The
items in this category have been collected from a variety of sources.
They are placed here because the thrust of the article is
related to psychology. This stuff is here because it's
interesting, not because it's a professional assessment.
Democrats' Worst Nightmare
Alex Ritz
says Barack Obama is seriously damaging the Democrat party.
His agenda, while popular among his staunchest supporters, is not
resonating with the American people. The numbers tell the story.
According to Rasmussen Reports:
• 68% say the
country is heading in the wrong direction. •
58% say Congress is doing a poor job. • 52% disapprove of Obama's
performance. • 52% oppose the
massive health care plan.
Yet, none of these numbers seem to matter to the
man in the Oval Office. The outlook becomes even more bleak when
considering the Democrats up for reelection in November 2010. Many
Democrats have already jumped ship rather than be slaughtered in the
mid-terms. The destruction being inflicted on the Democrat party
is clear for all to see, yet Obama pushes forward with his agenda
undeterred. Its as if he doesn’t realize that the damage being
inflicted on his party will have serious implications for his agenda and
his presidency.
Why is he doing this? I have three
theories.
Theory 1: Obama is an insatiable narcissist who
so badly wants his presidency to be remembered as historic that he is
willing to lead his party to defeat to achieve it. Obama wants his
name in the record books as the man who pushed for and achieved "Health
Care reform" at any cost.
Theory 2: Obama considers
himself more than just the President of the United States. He
views himself as operating on a grander scale. President of the
world perhaps. In this position, Obama believes that he can
correct the wrongs in the world and make things more equitable for all
mankind. By relinquishing the sovereignty of the United States and
using it as a piggy bank to fund humanitarian efforts around the globe
he can offer reparations for all the wrongs committed by the USA.
Theory 3: Obama was both a student and teacher in the ways of
Saul Alinsky. Alinsky is all about creating chaos to bring about
revolutionary change. Obama said over and over on the campaign
trail: "we are close to beginning the task of fundamentally changing the
United States of America." At the time, people glossed over it as
normal campaign rhetoric. In order to bring about this
revolutionary change, a major event would be needed. Perhaps the
collapse of the capitalist system that is currently in place. If
Obama can get it to collapse, he can then make the case that it imploded
due to its own corruption and immorality. A new system would be
required to move forward. Obama would then attempt to rebuild the
United States in a socialist image.
Perhaps there are portions
of all of these theories floating around in Obama’s head.
On the
other side of the equation, in no way do I understand why the Democrat
party is blindly following this man. He is destroying their party.
He has shown no regard for the future of his party in Congress and seems
more than willing to cast anyone overboard if it means getting one step
closer to achieving his objectives.
Why do they continue to
follow him?
I understand the tremendous desire for health care
reform. It’s something the Democrat party has wanted for 5
decades. But these Democrats must see the writing on the wall.
This bill, even if it does pass will be subject to endless lawsuits and
the opposition party will work endlessly to repeal it on the basis that
it is unconstitutional.
Senators Dodd and Dorgan worked for
decades in US Senate to achieve their power. Now, within one year
of Obama taking office, they have been destroyed. The Washington
Times reported that Senator Dorgan told reporters that his decision to
drop out "is not a reflection of any dissatisfaction with my work in the
Senate." It doesn’t add up.
At the end of the day, I’m not
complaining. I enjoy nothing more than watching Conservatism be
embraced all over the country, but the fact that we are watching the
Democrat party commit hari kari while Obama stands by providing
additional swords is bizarre to me.
America’s Crash Course In Narcissism
Joy Tiz
says the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM
IV-TR) is the diagnostic manual used by mental health professionals.
A diagnosis of narcissism requires five out of nine characteristics.
Note these traits must endure overtime and must not be reactions to a
particular situation or environmental stressor:
1. Grandiose sense of self-importance.
2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power,
beauty, or ideal love. 3. Sense of specialness, belief he
can only be understood by or should associate only with other
special or high-status individuals or institutions. 4. Need
for excessive admiration. 5. Heightened sense of
entitlement, leading to unreasonable expectations that others should
treat him especially favorably or comply automatically with his
expectations. 6. Tendency to be interpersonally exploitive.
A person with NPD does not hesitate in taking advantage of others to
meet his own ends. 7. Lack of empathy, an inability or
unwillingness to recognize or identify with the feelings or needs of
others. 8. An envy of other people, or conversely, a belief
that other people envy him. 9. A tendency toward arrogant
behavior or attitude.
In his essay on Obama’s narcissism, Sam
Vaknin references
Obama’s haughty body language and condescending attitude. Vaknin
also points out Obama’s "emotion free language." Commentators
frequently describe Obama as cool and aloof.
Some narcissists
learn to mimic normal human emotions. Clinton is the master of
this; he claimed to feel our pain, and plenty of Americans believed him.
Clinton learned how to win people over with his pseudo empathy.
Obama has yet to demonstrate anything we could call true empathy;
irrespective of the words he uses, there is no real emotional content.
When children experience overwhelming trauma, they protect
themselves as best they can with a variety of defense mechanisms.
There is no question that life for little Barry was traumatic, full of
chaos and abandonment, as well as genuine fear. The adults in his
life betrayed him and taught him hate and mistrust. Otto Kernberg,
in his research on narcissism, states that it evolves as a defense
against a cold and unsympathetic parent. The child withdraws part
of himself from the unavailable parent and turns it back toward himself,
creating a grandiose sense of self. Healthy emotional development
was just not possible in young Barry’s environment.
If five out of nine indicates
narcissism, what does nine out of nine indicate?
The Difference Is Me
Paul Mirengoff
says Rep. Marion Berry, an Arkansas Democrat, has
decided not to seek re-election. Berry told ABC News that he fears a
repeat of the 1994 midterm elections. According to Berry, the
White House does not share this concern:
"They just don't seem to give it any
credibility at all," Berry said. "They just kept telling us
how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that
was brought up in one group, said, 'Well, the big difference here
and in '94 was you've got me.'"
But so did Creigh Deeds -- Virginia; Jon Corzine -- New
Jersey; and Martha Coakley -- Massachusetts. Obama campaigned for
them all -- and they all lost.
Berry's anecdote reminded
Mirengoff of
something a friend told him about Obama. This friend met Obama when they
were both summer associates at the same law firm. Years later, as
Obama's campaign for president was picking up momentum, he gave him his
impressions from that summer.
