Shelby Steele on Obama’s emptiness

The New Neo Posted on by

Shelby Steele writes another impressive article about President Obama. In it, he offers the following analysis:

Mr. Obama won the presidency by achieving a symbiotic bond with the American people: He would labor not to show himself, and Americans would labor not to see him. As providence would have it, this was a very effective symbiosis politically. And yet, without self-disclosure on the one hand or cross-examination on the other, Mr. Obama became arguably the least known man ever to step into the American presidency.

Our new race problem””the sophistication of seeing what isn’t there rather than what is””has surprised us with a president who hides his lack of economic understanding behind a drama of scale…Mr. Obama’s economic thinking (or lack thereof) adds up to a kind of rudderless cowboyism combined with wishful thinking. You would think that in the two solid years of daily campaigning leading up to his election this nakedness would have been seen…

I think that Mr. Obama is not just inexperienced; he is also hampered by a distinct inner emptiness””not an emptiness that comes from stupidity or a lack of ability but an emptiness that has been actually nurtured and developed as an adaptation to the political world…

…[H]e has come forward in American politics by emptying himself of strong convictions, by rejecting principled stands as “ideological,” and by promising to deliver us from the “tired” culture-war debates of the past. He aspires to be “post-ideological,” “post-racial” and “post-partisan,” which is to say that he defines himself by a series of “nots”””thus implying that being nothing is better than being something. He tries to make a politics out of emptiness itself.

I think this is very finely put, but I would add the following: I do not believe that Obama’s political emptiness is real. Rather, I think he is quite full—of leftist ideology, that is. This political emptiness was (and still is, although the extent to which he can still manage to pull it off has diminished over time as his actions have begun to speak more loudly than his lofty words) a strategic pose that he adopted in order to get elected. His truer and deeper emptiness is an emotional one which, to paraphrase Steele, has been “nurtured and developed as an adaptation to the world in which he found himself as a child and young adult.” That, perhaps, is the most frightening part of all; I believe he lacks an inner core, and has filled the vacuum with an ideology that he plans to impose on this country if he possibly can, whether we like it or not.

That’s what “yes, we can” was all about.

Voting over—I’m still regent

The New Neo Posted on by

Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote in the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva contest. Voting has closed and Pam Geller has won (she’s really more the diva type anyway, don’t you think?). But thanks to all you stalwart voters I’ve managed to retain my regent crown with a nice comfy margin. The whole thing is just kind of fun, and I get that cool logo for my sidebar.

Can Scott Brown become the forty-first Senate Republican?

The New Neo Posted on by

Scott Brown, you ask? Who’s that?

Or maybe you already know who Brown is, because you’re such a bunch of political junkies. Right now he’s the best (although perhaps least-known) hope of throwing a wrench into the Obamacare works.

Brown is a Republican running for the Senate in (gulp) one of the bluest states in the union, Massachusetts. If that seems like a longshot—well, it is. But Brown’s personable and telegenic as well as fiscally conservative, although he’s been all but abandoned by the GOP in his quixotic quest.

But maybe his dream of taking the special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat from opponent Martha Coakley isn’t so impossible after all. I can’t find a single poll, although I bet he’s considerably behind. But my guess is that even voters in Massachusetts are getting fed up with what’s been going on in Congress lately, and he might have a chance. If you want to take a look at his website and maybe even contribute in some way, the cause seems worthy.

The curve of an Instalanche

The New Neo Posted on by

{NOTE: I got an Instalanche yesterday for the Obama disfluency post, and the response of my sitemeter reminded me of this article, which originally appeared on Dec. 1, 2008. I thought it would be fun to republish a slightly-edited and updated version of it, since I noticed the same exact phenomenon when I looked at the traffic resulting from the most recent ‘lanche.]

An Instalanche—that’s a link from blogger Glenn Reynolds, who’s otherwise known as Instapundit—can drive a huge amount of traffic to a blog. Glenn’s own blog traffic hovers somewhere in the vicinity of 450,000 hits a day (let me spell that out for you: that’s four hundred and fifty thousand). Depending on the time of day, the day of the week, the way Glenn phrases the link, the general interest in the topic, and other variables that remain mysterious, an Instalanche can vary from a modest spike in traffic to a veritable tsunami of visitors.

