The real Obama has stood up
Two days ago I wrote a post in which I quoted and emphasized this line:
It is now evident that Obama’s words bear no relation to his intended actions.
And although that’s true, it’s also false—because Obama has said a lot of words that contradict each other. People who voted for him were willing to pick and choose which of them to accept and which to reject; which words were (in their eyes) just campaign hot air and which were the real Obama, the one who would emerge once elected.
This phenomenon had four basic elements: Obama’s words were (and still are) often self-contradictory, sometimes even within the same speech; even during the campaign he showed a propensity for breaking important promises (about campaign financing, for example) and using sophistry to pretend he wasn’t doing so; his history of acts (the best way to judge a person) was slim; and his rhetorical gifts and even-tempered demeanor (charismatic to some; not to me) made people want to believe the best of him despite evidence to the contrary.
That’s why an article such as this one—reporting that many of Obama’s rich supporters are suddenly surprised that he’s fomenting class war—makes sense even though it seems to make no sense. After all, how could anyone just be noticing this now? How could anyone who was paying attention during the campaign and in the months that followed have failed to note Obama’s income redistrubution plans, or his knocking of the rich?
Wishful thinking, that’s how—carefully orchestrated by Obama himself. You can fool many of the people much of the time—and when they wise up, it may be too late to stop you:
Wealthy Wall Street financiers and other business figures provided crucial support for Mr Obama during the election, backing him over the Republican candidate John McCain as the right leader to rescue the collapsing US economy.
But it is now dawning on many among them that Mr Obama was serious about his campaign trail promises to bring root and branch reform to corporate America—and that they were more than just election rhetoric.
A top Obama fundraiser and hedge fund manager said: “I’m appalled at the anti-Wall Street rhetoric. It was OK on the campaign but now it’s the real world. I’m surprised that Obama is turning out to be so left-wing. He’s a real class warrior.”
It’s this sentence that appalls me: “It was OK on the campaign but now it’s the real world.” Yes, politicians often make promises they can’t keep, paint a rosier picture than is possible, and exaggerate what they might be able or willing to accomplish. But anyone who failed to note that some of Obama’s campaign rhetoric was unusually radical and based on class warfare, and to sense that this would probably have significance when and if he became elected, was guilty of self-delusion.
In a post I wrote back in October entitled “Will the real Obama please stand up?”, I quoted this article by Tony Blankley, whose predictions were considered needlessly alarmist at the time by so many of the “hopefuls.” Reading it now (and please read the whole thing), his words don’t seem all that much like fearmongering, do they?:
But of course, throughout history when dangerous, radical men have offered themselves up for leadership, their moderate supporters have rationalized their early support by hoping that the dangerous man is really a sensible man like them and doesn’t believe some of those wild things he has said to his more fervent followers.
But as the campaign clock ticks down to its last days and hours, prudent people have to consider the possibility that beneath that easy manner and calming voice is the pulsating heart of a genuine man of the radical left.
Not enough people considered that possibility—or, if they did, they rejected it as absurd (I never rejected it; I just hoped I’d be proven wrong in warning about it). Well, they’re considering it now, although there isn’t very much they can do about it except wring their hands and make excuses for themselves. As Blankley said at the end of his piece: God save the republic.
Or they can continue to avert their eyes from what Obama is doing while screaming for the blood of Wall Street executives, which is what I find my liberal friends and family doing.
God save the republic, indeed.
This appears to just be another example of wishful thinking Obama supporters projecting onto The One their own ideas of who he really was, what he stood for, and studiously ignoring reality….
Unfortunately we all have to deal with the ramifications of their foolishness now.
If we all go down the tubes, 48% of us don’t have to feel sorry for 52% of us.
Saves energy.
My long time liberal friends are mysteriously difficult to pin down to go have a beer with nowadays. Maybe because Obama has SURPASSED what i warned them he would be.
I’ll even promise not to rub it in too much as long as i get free beer while Obama is president. And chicken wings & dip…..
he he.
I love the line. “Give the guy a chance. It’s only been 100 days!.”
Liberals do NOT get it. They only think he is trying.
Pingback:Jewels’ Jungle » Blog Archive » This would be the (chump) Change! part.
Mr Obama said last week that it was “an aberration” that profits in the financial sector had grown so large over the last decade. It was ridiculous he suggested, that “25-year-olds (were) getting million-dollar bonuses, (and) they were willing to pay $100 for a steak dinner and the waiter was getting the kinds of tips that would make a college professor envious.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5301078/Barack-Obamas-rich-supporters-fear-his-tax-plans-show-hes-a-class-warrior.html
And yet it’s fine to throw a Friday night party for your staff and serve $200/pound wagyu beef? Whether or not our president has been true to his campaign rhetoric, he’s still an insensitive and brazen hypocrite who apparently expects the “other” rich guys to repent of their ways and pay the price.
New idea. New to me, anyway.