At this point (2007), Obama struck
me as pretty likeable. In addition, prominent conservative lawyers who
had worked with Obama on the Harvard Law Review were saying nice things
about his willingness to cooperate with them and to treat them with
respect.
Since my friend is not inclined to say harsh things
about others, I expected him to give a favorable account of Obama too. Instead, he described Obama as "the most arrogant person I've ever met."
I must admit that I discounted this report to some extent. My
thinking was that anyone who had reached the heights Obama had already
hit by 2007 would likely come off as extremely arrogant to people
meeting them in a work setting 20 years or so earlier. (The Harvard Law
Review is a different matter -- there, the bar is considerably higher.
Moreover, as I understand it, Obama formed some sort of coalition with
conservatives on the Review, and thus they would have reason to think
well of him).
After a year as president, however, it seems clear
that Obama's arrogance far exceeds even the large quantity one would
expect from someone confident enough to seek the presidency with very
little serious experience and at a relatively young age.
He Thinks He's A
Gift From God
Ben Stein says there's something going on in this man's head that is
quite unusual (04:42)
Obama Refers To Himself 114 Times
Examiner.com
says that any speech from Obama is guaranteed to include numerous
references to himself, blaming George Bush, and creating straw men.
Wednesday night's State of the Union was no different.
Here is
the numbers breakdown of Obama's first State of the Union:
114 --
The staggering number of times Obama referred to himself. He said "I" 96
times, and used "my" or "me" 18 times. For example: "When I ran
for president, I promised I wouldn't just do what was popular, I would
do what was necessary." Barack Obama's favorite person is still
Barack Obama.
86 -- The number of times Obama was interrupted by
applause, almost always by his fellow Democrats.
70 -- The number
of minutes the speech took.
13 -- Stories of people that may or
may not exist, in an attempt to personalize his speech. -- Examples:
"The window manufacturer in Philadelphia", "the struggling small
business owner who wrote to me", and "the eight year old boy in
Louisiana."
10 -- Times Obama blamed his own failures on George
W. Bush. Instead of owning up to his own failures, Obama must
constantly try to remind people that the problems were there before he
got into office. Example: "That's what we did for eight years."
4 -- Attacks on Wall Street or bankers, the nouveau-bourgeoisie.
There is always a bogeyman that the Obamunists must blame for the
country's woes. Along with George Bush, the current evil entity is
Wall Street.
4 -- Arguments with straw men. Obama loves to
debate with people who do not have a forum. He is able to get his
point across and we are not allowed to hear from the other side.
Examples: "Those that disagree" and "some on the right."
1 --
Moderation from his ultra-liberal agenda. He actually showed a
willingness toward more opening America's vast, untapped oil resources.
"It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for
oil and gas development." Unfortunately, this was the only example
of Obama "moving to the center." Despite the Brown-out in
Massachusetts, Obama has not learned the lesson that America rejects his
leftist policies.
0 -- New ideas. It was the same old
agenda from Obama. He wants health care reform, another stimulus,
cap and trade. He remains tone deaf to the U.S. electorate.
0 -- Changes in ObamaCare. He repeatedly praised the plan and
said it must be passed. The main fault he found in it was that he
"didn't explain it more clearly." Obama said he would listen to
new ideas, but the ideas of tort reform and allowing insurance purchases
across state lines are not new. He refused to listen to them
before.
0 -- Lessons learned from the failure of Porkulus.
Yesterday, we found out the $787 billion dollar plan actually cost $862
billion. It failed miserably on its promise to keep unemployment
below 8 percent. Now, Obama wants a new "jobs plan".
0 --
Focus on national security. There was no discussion of Guantanamo
Bay, terrorist detainees being tried on U.S. soil, or the Flight 253
terror attempt.
Has Obama Become Bored?
Byron York
asks, isn't this is about the time Barack Obama becomes bored with
his job?
He's in his second year as president, and he's
discovered that even with all the powers of office, he can't do
everything he wants to do, like remake America. Doing stuff is
hard. In the past, prosaic work has held little appeal for Obama,
and it's prompted him to think about moving on.
Begin with his
first serious job, as a community organizer in Chicago. Obama got
a little done, but quickly became frustrated with small achievements.
"He didn't see organizing making any significant changes in things,"
Jerry Kellman, the organizer who hired him, told me in 2008.
What
Obama wanted was political power, and that is what sent him to Harvard
Law School. "He was constantly thinking about his path to
significance and power," another organizer, Mike Kruglik, told me.
"He said, 'I need to go there [Harvard] to find out more about power.
How do powerful people think? What kind of networks do they have?
How do they connect to each other?'"
Out of law school, Obama did
some civil rights work in Chicago before running successfully for the
Illinois Senate in 1996. Almost immediately, Obama began "chafing
... at the limitations of legislating in Springfield," in the words of a
Washington Post profile. Easily bored, and with a growing sense of
dissatisfaction, he set his eyes on the House of Representatives,
unsuccessfully challenging Rep. Bobby Rush in 2000. In 2002 he
began his campaign for the U.S. Senate.
He won in 2004, but the
Senate proved unsatisfying, too. By mid-2006, Majority Leader
Harry Reid "sensed his frustration and impatience, had heard rumblings
that Obama was already angling to head back home and take a shot at the
Illinois governorship," write Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in the
new book Game Change. Reid knew "Obama simply wasn't cut out to be
a Senate lifer."
According to the book, the majority leader
invited Obama to his office for a talk. "You're not going to go
anyplace here," Reid told Obama. "I know that you don't like it,
doing what you're doing." Reid suggested Obama run for president.
Obama had been a senator for all of 18 months at the time. Soon
after, he was off and running.
What drove Obama was not just
ambition, although he is certainly ambitious. As he became
frustrated in each job, Obama concluded that the problem was not having
the power to do the things he wanted to do. So he sought a more
powerful position.
Today he is sitting in the most powerful chair
in the world. Yet he has spent a year struggling, and failing, to
enact far-reaching makeovers of the American economy. So now, even
in the Oval Office, there are signs that the old dissatisfaction is
creeping back in.
At a Jan. 17 Martin Luther King Day event at
Washington's Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, Obama brought up the fact
that many people see him as almost preternaturally calm. "I have a
confession to make," Obama said. "There are times I'm not so calm
... when progress seems too slow ... when it feels like all these
efforts are for naught, and change is so painfully slow in coming, and I
have to confront my own doubts."
Obama said it to be
inspirational, but the fact is, in the past, that's when he looked for a
new job.