But I’ve noticed there’s one thing about an Instalanche (or any high-traffic link) that is quite predictable: the graph of the visits always seems to follow a rather strict pattern. There’s a sudden soar the first hour. Then the second hour there’s a fractional step down that represents, very roughly, maybe twenty percent of the whole. Then another similar step down in the third hour, and so on. As the traffic diminishes, the size of the step-downs grows smaller and smaller, and the previously steep imaginary line connecting the steps becomes flatter.

I’m sure there’s a simple equation that expresses the relationship. Here’s a picture of it:

sitemeter11-30-082.jpg

As you can see, this graph charts the number of visitors to my blog on November 30, 2008, the day of the Instalanche. It is a snapshot taken towards the middle of hour twenty-two. It begins in the wee small hours of the morning, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, ordinarily a very slow time on a very slow day. My traffic was just getting to around the 70 hits-per-hour point when suddenly, at approximately 10 AM, in came the Instalanche and BOOM! went the sitemeter.

There were over 2,400 hits in the first hour after that, about 2,200 in the second, 2,000 in the third, and so on, down to those smaller steps with the smaller decreases between them. This particular Instalanche was good for about 12,500 extra hits that first day—and it’s still going on, albeit at a much reduced rate.

Obama’s Dukakis moment

The New Neo Posted on by

President Obama has often been compared to Jimmy Carter. But lately it occurs to me that there’s a lot of resemblance to presidential candidate Mike Dukakis, who failed a basic emotional test in his response to a hypothetical asked during the 1988 presidential debates.

For those who don’t remember it, here’s a description of the event and the question that killed Dukakis’s candidacy. Some excerpts:

[CNN journalist Bernard] Shaw, looking commanding and stern, began: “By agreement between the candidates, the first question goes to Gov. Dukakis. You have two minutes to respond: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”

In the press room, there were gasps from the reporters. “Whaaaa?” “Did he really say that?” “Un-BELIEVE-able.”

…Dukakis answered instantly and smoothly. “No, I don’t, Bernard,” he said. “And I think you know that I’ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life.”

He had been on the record for years and years on that subject. Massachusetts had no death penalty and also had one of the lowest crime rates of any industrialized state in the country. Dukakis didn’t believe in capital punishment. He had seen all the studies and he didn’t believe it deterred crime…

In the press room, the murmurs over Shaw’s question now turned to mutters over Dukakis’ answer. “He’s through.” “That’s all she wrote.” “Get the hook!”

The reporters sensed it instantly. Even though the 90-minute debate was only seconds old, they felt it was already over for Dukakis. He had not been warm. He had not been likable. He had not shown emotion. He had merely shown principle…

Susan Estrich, his campaign manager, was in despair. “It was a question about Dukakis’ values and emotions,” she said later. “It was a question that was very much on the table by that point in the campaign. When he answered by talking policy, I knew we had lost the election.”

I’m not saying that Obama’s first statements about the Flight 253 bomber were up there with Dukakis’s faux pas in the suddenness of their effect. For Obama it’s been a cumulative thing, this morphing from “cool” to “cold.” But the transition has been accomplished.

Typical of the reaction to Obama’s remarks on the Knickerbomber is this column, which begins with: “This is no time for the return of Professor Obama.” Americans dislike being lectured to in a condescending manner by a president who seems removed and distant, uncaring and above-it-all.

But Americans don’t approve of an overly emotional president, either, as candidate Edmund Muskie learned to his sorrow in the snows of New Hampshire in 1972, when it was perceived that he wept too readily. And even the somewhat teary-eyed Bill Clinton was very careful about when and where he cried, and for what reason, and wife Hillary had only one carefully positioned lachrymose moment in an otherwise steely performance.

It may seem unreasonable of the public to demand of its presidents such a finely calibrated balancing act between too much expression of feeling and not enough, with the voters in the position of a bunch of all-too-fussy Goldilockses.