We really, really are a post-racial society.
O thinks he can get away with this stuff, or doesn’t know it’s stuff he shouldn’t be getting away with.
Because, all his life, he’s been the Articulate Negro about whom nothing negative may be said.
Surprise to find he’s just like everybody else who screws up.
No more shield.
Richard you’re exactly right. Its only liberals who weren’t ready for a black president.
A Guardian article (via Gateway Pundit) cited this Obama quote from Dreams: “I would imagine myself as a captain of industry, barking out orders, closing the deal before I remembered who it was that I told myself I really wanted to be.” That weird sentence says something about the artificiality of Obama: captain of industry-bad, the Obama he planned-good. The style of action seems a constant. “…who it was that I told myself I really wanted to be.” This guy seriously needs a shrink.
Richard, I know several people who have one Hispanic parent and chose to self-identify as Hispanic (and even change their names) shortly after they learned how much more scholarship money minorities can get.
As to your theory of the “Articulate Negro,” if nothing negative may be said to you, it’s easy to see how you could get some really stupid ideas.
A top Obama fundraiser and hedge fund manager said: “I’m surprised that Obama is turning out to be so left-wing. He’s a real class warrior.”
I believe it was Howland Owl in Walt Kelly’s comic strip Pogo who said, “How can I be so stupid when I is so smart?”
At least he was smart (and honest) enough to admit what a mistake he’d made.
I was not fooled Neo. I saw and see him for what he is…a Marxist. My uncle by marriage is ex military. He is very educated, intelligent, and has a savvy entrepreneurial business acumen. He supported Obama. I realized that if such a man could dismiss even the most obvious criticisms of Obama’s suitability, then we had left the realm of the ordinary and of the rational. We are witnesses to a mass delusion.
Oh, bother.
I’m in Michigan. You should hear the rumors of the business in Native American ancestry.
“They’re coming out of the woods,” said one attorney in the area before catching himself.
Ran into a waitress, Irish red hair and green eyes. Going to a state U, working for fun money. Everything else is paid for on account of her being one-quarter NA. Thing is, she’d never lived the NA life, having grown up in East Lansing as a WASP.
The smug, self-righteous attitudes of some of my friends was annoying.
In fact, one Christmas letter we got spoke of a new, communitarian government as if it were a good thing.
I don’t want a catastrophe, but if we have one, I don’t intend to be charitable to those who acted as if I were an idiot.
“What? Roadside stands illegal? What morons voted for these clowns?”
Lucius is right: “Mass delusion.” It’s, like… everywhere! But isn’t it a bit delicious to watch the illusions evaporate? (Not that I want him to fail or anything.)
Richard Aubrey: We received such a Christmas newsletter, too. Spoke of the senders’ great joy at the results of the election and the coming of a new era of environmental, fiscal and social responsibility. We live in Grand Rapids…where people in the suburbs are largely conservative. I knew there were liberals out there…but didn’t expect to get the message in a Christmas newsletter from someone who lives the exact same lifestyle as me!!
I will admit that I wished their taxes and living expenses to rise and their retirement funds to further dwindle just to show them how stupid they were. Not very compassionate of me, but it gets old.
I guess we should take solace in the fact Louis Farakhan didn’t run for president while people were so ripe for the picking. Then again he may have been less radical.
Oh maybe some small change rich supporters will get milked, but we are learning that, like a good machine boss, Big é˜ takes care of his own. The MSM who are in line for a bailout will so totally bury the matter that you and I will never realize what happened. The brighter ones among us will know they’ve been shafted; the majority will smile the smile of the imbecile as they catch up on Michelle’s recipe for brownies in People Mag.
Nice knowing ya, USA.
JT. It does indeed get old.
My wife and I will be retiring to Grand Haven shortly.
Went to the First Pres there this summer where the preacher referred to Paul pre-epiphany as sort of Rush Limbaugh.
Actually, he was closer to Beria.
But we’ll have the lake.
Richard Aubrey: May your investmenst grow and your spirit soar higher. The big lake is truly beautiful. We have been looking to invest in lakefront realestate ….as the threat of inflation looms large. Do you think it will hold its value?
My wife thinks fresh water will be the next oil. So then lakefront will most certainly hold its value…if you can keep it.
jt.
Well, if the next house west of you is in Milwaukee–which pretty much defines lakefront–there will be somebody willing to pay for your lot.
Unfortunately, if the current lawless trend continues, only the connected will be able to afford (“avoid”) the property taxes which will be pretty stiff.
I anticipate Chicago money coming in.
I happen to work for some Obama supporters – it has been interesting to see how they have dealt with it. Neither one is anything close to stupid – indeed they are both quite intelligent. They have chosen to look at his stated goals and note how lofty they are, and I can not disagree there.