A few days later, ABC's Diane Sawyer asked whether Obama
would sometimes "sit and confront your own doubts."
"Yes," Obama
said.
"Ever in the middle of all that's coming did you think
maybe one term is enough?" Sawyer asked.
Obama answered
haltingly. "You know, I -- I would say that when I -- the one
thing I'm clear about is that I'd rather be a really good one-term
president than a mediocre two-term president."
Many observers
have remarked that, even when dealing with the most momentous issues
facing the country, Obama has seemed oddly removed from the hands-on
work of making policy. Maybe they're noticing the same thing Harry
Reid did. Obama's dissatisfaction is shining through; perhaps he's
not really cut out for -- or up to -- the job.
In the State of
the Union address, Obama declared, "I don't quit." And of course,
there's no danger he would just up and quit the Oval Office. But
throughout his life, his reaction to frustration has been to look for a
bigger job. What does he do now?
President Weirdo
I don't know about the rest of you, but I found
Anne Kornblut's report in the Washington Post -- "Obama's 17-minute,
2,500-word response to woman's claim of being 'over-taxed'" -- to be
deeply disturbing. Although I disagree with most of Barack Obama's
policies, I took no pleasure in seeing a political opponent wound
himself by talking on and on to the point of agitating his audience.
The situation is much too grave for that. This is our country --
all of us, Republican, Democrat and Independent. And I am now
convinced of what I have long suspected -- the United States has a
leader with a serious personality disorder.
Now I admit I am not
a professional psychiatrist or psychologist, nor do I see myself even
remotely as a paragon of mental health, but I have made a decent living
for over thirty years as a fiction writer whose stock in trade is
perforce studying people and this is one strange dude. He makes
Richard Nixon seem almost normal.
I first began worrying about
this during the Reverend Wright
affair. Obama insisted, as we all recall, that he did not know the
reverend's views even though the then candidate had spent twenty years
in his church, been married by him, had his children baptized by him and
taken the inspiration for his book from Wright. Now most educated
people would have a pretty good idea about Wright after five minutes,
let alone twenty years. The reverend is not a subtle man.
Yet Obama told us he didn't know.
Was the candidate lying or was
he just so dissociated from reality that he didn't see what was in front
of his eyes? Or perhaps a little of both? Whatever the
conclusion, it is not a happy one. The same man is before us now
-- only we're not in the midst of a campaign. We have no way out.
He is leading our nation during a time of economic crisis with a world
changing so rapidly that our heads spin.
Therapists often speak
of "inappropriate affect" -- laughing at sad news, etc. -- as an
indicator of psychological disturbance. That is not far from what
Obama displayed at the question-and-answer session in Charlotte
described by Kornblut when he endlessly replied to a woman's query about
taxation. His response was inappropriate, to say the least.
It also was a demonstration that at heart he does not believe his own
ideas. Otherwise, why take so long? Methinks he doth protest
too much, as the Bard said. And protest he does, like a comedian
who knows he is bombing but keeps telling jokes.
Unfortunately,
the joke is on us. Obama's proposals have become a manifestation
of ego, and not of thought-through deliberated policy. No attempt
at bi-partisanship is ever really made because our leader is too fragile
to compromise and too wounded to admit when he is wrong. For
someone who arrived as an "intellectual," ideas are the least of it.
He only wants to be right.
I know some conservatives think Obama
is a socialist or a closet Alinskyite or whatever, but I think the
problem is yet more complicated. No matter his ideology, this man
is not fit to rule psychologically. Or, more properly, govern --
but you know what I mean. He doesn't have the temperament.
He was elected with people
knowing almost nothing about him. Despite that the facts are
still masked, his history still obscure, we may now know too much, have
seen too much. These things just leak out around the edges.
They do for all of us, like it or not. And yet, he will be with us
until 2012 at least.
Ralph Benko
says that Obama, politically and psychically, is vulnerable not as a
progressive but as, demonstrably, an overbearing elitist. America
was founded on the self-evident truth that all are created equal.
Elitism is abhorrent to Americans. Elitist politicians flinch
when called out. Obama is proudly progressive. He appears
ashamed of his elitism, which he carefully and continually veils.
Exposing him as elitist will be Obama’s apocalypse ( "apocalypse"
meaning "to lift the veil"). This will trigger a series of
immediate reactions.
First, it will rally, and focus, the voters.
Obama’s elitism is an insult. "The thousand injuries of Fortunato
I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed
revenge," begins Edgar Allen Poe’s "The Cask of Amontillado."
Americans are bearing up under the thousand injuries of Obama. It
erodes his popularity but doesn’t trigger a focused reaction. (And
as the business cycle begins to restore jobs, as it is, the sense of
injury will fade.) But when people realize that he has ventured upon
insult, they, politically, will immure him.
This will alienate
Obama’s key allies from him. Democratic congressmen may swallow
hard and vote with him in piling trillions in debt upon our children.
That can be rationalized in the name of a crisis or of jobs.
But
elitism can’t be rationalized. There is no way to rationalize
insulting your voters. Obama is shielded by the massive apparatus
of the White House and by guaranteed post-presidency fame and fortune.
Members of Congress are not so shielded and sooner or later will
distance themselves from insultingly naked elitism.
This will
call out to Obama’s own conscience. Baring his elitism may force
Obama into some overdue soul-searching. Dan Balz and Haynes
Johnson, in "The Battle for America 2008," report that in preparing
Obama to run, advisor David Axelrod wrote to him:
"It goes to your willingness and ability to
put up with something you have never experienced on a sustained
basis: criticism. At the risk of triggering the very reaction
that concerns me, I don't know if you are Muhammad Ali or Floyd
Patterson when it comes to taking a punch. You care far too
much what is written and said about you."
Obama presents himself as fundamentally decent,
albeit infuriatingly smug and not nearly as smart as he thinks (nor as
smart as what The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki calls "the wisdom of
crowds").
Baring Obama's elitism will put him on the defensive.
Obama is likely to begin to second-guess himself and even may begin to
check his own worst excesses and begin a return toward embracing the
common sense wisdom of the people.
Attacking Obama as a Leftist
attacks him on his own turf. Attacking him as elitist attacks him
on ours. Alinsky teaches us (Rule 3, Rules for Radicals),
"Whenever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy. Here
you want to cause confusion, fear and retreat."
