To set this up, remember what I told you about Obama back in 2008. At the same time the genuine conservative world was quaking in fear about Obama being the ultimate triumph of INVINCIBLE EVIL GENIUS SAUL ALINSKY... hear his name and tremble in fear BOO!... I was telling you something very different. Based on my experience with other lawyers, it was pretty obvious to me that Obama was a dud.
Yep, a dud. It was obvious he had no plan, because he never mentioned one. All he did was speak in platitudes... “We need to fix thing. Make them better. Pull together. Be all we can be.” Not only did he not give details, he didn’t even give broad-brush strokes outlining his ideas. This was a huge clue that Obama simply had no ideas, no ideology, and no real plan of any sort. His plan was delusional hubris: “When I’m in charge, everyone will want to solve the world’s problems with me.” Only, that’s not how humanity works.
He also struck me as someone who simply had no idea how to deal with other people. To his mind, it was simple to solve problems – “you just sit down across the table from the other guy and solve it. What more do you need?” This shows tremendous inexperience. This is the kind of nonsense fresh young lawyers out of law school spew. They think they can solve the world’s problems with their personality alone. They think that all it takes is both sides being honest about what they want. It’s not. Self-interest is the name of the game for humanity and it conflicts, and you can’t solve conflicts with a smile. But Obama never got that; he genuinely believed he could solve anything just by talking. Naturally, this led to disaster after disaster for him.
This is when most people pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and try something new to achieve their goals. But not Obama. The problem is, as I said above, he’s not a man with any real goals or ideas. Consequently, he’s not a man who cares about anything in particular. So whenever he’s been faced with people who won’t bend to his will at the first blush, his answer has been to walk away to work on something simpler.
The first serious evidence we had of this was in foreign policy. I wrote about this too during the Honduras affair, where Obama showed that he couldn’t care less. He waved his hand and proclaimed what he wanted. Honduras told him to F* off. Obama was stunned. He didn’t know how to respond. So he walked away. Then he apologized to the Arabs, but they didn’t respond as he hoped, so he walked away again. China followed, as did Copenhagen. Each time, he just walked away as the other said laughed in his face. Soon, he gave up entirely on foreign policy. Indeed, his entire foreign policy has been about walking away at the first sign of push-back. So as far back as 2009, his penchant for disengagement was becoming obvious.
Then we saw the same disengagement in his domestic policy. He thought everyone would bow down and embrace Obamacare, but the RINOs stood tall and unified. Obama snarled his lips and walked off. He told the Democrats to handle it and he refused even to even given them his thoughts on how it should work. If you wanted to see him, you needed to find him on the golf course or a luxury vacation. By 2010, it was obvious he didn’t give a crap about being President. All he did was golf, enjoy the perks of power, and occasionally give a press conference swearing to kick someone’s ass if only people told him whose ass needed kicking.
So what you have is this. You have a man with no achievements to his name except agreeing to let himself be packaged. His handlers got him elected President and he made a grand show of changing the world. But the moment things don’t go as planned for him, and people don’t magically falls to their knees weeping at his brilliance, he scowls and walks away... unwilling to put more effort into it.
This is a man who checked out almost the week he checked in. He’s been on autopilot ever since. The man’s a dud.
Thoughts?
27 comments:
Yep, he's done exactly, zip, zero, nada....nothing...nothing at all....and for some reason the lefties in the press still love him..
Honestly, when you put it that way, I think we need more presidents like Obama. I recall some years back seeing an article with accompanying graph showing that our nation's best economic times have been with a Democrat president and a Republican house and senate. Obviously, we haven't had the latter during this administration, but if we did... Unfortunately, the Tea Party has made it their mission to interfere with the game the GOP is best at: the off-year election.
Andrew - I have never seen anything quite like Obama in my life. He really does not know how to engage in the political system. And that surprised me from the beginning. And I can't really blame Boehner or McConnell for what they do. There's not much they can do, if the opposition just refuses to deal...and then blames the Republicans for not dealing.
Tryanmax- The difference is that unlike now, those Presidents who had to deal with opposing leadership in the legislative branch, were seasoned statespersons who knew how to politick for the greater good (I like to think, anyway). And, btw, it has been mostly Republican Presidents who have to deal with opposition leadership. Though Clinton was a master at working with the opposition (and very smart) because he has always taken credit for what the Republican legislators actually did - Welfare reform, deficit reduction etc. And he made it look easy. Obama does not know how to bargain because he has always been a position of "community organizer" which just means to cause the conflict between groups opposition groups which btw, he does extremely well. However, I have never been able to find any proof that he actually organized anything and maybe this was a way to make him appear to be like Martin Luther King-like.