But these fine-tuned requirements are not arbitrary. We need a president who cares enough to understand our needs and concerns and to speak our language and send the right messages both in the domestic and foreign arena, but who is tough enough to not break down under the considerable stress of the office. Strangely enough, Obama seems to be lacking in both departments. In this, once again, he resembles Mike Dukakis, who not only failed the warmth test in answer to the rape question, but was perceived as not having the proper intestinal fortitude to be able to survive his photo-op in a tank.

Like it or not, one of the duties of a president is to be commander-in-chief. People need to believe on a gut level that a candidate or a president is capable of performing well in that role. But in Obama’s public addresses in response to the two most recent terrorist attacks, he has come across more as the country’s lawyer-in-chief than its commander.

[NOTE: And those on the left who say that Bush’s response to shoe bomber Richard Reid was similar (see today’s memeorandum page for several, such as this and this) are missing the point. By then, Bush had proven himself to the American people through his behavior during the crucible of 9/11, the subsequent anthrax scare (remember that?), and the Afghan aftermath, all coming in rapid succession. He had shown the requisite combination of caring and determination throughout, once he got over the first few moments post-9/11.

The Reid episode occurred in December of 2001, and it seemed very small at the time in comparison to 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan. The Knickerbomber incident looms much larger today, especially after the many quieter years for terrorism against the US during the latter part of the Bush administration. Obama has yet to prove himself in the same way; on the contrary, his reaction to the Knickerbomber is merely the latest in a pattern of troublesome low-key responses on his part to a host of events, including his initial reaction to the Ft. Hood shooter, as well as the riots in Iran during and after elections there.]

[ADDENDUM: When Obama’s lost Maureen Dowd, he’s in trouble. She compares him to Star Trek’s Spock, in a piece entitled, “As the nation’s pulse races, Obama can’t seem to find his.” Ouch.]

The Obama administration trifecta

The New Neo Posted on by

I found this pithy and trenchant description of the Obama administration at Ace’s:

All the ethical integrity of the Clinton administration combined with the economic acumen of the Carter administration and rounded off with the domestic policy and war-fighting expertise of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

A veritable trifecta of duncedom.

But I would amend it to say that, in all three respects, the Obama administration is substantially worse than these predecessors.

Suddenly, Obama’s not so fluent any more

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama was always a fluid if vapid speechmaker, although his off-the-cuff statements featured a lot of hemming and hawing. But I’ve noticed something that seems new: hesitancy even when he speaks from a prepared text.

Obama now seems to go off-teleprompter more often—perhaps because he’s been critiqued so much for its use—and when reading from notes on a lectern he stops and starts, as well as using a tennis-match-like repetitive back and forth movement of his head.

What’s more, Obama’s disfluencies have an odd cadence, coming at times that seem unnatural, as though he’s distracted and not even thinking about what he’s saying but rather merely reading it from a text he’s never seen before. Is he nervous? Lying? Nervous about lying? Nervous about being caught in lying? Aware that the gift he’s relied on his entire life is going or perhaps even gone, now that he needs it most?

Whatever the cause, I imagine it must be quite frightening to Obama (rather like losing your turns). He’s accustomed to having the magic touch when he speaks, and now he’s become self-conscious, watching every word. Many have remarked on his changed affect, as well; we hear descriptions such as “passionless” and “not properly engaged.”

Here’s a tape of Obama speaking about the Northwest Airlines bomber (we’re still searching for the proper name for the incident; I prefer the “BVD bomber” myself). I think you’ll be able to see what I’m talking about:

[ADDENDUM: It may be time to revisit this, which I wrote at a moment of low ebb in Obama’s campaign. And then there’s this, which if I’m not mistaken is the first piece I ever wrote about Obama. It was posted in May of 2007, and features the following observation:

]The problem is twofold. The first is that it may indicate not only a certain lack of toughness on Obama’s part, but a willingness to offer up excuses too easily. It’s okay for a Presidential candidate (or President) to be tired, but I’m not so sure he should be so eager to excuse himself on that score. I’ve often thought that, if the campaign is a grueling marathon, it’s probably a (pardon the phrase) cakewalk compared to the actual Presidency.

Just as the Presidency is not for the shy or those tortured by ambivalence, just as it requires a certain amount of narcissism (perhaps more than is healthy in ordinary life), it also requires true grit and enormous””almost superhuman””endurance. And if the President doesn’t feel up to it all the time, he/she is supposed to shut up about it and not let others see.]