The simple
truth? Obama is an elitist. The winning strategy? Rip
away the veil and reveal the hidden truth. Naked elitism is
Obama’s apocalypse.
What Is Barack Obama?
Roger L. Simon
thinks Obama’s deranged, and Roger’s the son of a good psychiatrist,
so he knows what he’s talking about. I don’t doubt that Obama has
his issues -- just look at his nutty mother, consider the impact of
being abandoned by dad -- but I don’t think that just putting Obama on
the couch is the best way to understand him.
Put him in the classroom instead. Because he’s the
stereotypical American undergrad at a stereotypical Ivy League college
in the age of political correctness.
He doesn’t much like America or Americans, or the "former colonial
powers" like Britain. Like so many would-be intellectuals, he
admires lefty writers and screenwriters and actors and actresses.
He likes the downtrodden, like the Palestinians, but he’s overcome with
awe for the occasional cool (non-Western) monarch or emperor (whether
Arab or Chinese). He probably has a Che tee shirt tucked away in a
drawer, don’t you think?
He doesn’t know much history (he thinks Muslims invented printing),
geography (his America has 57 states), or economics (he believes you can
reduce health care costs by adding millions to the public rolls).
The most important thing to Obama is how you feel and what you say,
not all those annoying facts (50 states, the Chinese invented printing,
and you increase deficits when you spend more). And, like most
students, when the debate goes badly for him, Obama makes fun of his
critics -- when he actually lets them talk a little bit. Remember
when he hosted a few Republicans in the White House so he could listen
to what they might say about health care…and then talked twice as much
as they did?
As a typical undergrad, Obama loves to talk, and loves to talk about
peace and justice. You know, the really important things.
His new nuclear policy is right out of a college bull session:
"Why don’t we just promise not to use them?" Nukes are bad, ugly
things. Doesn’t everyone agree that the world would be better off
without them?
Well, grownups don’t necessarily agree. It all depends
how you get there, and what the others do along the way. We do
have real enemies, but undergrad Obama understands their ire and shares
their pain. It’s up to us to make things right. And so he
apologizes, worrying more about our nukes (about which he has done
something) than Iran’s (we haven’t done a thing).
Finally, he doesn’t seem to realize what a mess he’s making.
And when he gets his grades, he blames the professors (we the people, in
this case) for being unfair.
That’s the sort we’ve been graduating for a generation or more, isn’t
it? Did you really think we’d never get one in the White House?
Obama Going Off The Deep End
Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
say that a
recent analysis by Roger Simon of PJTV Media maintains that Obama is
showing signs of mental illness. A wide variety of commentators
have observed that Obama displays severe narcissism. Obama is
conceited, and he is demonstrating a serious disassociation from
reality.
A recent case in point was Obama's bizarre and
meandering 17-minute, 2,500-word answer to the simple question about how
he could justify raising taxes for ObamaCare during a recession when
citizens are already overtaxed. Obama's wildly inappropriate
answer left the audience stunned and led commentator Charles Krauthammer
to mockingly say, "I don't know why you are so surprised. It’s
only nine times the length of the Gettysburg address, and after all
Lincoln was answering an easier question, the higher purpose of the
union and the soldiers who fell in battle."
This lapse of
delusion occurred in front of a friendly audience. Overall, Barack
Obama seems to be slipping into a slightly more delusional state these
days.
On Monday, following his embarrassing answer on Saturday,
Obama stopped by the Washington Nationals home opener to loft an
effeminate toss toward home plate constituting the ceremonial first
pitch. After this display, Obama was mucking it up in the press
booth talking about his love of the Chicago White Sox. The
announcers asked Obama which players he supported growing up a White Sox
fan. After hemming and hawing for about 30 seconds, Obama
responded that he grew up in Hawaii and was actually an A's fan.
Again, he avoided mentioning any players by name. Obama seems to
believe that he can say whatever he wants, and not reap the consequences
or be forced to defend his empty assertions. Obama behaves in a
manner so disconnected from reality that he is shocked when someone has
the audacity to question him. Obama acts like his word is
infallible.
In March of last year Obama was on "60 Minutes" with
Steve Kroft. Throughout the interview, as Kroft questioned about
the economic downturn and people losing their life savings, Obama just
kept laughing. At one point, CBS’s Kroft stopped him and asked,
"Are you punch drunk?" How will the American people react to
seeing this man laugh off their predicament? Obama’s inappropriate
laughter clearly demonstrated he has lost touch with the pain that
people are feeling.
Obama portrays himself as the
larger-than-life figure towering above the political fray. At the
summit when Obama was pushing his health care package through Congress,
he attempted to act as if he were the chief arbiter of truth. With
petty insults, he slapped down what the Republicans proposed and
audaciously claimed his was a "bipartisan bill." Obama distorts
the truth with such frequency that one must start to question if Obama
even realizes he is lying, or is so disassociated from the truth that he
believes what he says.
A further example of Obama’s delusions of
grandeur occurred when he gave himself a "good solid B plus."
Believing that his presidency was an above average success when America
is hurting is absurd. Obama went so far as to claim that he would
give himself an "A" once health care was passed. Obama is not
living in the same reality as the rest of us.
As Charles
Krauthammer wrote, "Not that Obama considers himself divine. (He
sees himself as merely messianic, or, at worst, apostolic.) But he
does position himself as hovering above mere mortals, mere country, to
gaze benignly upon the darkling plain beneath him where ignorant armies
clash by night, blind to the common humanity that only he can see."
Obama sees himself as the greatest man to be president in all time.
He truly believes it when he said "we are the ones we have been waiting
for," and "this is the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow
and the planet began to heal." He believes that he can do anything
he pleases and the people will love him for it. Obama plans to
radically transform this country and go down in history as, in his mind,
the greatest ever. Obama is clearly disconnected from reality.
Obama is, according to Newt Gingrich, "potentially the most
dangerous (president), because he so completely misunderstands reality."
Gingrich was referring to Obama’s inept and weak stance on missile
defense amongst other things. Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said
that Obama is an amateur; so much for wowing the world. Obama
lives in an alternate universe where he treats our friends poorly and
expects our enemies to change and become our friends. Here’s
hoping that the voters help to connect Obama back to reality in
November.
He Might Be Insane
The European Union Times
claims a new report circulating in the Kremlin today authored by
France’s Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) and recently
"obtained" by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB)
shockingly quotes French President Nicolas Sarkozy as stating that
Barack Obama is "a dangerous[ly] aliéné", which translates into his,
Obama, being a "mad lunatic", or in the American vernacular, "insane".
