of brilliance and insight. Even though he has shrewdly taken full advantage of this effect for most of his life, he’s got to be a little concerned that his cover as a demi-god is about to be exposed. I can’t imagine that governing has been easy for him since his work experience provided none of the skills needed to lead this country – which is why there’s been so much blame-shifting, delegation to czars and going around Congress.
KLSmith,
I’m looking forward to seeing Obama speak from behind the Seal of the Former President of the United States.
Can’t come soon enough for the benefit of our nation.
Lizzy,
I don’t disagree except that Chauncy Gardner had much more class and integrity andnever once surreptiotously flipped anyone the bird.
“. . . and never once surreptitiously . . . .”
Apologies for sloppy fingerz!
People don’t dislike him because, by and large, they have No Idea what he’s done.
Ask any 100 people on the street: I’ll bet you bullets to navy beans that only one of them, if that many! would know that Barack Hussein Obama’s budgets have received ZERO votes from either party.
No, the Fifth Column Fourth Estate has MUCH to answer for. If any Republican had done all these things . . . (etc.).
Just think of the Tonight Show’s “Jaywalking” segment, where he asks random Americans the simplest questions, and gets the most appallingly idiotic answers. That, ladies and gents, is what we’re up against.
The flip side of the behavior of the wholly bought MSM towards Obama & Co. is their relentless pursuit and magnification of any and all controversy, “racism,” ill-intent, and other dirt, and/or their manufacturing of such controversy, ill-intent, or dirt, used against any of those who oppose Obama & Co. and/or their statements, appointments, actions, policies and regulations; a relentless 24/7 campaign of carpet bombing, aimed at de-legitimizing, marginalizing, and destroying the opponents of Barack Obama and his policies.
In this war, no comment or tactic is too low, and nothing and no one is off limits–see the case of Sarah Palin and Trig–as the Left, Obama & Co. and the MSM “project” what is in their own hearts and minds, and intentions, and attributes that sour miasma–the ill-intent, the low class and ugly meanness, the hatred, and malice that fills them–onto Republicans and Obama’s opponents.
No event, or statement, or fact associated with an opponent of Obama is so trivial, small, inconsequential, or tangential that it can’t be inflated into a “big F’’n deal,” nothing is exempt from being twisted to fit the pro-Obama and anti-Obama opponent narrative, and when even that MSM dragnet fails to come up with something, well, they just make it up, hoping that by affirming something is true, their MSM Greek chorus will make it true–see, for instance, the recent TV statement by Obama’s Deputy Press Secretary that “Obama has created more jobs than President Reagan.”
Was Obama raised and educated as a Muslim in his childhood (with a transvestite “nanny,” no less) in Indonesia, and did Obama use the phrase “my Muslim faith” in a TV interview by George Stephanopoulos, tell another, New York Times interviewer that the Muslim supremacist “Call to Prayer” was “the most beautiful sound on Earth at sunset,” and then proceed to chant the Call in a perfect Arabic, was Obama “mentored” from as early as age 10 to 17 by active, card-carrying Communist, hard-drinking, pot-smoking, hard core pornographer Frank Marshal Davis, did Obama spend 20 years of faithful church attendance, listening every week to the Marxist Black Liberation Theology that hates whites, did Illinois State Senator Obama speak against and repeatedly vote against a bill that would have required that, when late term abortions result in a live birth, that baby must be given supportive medical care, rather than be left cold and alone to die in a closet somewhere, as Obama personally heard testimony was often the case, does Obama think we have 57 States, when unemployment has been above 8% for 45 straight months, 23 million Americans are out of work, the economy dead in the water, and 50 million people are on Food Stamps, did Obama say that the “private sector is doing fine,” does Obamacare set up what are functionally “death panels,” able to decide who gets what treatments, medicines, operations, medical devices, and what level of care, and who doesn’t, did Obama take $716 billion dollars out of the already about to founder Medicaid program to fund Obamacare, and does Obamacare force religious organizations to violate their core principles, are Medicate and Medicaid approaching near term bankruptcy, are Mandatory Entitlements today devouring more than 63% of our Federal budget, and soon to completely devour them on our present course, today, do we borrow 40% of every dollar the Federal government spends, and is the national debt approaching levels that will make it virtually impossible to pay off–no news there.
But, does Ryan’s smile and sunny demeanor somehow mask a cruel and evil intent, does Romney and the Republican’s “war on women” want to deny every woman in America their “right to choose,” is Republican support for the Second Amendment somehow a “racist” “dog whistle” and a policy aimed directly against minorities, is a stupid and ill-informed remark by Missouri Senate candidate Akin actually an articulation of the Republican and Romney attitude and plan?
Big, big news there.