Critch - I actually think that the tide is turning with the media and with Dems in general, but then we have said that before. He now has a 39% approval/53% opposed, so he's lost most of his moderate base. And most of that has been lost through his inaction and disengagement from global leadership. And John Kerry isn't doing him any favors either. He has not handled one foreign issue with any competence.
I agree that extreme disengagement has been Obama's pattern. Early into his administration it struck me that unlike every other recent American president there wasn't a foreign leader Obama bonded with.
All that being said, I suspect the only remotely foreign policy related thing that is hurting Obama domestically is the influx of child refugees. On everything else, inaction kind of goes along with most of America's reluctance to get involved in world affairs (the Rand Paul school of international relations).
The Republican establishment and the tea party (judging by the tough talk of Cruz and Palin) are still robustly interventionist so its likely that the next president will be robustly interventionist because its not an issue most Americans feel strongly about.
I think domestic issues are the source of the overwhelming majority of the disenchantment with Obama. He's been shown to be a piss poor administrator beset by scandal after scandal (with the biggest being the VA scandal).
Bev,
The media turning against Obama doesn't mean much. He's not running for office again. Their having (belatedly and reluctantly) turned against Obama will enhance their credibility when they endorse Hillary or Warren in 2016.
Anthony, normally I would agree with you, but this has more to do with midterm elections which hinge a great deal on how Obama is perceived If Dems all run away from him, and the press does too, then it I possible that the Repubs can take back a thin majority in the Senate. Of course we need a solid platform for that. But something to also remember, no President has held the majority in Congress in a midterm election in his second term...
I'm glad Andrew called out the ALINSKY!! crowd. First of all, the vast majority of people who don't follow politics have no idea who the hell he is. And some folks talk about him like, "Well, gee, if only he had never existed, the last 40 years would be so much better." I imagine there's a cool Latin phrase to describe that kind of thinking.
And every time someone on the right says, "We have to use their Alinsky tactics against them," they assume EVERYONE is using the same rule book. Hell, maybe it's true. I don't know.
And I think I found the perfect gift for Andrew, by the way. ;-)
I only gently disagree with Andrew because I think Obama is a narcissist or more accurately he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Look at the following criteria and see if you agree:
Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder
In order for a person to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) they must meet five or more of the following symptoms:
•Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
•Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
•Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
•Requires excessive admiration
•Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
•Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
•Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
•Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
•Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
I think he meets about 7 of them. If you have ever dealt with a narcissist than you understand that it is impossible to deal with them. They have no empathy for someone else especially someone who disagrees with him. This is why Biden would actually be a better president then the current dingbat. He may be an wildly liberal idiot but I get the idea he at least has empathy.
Yay! They got their sandwich!! I'm free! :D
Critch, I think they only like him in comparison to right wingers. When they consider Obama in a vacuum, they vacillate between rage and disappointment that he failed so miserably.
tryanmax, If Obama never had a Democratic majority, I suspect he would have done a lot better. The economy would have come back quicker and he never would have gotten the obnoxious policies that ended up turning people off. The problem is that he doesn't have the personality to handle working with people.
Bev, I've never seen anything like Obama in politics either. Politics is about ideas, a desire for power, and working people. Obama has none of that. It's truly strange.
Bev, I think the tide is turning too. And you are so right about Kerry. Kerry is an utter failure at his job and then he gets pissy about it in public. What a loser! Obama would be better off sending some anonymous State Department apparatchik.
Bev,
I think Republicans winning the midterms are a given. Whether the Democrats hold the Senate or not, Obama is not going to get anything done.
Obama's only use for the Democrats at this point is his ability to goad the other side into saying stupid things/embracing shady people (though as anyone who recalls Bush derangement syndrome can attest, a fringe is always in a lather when a president is office).
Anthony, Agreed. The foreign policy stuff doesn't hurt Obama, but it definitely adds to the picture. This is a man who doesn't care and whose indifference leads to failure and embarrassment for our country. Then you add his failure to deliver basically anything on the domestic front and you've got a true disappointment brewing because the man has been utterly unwilling to be bothered.
Seriously, could you image what Reagan or Clinton or even Nixon or Johnson would have achieved with a super majority in Congress? Those guys knew how to get what they wanted and they knew exactly what they wanted too. Obama kind of assumed someone else would take care of it for him.
Anthony and Bev, I think it will hurt the Democrats that the media has turned against Obama. It prevents them from declaring themselves triumphant and "achieve-full." But I have no doubt they will flip back just in time to support the Democrat in 2016.