According to this report, Sarkozy was "appalled" at Obama’s
"vision" of what the World should be under his "guidance" and "amazed"
at Obama's unwillingness to listen to either "reason" or "logic."
Sarkozy’s meeting where these impressions of Obama were formed took
place nearly a fortnight ago at the White House in Washington D.C., and
upon his leaving he "scolded" Obama and the US for not listening closely
enough to what the rest of the World has to say.
Apparently, as
this report details, the animosity between Sarkozy and Obama arose out
of how best the West can deal with the growing threat posed by rising
Islamic fundamentalism. Both Sarkozy and his European neighbors
had previously been supported in their efforts by the United States in
forming an alliance to strengthen the integration of Muslim peoples into
their societies, and has including France and Belgium moving to ban the
wearing of burqa’s.
European fears over their growing Muslim
populations appear to be valid as the growing immigration and birth
rates of these Islamic peoples are warned is causing the "Islamization"
of the Continent and within a few generations will see them become the
majority of nearly all of the EU Nations.
The greatest threat to
these Western Nations posed by the Muslim peoples becoming the majority
of their populations lies in their likelihood of destroying the Global
Banking System which according to their faith is firmly rooted in
"satanic" evil and "must" be replaced by an Islamic one.
[Note:
Islamic banking refers to a system of banking or banking activity that
is consistent with the principles of Islamic law (Sharia)
and its practical application through the development of Islamic
economics. Sharia prohibits the payment or acceptance of interest
fees for the lending and accepting of money respectively, (Riba, usury)
for specific terms, as well as investing in businesses that provide
goods or services considered contrary to its principles (Haraam,
forbidden).
Obama, on the other hand, doesn’t share the views of
his European allies and has, instead, embarked upon a course of
embracing the Muslim peoples of the World, and to the shock of all has
overturned the Bush era ban on the radical Swiss born Muslim Cleric
Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States, last year ordered the US
government bailed out General Electric Capital Corporation to became the
first Western multinational to issue an Islamic bond, and this past week
commanded that all of his governments security documents eliminate the
words "Islamic extremism" and "jihad".
Sarkozy in these reports
further warns that by Obama’s "unrestrained" and "destabilizing" actions
an already tense Global situation is growing ever more catastrophic as
America’s once stalwart allies are being cast aside in favor of a New
World Order where instead of the United States securing its vital energy
future through conquest and war it will now do so by appeasement to some
of the most violent and radical regimes on Earth.
Scott at Powerline blog says,
we
criticized Barack Obama when he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia.
Americans do not bow to royalty. When the royal is the ruling
tyrant of a despotic regime, the wrong is compounded. Obama's
bowing to the King was deeply offensive.
When the story emerged from the shadows of the Internet,
Ben Smith ran an item on Politico with the White House denying the
bow. "It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands,
and he's taller than King Abdullah," said an Obama aide, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity. Bill O'Reilly ran a bemused segment on
it once the White House denied what Obama had done.
A reporter asked Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs about the bow.
Under his own name and on the record,
Gibbs
denied what any fool could see. Indeed, one astute observer
commented on CNN that "Ray Charles could see that he bowed."
Obama did it again when he met up with the Emperor of Japan.
Andrew Malcolm
asked (and reported): "How low will he go? Obama gives Japan's
Emperor Akihito a wow bow."
Yesterday
Obama did it yet again, this time bowing to the Communist Chinese
President Hu Jintao during the official arrivals for the Nuclear
Security Summit in Washington.
Insofar as I am aware, Obama has not been asked directly to explain
his behavior and he has not done so. ABC White House correspondent
Jake Tapper
sought comment on Obama's bow to the Japanese Emperor, not from
Obama or one of his spokesmen, but rather from "[a]n old friend -- an
academic with expertise about the Japanese Empire[.]" State
Department spokesman Ian Kelly
told reporters that
the bow was "a sign of respect to the emperor."
Whence the source of Obama's "respect" for the King of Saudi Arabia
and the president of China as opposed to other heads of state? We
are left to speculate on the meaning of Obama's bowing and scraping for
ourselves.
Obama means to teach Americans to bow before monarchs and tyrants.
He embodies the ideological multiculturalism that sets the United States
on the same plane as other regimes based on tribal privilege, royal
bloodlines and one-party rule.
Obama gives expressive form to the idea that the United States now
willingly prostrates itself before the rest of the world. He
declares that the United States is a country like any other, only worse,
because we have so much for which to apologize.
When it comes to the United States, he has a serious case of what
Peter Wehner dubs
denigration reflex.
Despite his obsequiousness to tyrants, Obama is not a humble man.
On the contrary, Obama is a man of extraordinary arrogance. He
seeks fundamentally to transform the United States. With him, a
new age begins.
On Humility
In an
interview with ABC's Kerry O'Brien, Obama said he and Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd of Australia share several personality traits -- one of which
is humility.
"He was quite expansive and quite genuine on what he
saw as the commonality and connections between [he and Mr Rudd].
One of which was humility," O'Brien said.
O'Brien said Obama was
at times philosophical during the "tightly controlled interview."
I find O'Brien's snippet, about
how tightly Obama's handler's control the ObamaMedia,
unusually candid.
Obama's humble description of his humble
humility is good for a chuckle.
Strikingly Unpresidential
David Limbaugh
says Barack Obama doesn't deserve the reputation he's had for his
style and temperament and for being gracious, civil, bipartisan and
post-racial. He is often ungracious, uncivil, hyper-partisan,
race-oriented and vindictive. He mocks and ridicules almost for
sport. More than any president in my memory, he often does not
comport himself presidentially.
Why does this matter? Well -- if
I even have to answer that -- he is the face of America. The left
constantly talked about George W. Bush's swagger and his cowboy
diplomacy and how that damaged our "image" in the world and our
relations with other nations.
But George W. Bush was nothing if
not circumspect, discreet and respectful in his dealings with foreign
leaders and his dealings with his political opponents. He was
exceedingly presidential, demonstrating an extremely high respect for
the office he held and what it represented.
How the president
presents himself does matter for all the obvious reasons, but I believe
Obama's behavior and the public's perception of it are relevant for
other equally important reasons. He came into office with a
reputation for being sophisticated, gentlemanly, above the political
fray and open-minded. But it was a facade, facilitated by good
looks, a seemingly pleasant demeanor and an extraordinarily fawning --
and forgiving -- media. He has been getting a pass on his unseemly
conduct for way too long, which partially explains the disconnect
between his personal likability and the unpopularity of his socialist
agenda.