However in a conversation with one of them recently there was a moment where they said they were surprised that he had been so populist but hoped his natural intelligence and appeal would over come that. I responded I didn’t think he was that smart and he was mostly just a populist – I was told I was wrong (not my place to argue that, I said my peace). I know of more than one Obama supporter saying the same thing – they are going to eventually figure out he was nothing other than populist and that day of recognition will go *bad* for Obama.
I note that many of them also feel that way about Gore/Liberman too – it wasn’t until a few years after the election they truly were forced to realize that they were … not so great. They feel a personal sense of betrayal similar to how I felt about the events with the Contract With America. They are sane liberals who were snookered – just as I was a sane conservative that was snookered by many of the the ’94 republicans. In this particular case I think the snookering was deeper and the awaking will be worse.
Just as the question was before the election it still is – when is the train wreck waiting to happen that is Obama going to occur?
I too read of Obama where the MSM did not want me to explore before the election. What I found frightened me. This man is an citizen of the United States, but make no mistake, he is not an American. Protestations to the contrary, he does not hold the same universal values as do mainstream Americans – liberal or conservative.
Yesterday, while working at one of my client’s apartment complexes, I came upon a two year old in the throws of a grand mal seizure. Eyes rolled back in her skull, frothing at the mouth, limbs consulsing, barely breathing. A call to 911 and then my wife (the ER nurse) brought legions of help (heck, even the neighborhood kids helped out). That is the American spirit – I don’t know that kid, neither did the cops, firefighters or paramedics. The mother was nowhere to be found, but we treated that kid as if it were our own.
Subtract twenty-four months from this kids age, bring her to the abortion clinic and Obama’s wants it to be legal to throw that kid in the trash can. Literally.
Obama is a very dangerous man and we have yet to see the worst of his designs.
It’s one thing to be snookered.
It’s another entirely to invest so much, including being extraordinarily self-righteous, and practically insulting about those who believe differently.
There is a limit beyond which climbing down is difficult.
The problem is what you do when you realize you can’t climb down, but you can’t admit you were snookered, either.
In defense, you redouble your support.
There WAS a pattern that indicated this would happen.
You see, the “slips” that indicated his socialist tendencies and desire to criple the economy in favor of radical agendas (cap and trade, shutting down coal, anti-guns, anti-white people, “share the wealth” , taxing for “fairness”) all happened in relatively unscripted moments – off teleprompter, or in relatively “safe” environs like liberal-oriented dinners in Cali – like the infamous “bitter clingers” quote.
First they came for the billionaires, and I said nothing because I didn’t have a billion dollars.
Then they came for the millionaires and I said nothing bacause I don’t have a million dollars.
While they were chewing up the neighbor with $250K, I said,”Hey, I don’t like where this is going!”
John.
More correctly, when they came for the billionaires, I clapped because those greedy bastards were getting what they deserved. I know, because Obama told me they were greedy. Also white.
I’m white but I felt better seeing other white guys getting shafted.
Then they came for the millionaires and I figured the greedy bastards were getting what they deserved.
Then they started looking at me. And my neighbors aren’t sympathetic, either.
What did I do wrong?
So, do most of the neo-neocon readers think their liberal friends will ever admit that Obama was a worthless marxist America hater? Or do you think that these same liberals will defend him to the bitter end (hyperinflation) (attack on the U.S.) (attack on Israel)?
I’d love to see what various posters think.
I, for one, believe that they will never ever admit their error. Since 9-11 and the era of Bush-hatred, I’ve lost all respect for the liberals I know–my entire social circle, I’m sad to say. They are, as a group, uniquely stupid.
They may be talented in their various professional spheres, but they are dumber than a bunch of rocks in political insight.
No, in my view, they will still be supporting Obama in 2012. I certainly have acquired a lot of insight as to how countries like Germany and Argentina went down the tubes.
Promethea, we’ll get a few but not many. For what it’s worth, I think it is not quite fair to say that they are dumb as a box of rocks about politics. I look at their progressive (I won’t dignify their thinking by giving it the honorable title “liberal”) posing as mainly a social ritual. In my experience, the people who talk the most about progressive politics know the least about politics of any sort.
Beyond that, I am starting to think that a large number of them are in the grips of a mass hysteria that isn’t about politics at all, but in some way about aging and their fears about the future.
Oblio,
Thanks for answering me. I foolishly posted on this dead thread and may repeat my question again on another thread, if appropriate.
Anyway, it’s interesting that you mentioned “aging.” This may be a clue. Most of the people I know are baby boomers or older, so there may be some connection. I thought maybe that their ages made it difficult for them to accept new ideas.
There are also the “social ritual” aspects of being “liberal.” When one changes, one is rapidly thrown out of society. Neo-neocon has written about this.
Well, there goes the old “They made so much more money because they were smarter” T-shirt business.
Pingback:Washington Rebel
I know several people who have one Hispanic parent and chose to self-identify as Hispanic (and even change their names) shortly after they learned how much more scholarship money minorities can get
still one thing i would say – nothing new with Obama as well