Scott, That's just what I've always wanted! LOL! Barf.
Yeah, the Alinsky crowd has always been a point of frustration for me. He's just some obscure nobody who vanished from the face of history until some hysterical rightist discovered that OMG!!Obama once knew someone who knew someone who read Alinsky's magical book. Suddenly, he's the boogieman who controls all of our lives without us even knowing it.
It's hysteria.
Koshcat, I would agree with that. He definitely fits most (if not all) of those traits. And I would say that because of this, he has checked out in the sense that he's not willing to bother with the rest of us and our needy interfering ways. Basically, we don't deserve him, so he's not going to bother working for us.
I completely agree that he has checked because we aren't worth his time.
You know, now that the ham sandwich used to free you fed 2 million North Koreans, they will just kidnap more of us to get more ham sandwiches. You sir have created a monster.
>>Obama once knew someone who knew someone who read Alinsky's magical book. Suddenly, he's the boogieman who controls all of our lives without us even knowing it.>>
Well, I know to take any documentary with a grain of salt, regardless of whether I agree generally or not with the filmmakers' politics, but if D'Souza's "2016 - Obama's America" is to be believed even a little bit, it's more than Obama knowing some guy who read Alinsky's book. More like a bunch of guys who were deep into Alinsky, communist, and anti-imperialist MO, all of whom mentored or advised Obama on various levels of influence.
Either way, eyes on the prize for the coming November, wherein I will channel my inner-Mr. O'Rourke: "Don't F this up, Republicans!!!!"
I want to tell the Republicans what I've always told the pilots...."Don't screw up the landing."
I concur Obama has checked out but he has done enormous damage.
He has stacked the courts with far left judges.
He has set a precedent for defying the law with executive power to get his way and it looks like he will get away with it scott free.
Essentially, now any president can do the same thing.
The three branches of govt. are no longer equal.
He has given unprecedented power to the IRS and, so far they haveabused that power and have gotten away with it, just like the VA upper management pukes got away with their ill-gotten bonuses as veterans died due to their greed.
I truly hope Congress doesn't let this go until all who broke the law are brought to justice.
By doing nothing, Obama basically endorses this kind of bad behavior in the alphabet org's..
His stupidity in foreign relations will have long lasting ill effects on the US and will bite us in the ass. I wish I was wrong about that.
Worse, Obama is actually backing the Jihadists which include the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, among others.
He's given them free reign and hasn't as of yet punished them for their terrorism in any way, shape or form.
And we all know the mess he created on the border. So yeah, he checked out but the damage he is leaving behind is piling up and the next President will be busy just trying to do damage control.
To me it doesn't matter if Obama is evil, because whether he has good intentions or not (and I suspect the only real good intentions he has is for himself) he has enabled evil at home and abroad,
I'm not calling him the antichrist because he's far too stupid for one thing, but It's painfully obvious he just doesn't give a damn about folks who won't worship him.
Sorry, rant off.
I think Alinsky is worth being aware of. He might have been reprehensible as a person, but he identified some true things about how movements succeed. I'm sure that Obama has picked up Alinsky tactics from those who knew Alinsky, but not because of some nefarious plot. What works, works. Alinsky was no mastermind, just an astute observer. But the right-wing's reaction to Alinsky is reminiscent of people who say we should discard medical knowledge obtained by the Nazis.
Koshcat, I have indeed created a monster. LOL!
Eric and tryanmax, On Alinsky, they may be Alinsky enthusiasts, but that's no different that the guys who read Marx and want to implement his garbage too. Basically, these are people with a rotten ideology who will put in place policies we don't like. That's it.
The problem with the Alinsky stuff is that the right has gone further than that. They see Alinsky as some sort of magical figure who has created this dark book of power which is slowly taking over the world. That's delusional.
Further, they wrongly see Alinsky as presenting a blue print, even though his advice is all generalized. And they have this warped view of Obama and his friends as some beguiled hidden army of wizards who are wielding the magic book of Alinsky as part of some secret plot by their evil lord to conquer the US. That's pure fantasy.
Alinsky wrote nothing more than what people who understand politics and power already knew and what various political movements the world over were already doing. He didn't create a hidden network. And no one is using his book as a blue print anymore than people use "The Prince" as a blue print.
Ben, That, sadly, is a different issue. On the one hand, Obama has checked out. He's never cared and he hasn't bothered. At the same time, his actions and inactions have done tremendous damage to the country. It will take a good leader to undo what his Indifference has caused.
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