I believe that if the public were fully attuned to how
unpresidentially he has consistently behaved, it wouldn't be as
approving of him personally, and in turn, politicians wouldn't be so
afraid to call him out on his Machiavellian and brutish behavior, the
exposure of which would have an electoral impact. If more people
understood what I believe to be this man's actual character, they
wouldn't -- in the face of his consistently highhanded tactics in
pushing each and every one of his destructive agenda items --
reflexively assume he's such a nice guy who means well. Then, they
might be more vigilant, and heaven knows we need megadoses of vigilance
these days.
I have theories about why Obama is consistently
getting a pass, beyond the media's corrupt liberalism and the allies
he's created through his racial and class warfare, but that's another
column. The point for now is that he is getting a pass, and his
behavior is increasingly indefensible.
We talk about Obama as a
graduate of Saul Alinsky's school of thuggish street agitation, but it
is more than just a casual charge. He is Alinsky personified with
a disarming smile. It's not just a matter of his having embraced a
political strategy that involves hitting below the belt and abusing
power to help his friends and hurt his enemies. His behavior is
not just a tactic; it's part of who he is. It is apparent that he
has been coddled so long that he simply has zero tolerance for any
opposition.
Indeed, he is exactly the opposite of who he billed
himself to be: "I will bring a new type of politics to Washington."
As a committed liberal ideologue, he is neither a uniter nor one willing
to consider both sides of an issue. But it's not just his
extremist views that are divisive. He is also often personally
divisive, petty and mean-spirited.
From the time he cavalierly
dismissed Hillary Clinton during a presidential debate with "You're
likable enough, Hillary," I knew some cold blood ran through his veins.
As president, he has been gratuitously nasty with people who have dared
oppose him, and he has affirmatively targeted and demonized entire
industries to advance his agenda.
Consider: his command that "the
folks who created the mess" not "do a lot of talking"; his endless
scapegoating of George Bush; his rude treatment of foreign leaders, from
Britain's Gordon Brown to France's Nicolas Sarkozy; his abominable
treatment of Israel and its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu;
his character assassination of inspector general Gerald Walpin for
blowing the whistle on his friends; his demonization of surgeons and
primary care physicians as dishonest mercenaries, Republicans as
"liars," secured creditors as "speculators," tea partiers as "domestic
terrorists," Arizonans as "irresponsible," rural Americans as bitter
clingers and America itself as being "dismissive," "arrogant" and
"derisive" and as having "a responsibility to act" because it is the
only nation to have ever "used a nuclear weapon"; his vilification of
Wall Street "fat cat" bankers, big pharma, big oil, insurance companies,
big corporations, corporate executives, Cambridge policemen,
conservative talk show hosts and Fox News; his snubbing even of the
liberal press pool; his egomaniacal behavior at the health care summit;
and his administration's flirtation with criminalizing Bush-era
officials for their legal opinions.
Obama's Burden Of Brightness
John Dietrich
says Obama is frequently described as highly intelligent. His
advisor Valerie Jarrett has described this as a "burden." She
announced at the John F. Kennedy School of Government that "[p]art of
the burden of being so bright is that he sees his error immediately."
Advisor David Axelrod claimed, "He does have an incisive mind.
This is someone who in law school worked with [Harvard professor] Larry
Tribe on a paper on the legal implications of Einstein's theory of
relativity." Obama obviously shares this opinion, having told
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid early in his Senate career, "Harry, I
have a gift."
The "progressive" media can be counted on to
regurgitate this mantra. They have, in fact, surpassed it, and
they have often entered the realm of idolatry or even adolescent
infatuation. Chris Matthews is perhaps the leading example of
this. Following one Obama's press conferences, Matthews claimed
that "[t]he president showed his analytical mind. He was at his
best intellectually. I thought it was a great example of how his
mind works. What a mind he has, and I love his ability to do it on
television. I love to think with him." Matthews is famous
for the frequent "thrill" that goes up his leg. He apparently also
suffers from gender confusion. Watching Obama board a helicopter,
Matthews gushed, "We agree, we girls agree. I don't mind saying
that. I'm excited. I'm thrilled." Following Obama's
speech at the Democratic National Convention, reports on him became so
fawning that even Bill Maher, no right-winger, commented that "the
coverage ... that I was watching from MSNBC, I mean these guys were
ready to have sex with him."
The commentators at MSNBC were not
alone. Judith Warner, who writes for the New York Times, claimed
that many women are dreaming of having sex with Obama. How did she know?
Well, from personal experience. She shared her fantasy of finding
Obama in her shower. Was this news "fit to print"?
Another
New York Times columnist, David Brooks, shared the experience of his
first encounter with Obama: "I remember distinctly an image of -- we
were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his
perfectly creased pant," Brooks reported, "and I'm thinking, a) he's
going to be president and b) he'll be a very good president." Evan
Thomas, Newsweek editor, provided this analysis: "I mean, in a way
Obama's standing above the country, above -- above the world...he's sort
of God." Historian Michael Beschloss, who might be considered an
expert on American presidents, claimed that the current president's IQ
is "off the charts." When pressed to reveal what he thought
Obama's IQ was, Beschloss could only say, "he's probably the smartest
guy ever to become president." Even many of Obama's critics have
bought into the intelligence hype. FOX news contributor Fred
Barnes of the Weekly Standard claimed that "for all his brainpower," he
is a "slow learner."
This adulation may cause a serious problem
for supporters of Obama. Joe Scarborough pointed this out on his MSNBC
program: "I tell you my biggest fear for Barack Obama, he has been
sainted. He is Saint Barack. The same mainstream media that
tried so desperately to get him elected has engaged in hyperbole,
engaged in exaggeration. They have deified this man. ...
They have set up such unrealistic expectations that no politician could
meet those expectations." Scarborough might blame the media for
this hyperbole, but they are only willing accomplices. The
president himself has set the bar rather high. On June 3, 2008, he
announced that future generations would look back on his primary victory
as "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet
began to heal."