[ADDENDUM II: The Anchoress has more to say on the subject, including this:

I suspect that what Obama wanted was to be the King, not the President. The King’s role is largely ceremonial. In time of national tragedy the King goes before the camera and says, “this is very sad.” If he can assign blame on a perceived enemy he does so, and then he steps aside and retires to his amusements while those actually in charge clean up the mess and determine how to prevent future messes. Everyone loves the King, defers to the King, rushes to do for the King, but the King -who tends to get bored and distracted by the dry business of actually governing- is responsible for very little, and most are just as glad of it.

And American Digest has more as well.]

[ADDENDUM III: Michelle Malkin takes note of the tiredness factor.]

For the man who has everything…

The New Neo Posted on by

…give him the perfect woman.

I suppose it was inevitable. We’ve become so used to the artificial enhancement of body parts that a normal woman has begun to look abnormal. So, why not improve on things with a completely artificial woman?

Le, who built his first robot when he was four, has dedicated his life to creating the perfect humanoid and his success so far with Aiko has won him worldwide attention.

Aiko, whose name is Japanese for ‘love-child’ has an amazing artificial intelligence and can speak 13,000 different sentences in two languages

‘Aiko can recognise faces and says hello to anyone she has met,’ he said…

Aiko, whose age is ‘in her early 20’s’, is 5ft tall and has a perfect 32, 23, 33 figure.

She has real silicone skin and a real-hair wig made by a Japanese doll company. Her touch sensitive body knows the difference between being stroked gently or tickled.

‘Like a real female she will react to being touched in certain ways,’said Le.

‘If you grab or squeeze too hard she will try to slap you.

And so, let us leave them there, the perfect couple:

fembot3.jpg
[Hat tip: Instapundit.]

If Reidcare has lost Bob Herbert…

The New Neo Posted on by

…it’s in some big kind of trouble.

Herbert is ordinarily one of the most stalwart supporters of whatever the left might be dishing up at the moment. But his relatively clear-minded and well-reasoned opposition to the Cadillac health insurance tax levied by the Senate bill indicates that he (and others on the left) are not going to roll over easy on this one. Although Herbert doesn’t state it in the column, my guess is that he is angry that there’s no public option, and that the Senate bill is a watered-down pastiche of disparate elements that pleases no one except perhaps the insurance companies. So he’s calling foul.

One of the phenomena I’ve noticed recently is the growing anger on the left towards Obama about a host of things, one of which is that, even with this “historic opportunity” afforded by enormous Democratic majorities, the bills in both House and Senate are not what the left would have them be.

That’s not exactly Obama’s fault, since he’s no longer a member of the legislature. But he’s shown no leadership on this issue, leaving the details to the tender mercies of Congress. The result is a batch of sausage that isn’t particularly tasty to either left or right.

Liberal backlash: Napolitano must go

The New Neo Posted on by

The NY Times readership is really really angry—at Janet Napolitano. Take a look at the comments section for this article; here’s a typical sentiment, one of the more moderate of the bunch:

On Sunday—even as a supporter of President Obama, and I also do not approve of “knee-jerk reactions”—Sec. Napolitano really came off badly. She was answering questions—fair questions—as a POLITICIAN, and not as somebody who is in charge of “Homeland Security”. To claim that the system worked was idiotic. To try to “backtrack” today and say she was misconstrued or taken out of context is heinous, because it is a bald-faced lie. I watched the program “live”, and even as a Democrat I could see her lying, deceiving, attempting to mislead, and passing the buck. She needs to resign, because she has to be a disingenuous person to have done what she did. We need truthful, accountable, and responsible people in charge of such an important program.

That’s the problem when you lie so boldly and people are actually paying attention: you tend to get caught. Many of the comments were even critical of the President himself. But quite a few, like the one above, seemed to assume that Napolitano was acting on her own when she said “the system worked” (many call for her to be fired)—even though Press Secretary Gibbs said essentially the same thing, and all of it was congruent with Obama’s silence and then his minimizing, pallid statement on the subject.