The good news, Wolla Dalbo, is that despite all of Obama’s protectors, people are finally looking into Obama’s background on their own. Just look at the current sales of Ed Klein’s “The Amateur” and Dinesh D’Souza’s “2016: Obama’s America.” And there are small signs that the myth is dissolving, as seen in the Chick-fil-A pushback and the huge crowds at R&R rallies. What’s going to be interesting is how much information about Obama leaks out after he leaves office (fingers crossed it’s in 2013) as former sycophants start writing books, etc. I don’t think Obama has the Kennedy family-like power to keep his legacy and personal life locked down for decades.
OTdid not interact at all in the faculty lounge
Where does this “faculty lounge” business come from, anyway? I’ve been in four universities, man and boy, served as a faculty member in two of them, and been a guest of God knows how many universities on seminar trips, and I’ve never heard of a “faculty lounge.” (Faculty clubs, sure, but they’re just for eating lunch, for those so inclined.) The “lounge” part suggests people just sitting around, and I’ve never seen that. Not once.
The only faculty lounges I’ve ever heard of are in high schools. What gives? Is this a law school thing?
Lizzy,
You mention “. . . small signs that the myth is dissolving . . . .”
In isolation these are no big deal, but taken together there is something going on beneath the surface of the pond that the polls just do not pick up, at least not yet. The anecdotal discussion I’ve mentioned several times, the multiple appearances of anti-Obama bumper stickers in deep blue territory, the discussion that Oregon and Minnesota could be in play (and yes even mentioning the thought that New Jersey could be red on the coattails of Christie without statewide guffaws), now Norah O’Donnell and Anderson Cooper taking Obama & Co. to task, and even polls which show little movement int he aftermath of the relentless Obamaslaught of the summer all add up to the potential of what Glenn Reynolds called a “preference cascade. More recently, see Ed Driscoll:
http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2012/06/03/preference-cascade/
Occam–Perhaps the “faculty lounge” image comes from British TV series, that do show life among the teaching staff at pre-or early 20th century, elite “public” schools that do have “faculty lounges,” where a lot of the intellectual “cut and thrust” action occurs.
Wolla Dalbo, could be. British universities commonly have “senior common rooms,” which are in effect faculty lounges, but their denizens are typically either arts dons (who seem to have time to burn), or burnt-out scientists who are no longer active in research.
But I’ve never heard of one in an American university.
Occam’s Beard asks:Where does this “faculty lounge” business come from, anyway?
I don’t have an exact answer, but I do have two partial, possible answers. The first is that this was the University of Chicago Law School, and the U. of C. does have a reputation in academia (or at least it did at one time) of doing things a bit differently than at many universities. So it could be some quirk of the university in general or the law school in particular. Aside from that, though, the comment also made me recall my time as a faculty member at a small college in the midwest where we had regular department meetings, but people also hung out before and afterward. I just imagined that those were the meetings at which Obama made himself scarce and didn’t really engage with anyone before or after.
I’ve been calling the Chicago thug First Couple ‘grifters’ for some time.
They’re like identity thieves: Running up the bills and having a good time on someone else’s money and hard work. I saw this character trait with the Spanish vacation that cost ungodly amounts of taxpayer money, just so poor widdle Me-chelle could have a vacation away from her ‘man’ and instead travel with a few bazillion of her closest friends. Or taking the kids to South Africa and not paying for the kids by calling them ‘senior staffers’.
Confidence man, grifter or whatever name you use, all I know is Owebama”s got to get his walking papers and unceremoniously be ushered out the White House back door come January thanks to an historic trouncing this November.
As far as Owebama’s ‘charm’ goes, there is no charm. Just watch videos of his speaches when he goes off on some marxist rant — his eyes are evil and full of malevolence. His charm comes from the Fellatio Media ignoring Owebama’s racist and communist past, his time attending a ‘g-d damn America’ church. Owebama’s ‘likeable’ because he’s never been confronted on his shortcomings — until this election. We have already seen the nasty side of Owebama this campaign, but the media, of course, blames both parties for a lack of civility. It is only though lying by omission that Owebama remains ‘likeable’.
I recall Lott talking about Obama. Obama called him the “gun guy” and mostly avioded debate or interaction after that, IIRC. A man with a very closed mind . . .
Add this into the mix concerning President Choom.
A recent, serious, 25 year longitudinal study that followed 1,000 individuals in New Zealand from ages 13 to 38 found that those who started to smoke marijuana in adolescence and were heavy smokers suffered an average 8 point permanent decline in their I.Q.s–i.e. I.Q. measured at 13 vs. I.Q. measured at 38–a decline sufficient to drop them from the position in which 50% of the population was more intelligent than them to a position in which 71% of the population was now more intelligent than them. Moreover, the study found that stopping marijuana use or cutting back later on in life did not reverse this loss of intelligence; it was permanent.
In contrast, those who started smoking later in life, say, in college, suffered less I.Q. loss, and could largely revers such loss by stopping marijuana use (see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9426205/Cannabis-smoking-permanently-lowers-IQ.html)
Wolla Dalbo: I guess if Obama hasn’t smoked so much dope he would have been the smartest person who ever was by an even larger margin than he already is.