It would be unfair to elaborate on all of Obama's
gaffes in order to bolster the argument that he is not as intelligent as
his supporters claim. It was unfair of the progressive media to
pillory Vice President Dan Quayle for misspelling "potatoe." It
was unfair to highlight every instance of Ronald Reagan and George Bush
misspeaking. But is it professional for the media to edit a
president's remarks in order to correct them? Obama, speaking of
the Somali pirates, stated, "And I want to be very clear that we are
resolved to halt the rise of privacy in that region." This was
obviously a mistake. However, the major media reported that he
vowed to "halt the rise of piracy" off the coast of Africa.
Can
an individual who is obviously infatuated with a public figure provide
an objective analysis of that figure's policies? It seems
unlikely.
Obama's Psychosis
Jeffrey T. Kuhner
says Obama clings to the delusion that there is no war on Islamic
extremism.
Obama is at war with reality. This is his central problem.
The arrest of suspected Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad is being
celebrated in the liberal establishment media as a triumph for the Obama
administration. A terrorist atrocity was averted; Mr. Shahzad was
captured before his plane could take off for Dubai.
Yet the
media's narrative overlooks one seminal fact: We got lucky. The
only reason Mr. Shahzad's car bomb did not blow up in the heart of
midtown Manhattan during a bustling Saturday evening was incompetence.
His detonator failed to work properly. Otherwise, everything was
in place -- the Pathfinder parked in a strategic location, gas cans,
propane tanks and fertilizer -- for a deadly jihadist attack aimed at
inflicting maximum casualties.
This is unacceptable. The
attempted bombing reveals once again Obama's inability to protect
America from Islamist terrorism. Under his watch, terrorist
attacks and attempted attacks on U.S. soil have increased.
Muslim extremists have targeted synagogues in New York and federal
buildings in Dallas. In September, a plot to bomb New York City's
subway was disrupted. In November, the Fort Hood massacre resulted
in the murder of 13 service members. On Christmas Eve, the
so-called underwear bomber came within a whisker of blowing up a United
Airlines flight approaching Detroit. Every single one of these
acts -- aborted or not -- is a damning repudiation of Obama's policy of
appeasement. Rather than ushering in a new era of peace and
coexistence, multicultural detente is emboldening the forces of global
jihad. The Shahzads of the world rightly sense American weakness.
The heart of the Obama doctrine is the illusion that there is no
war on terror. According to Obama and the liberal elite, Islamic
fascism is a figment of George W. Bush's fevered imagination -- a wild
scheme concocted by militaristic neoconservatives to justify invading
Iraq and imposing an American empire in the Middle East.
Hence,
Obama has sought to repeal much of Mr. Bush's legacy. U.S. troops
are to begin pulling out of Afghanistan next summer. Afghan
President Hamid Karzai is being abandoned. Israel is undermined.
Democracy and human rights are no longer promoted in the Arab world.
Washington seeks a rapprochement with Iran and Syria. Guantanamo
is to be closed. Terrorists are to be tried in civilian court.
Obama apologizes for U.S. "injustices" in the Middle East. Terms
such as "Muslim," "Islam" or "Islamic extremism" are censored from
national security documents.
In short, Obama is conveying that
America no longer views radical Islam as the enemy. Obama
desperately wants everyone to get along. The Islamists, however,
don't. They remain impervious to his calls for hope and change.
In fact, they are expressing increasing contempt for him -- and
America. Like all postmodern leftists, Obama refuses to accept the
fundamental truth of human nature: the enduring existence of evil.
Not everybody wants to get along; some peoples, cultures and ideologies
are irredeemably wicked, bent on imperial expansion and genocide.
Their lust for power and domination cannot be quenched. History is
full of them -- the Huns, the Aztecs, the Mongols, the Ottoman Turks,
Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Soviet Russia, communist China.
Eventually, the only solution is to crush them. Appeasement only
invites aggression.
The Times Square bomber demonstrates the
parochial narcissism of contemporary liberalism. Shahzad should
have been a classic convert to New York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman's utopian dream of a world based on consumerism and
globalization. He was a Pakistani immigrant who became a U.S.
citizen. The country he betrayed and loathed gave him immigration
visas, a university education, a job at a prestigious marketing firm, a
home in suburban Connecticut -- the American dream.
Instead of
being grateful, he became part of the global jihad in his native
Pakistan. He preferred the Taliban training camps in Peshawar to
McDonald's and Blockbuster. The sword and the crescent were too
alluring for him.
Since the seventh century, radical Islam has
been at war with the West. It purged the Arabian Peninsula of most
Christians and Jews. During the Middle Ages, it conquered large
swaths of Europe -- from Spain and parts of France to Sicily and the
Balkans. Today's Islamists seek to restore a medieval global
caliphate. Their aims are not rational or limited, but
totalitarian and universal.
There is something strangely
perverse about a worldview that believes a greater threat comes from old
ladies at Tea Party rallies holding anti-Obama signs than jihadist mass
murderers. Obama refuses to denounce Mr. Shahzad -- or anyone --
as an Islamic terrorist. The most he could muster was that the
Pakistani-American's capture was "another sobering reminder of the times
in which we live." His statements were not exactly Churchillian.
But when it comes to excoriating the Tea Party movement, Obama
is more than willing to pound the pulpit and sound the clarion calls to
battle. He has called them "tea baggers" -- a vicious slur.
He hints that they are closet racists, who may repeat the violence of
Timothy McVeigh. His Democratic media allies smear them as white
supremacists and "domestic extremists." New York Mayor Michael R.
Bloomberg even said before Shahzad's arrest that maybe the culprit was
an opponent of ObamaCare. This is from the mayor of a city that
lost 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.
The desire to equate Tea
Partiers -- peaceful, law-abiding activists who have never committed any
heinous crimes, never mind bombings or beheadings -- with murderous
fanatics is not simply delusional. It reflects an ideological
psychosis, a death instinct that refuses to face up to the gathering
threat of Islamic fascism.
Next time, we may not be so lucky.
And Mr. Obama's dogmatic denial of a war on terror will mean nothing
when American blood is spilled on our streets.
He's Pretty Thin-Skinned
Peter Wehner says Obama is among the most
thin-skinned politicians we have ever had, and we see evidence of it in every
possible venue imaginable, from one-on-one interviews to press
conferences, from extemporaneous remarks to set speeches.
Obama
is constantly complaining about what others are saying about him.
He is upset at Fox News, and conservative talk radio, and Republicans,
and people carrying unflattering posters of him. He gets upset
when his avalanche of faulty facts are challenged, like on health care.
He gets upset when he is called on his hypocrisy, on everything from
breaking his promise not to hire lobbyists in the White House to
broadcasting health care meetings on C-SPAN to not curtailing earmarks
to failing in his promises of transparency and bipartisanship.
In
Obama's eyes, he is always the aggrieved, always the violated, always
the victim of some injustice. He is America's virtuous and
valorous hero, a man of unusually pure motives and uncommon wisdom,
under assault by the forces of darkness.
It is all so darn
unfair.
Not surprisingly, Obama's thin skin leads to self pity.
As Daniel Halper of The Weekly Standard
pointed out, in a fundraising event for Sen. Barbara Boxer, Obama
said,
"Let's face it: this has been the toughest
year and a half since any year and a half since the 1930s."
Really, now? Worse than the period
surrounding December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001? Worse than
what Gerald Ford faced after the resignation of Richard Nixon and
Watergate, which constituted the worse constitutional scandal in our
history and tore the country apart? Worse than what Ronald Reagan
faced after Jimmy Carter (when interest rates were 22 percent, inflation
was more than 13 percent, and Reagan faced something entirely new under
the sun, "stagflation")? Worse than 1968, when Bobby Kennedy and
Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated and there was rioting in our
streets? Worse than what LBJ faced during Vietnam -- a war which
eventually claimed more than 58,000 lives? Worse than what John
Kennedy faced in the Bay of Pigs and in the Cuban Missile Crisis, when
we and the Soviet Union edged up to the brink of nuclear war?
Worse than what Franklin Roosevelt faced on the eve of the Normandy
invasion? Worse than what Bush faced in Iraq in 2006, when that
nation was on the edge of civil war, or when the financial system
collapsed in the last months of his presidency? Worse than what
Truman faced in defeating imperial Japan, in reconstructing post-war
Europe, and in responding to North Korea's invasion of South Korea?
In his autobiography "Present at the Creation," Dean Acheson wrote
about the immensity of the task the Truman administration faced after
war ended in 1945, which "only slowly revealed itself. As it did
so, it began to appear as just a bit less formidable than that described
in the first chapter of Genesis. That was to create a world out of
chaos; ours, to create half a world, a free half, out of the same
material without blowing the whole to pieces in the process."
For
Obama to complain that the problems he faces are so much worse than any
other president in the last 80 years is stunningly self-indulgent, to
say nothing of ahistorical.
With Obama there is also the
compulsive need to admonish others, to point fingers, to say that the
problems he faces are not of his doing. Oh, sure; on occasions
there are the grudging concessions, like in Thursday's press conference
devoted to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where Obama says, "In
case you're wondering who's responsible, I take responsibility" to
ensure that "everything is done to shut this down." But those
words are always pro forma, done reluctantly and for tactical political
reasons, a rhetorical trick that is meant to get him off the hook.
As recently as last week, Obama, in the Rose Garden, was implicitly
blaming the previous occupant of the White House for the explosion of
the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon.
Obama's instincts are by now
obvious to all: deflect blame, point fingers, and lash out at others,
most especially his predecessor. We know from press reports that
the strategy for the Democrats in 2010, two years after Obama was
elected, is to -- you guessed it -- blame George W. Bush.
What
explains all this is hard to know. But it's clear he has adopted
an image of himself as something rare and remarkable, a historic figure
of almost super-human abilities. "I am absolutely certain that
generations from now," Obama said during the summer of his presidential
run, "we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was
the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to
the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to
slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a
war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope
on earth."
Obama's more unattractive personal qualities probably
won't wear well with the electorate. Americans tend to tire of
those who are look back rather than ahead and are always blaming others
for the problems they face.
Barack Obama -- a man who was as
unprepared to be president as any man in our lifetime -- has over the
last 16 months shown that he is overmatched by events. His poll
numbers continue to drop, his health care proposal is becoming less
rather than more popular, the oil spill in the Gulf is badly eroding his
image for leadership and competence, and his party has been battered in
election after election since November. We have now reached the
point where Democrats are running against Obama and his agenda in order
to survive.
Extracted from Mark Levin' blog. The entire
article is
here . . .
Is Barack Obama Suffering From Narcissistic
Personality Disorder?
David Z
says that months ago, my friend Brad noticed that whenever Obama
gives an address he speaks in a condescending manner. His body language
is that of someone who is looking down on the audience, and his verbal
language accommodates this. Brad noted that he makes frequent use of the
command, "Look:" which just isn’t how mature adults converse with, or
address one another. Sure, it’s a weird personality trait to behave like
that, but I’ve grown to expect a certain level of disdain from the
political class toward the rest of us.
Then, a few days ago I
read an op-ed which suggests Obama is beginning to display signs of
narcissistic personality disorder. I wrote it off as partisan ass-hattery
because a few cherry-picked examples, spun in the worst possible light
in the context of an op-ed that cites "Newt Gingrich" as an
authoritative source probably isn’t the best way to evaluate someone’s
mental health.
But the more I think about it, the more merit it
seems to have. For example, it lists a number of specific cases and
explains how the bizarre behavior might be signs of a personality
disorder:
In March of last year Obama was on "60 Minutes" with
Steve Kroft. Throughout the interview as Kroft questioned about the
economic downturn and people losing their life savings, Obama just kept
laughing. At one point CBS’s Kroft stopped him and asked, "Are you punch
drunk?" How will the American people react to seeing Obama
laugh off their predicament? His inappropriate laughter clearly
demonstrated he has lost touch with the pain that people are feeling.
An author on the subject, Sam Vaknin also suggests that a
narcissist always prefers show-off to substance. One of the most
effective methods of exposing a narcissist is by trying to delve deeper. The narcissist is shallow, a pond pretending to be an ocean.
This
is interesting, because Obama doesn’t fare well under close scrutiny. Some of the most grandiose claims on his resume may be false: Obama was
never a "Professor of Law" at University of Chicago -- he was an
'instructor' or adjunct, below the level of an Associate Professor. He
also has the dubious honor to have been the only "Editor" of the Harvard
Law Review to never have been published while in school, which kind of
suggests the position was an "honorary" one, without any merit
whatsoever.
Now, don’t get all butthurt over this. I’m not a
doctor, and even with all of the powers of Google at my command, I’m not
qualified to evaluate anyone’s mental health. But according to the
Wikipedia list of characteristics of Narcissistic Personality Disorder,
Obama exhibits all of them:
• Is inter-personally exploitative,
i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends • Lacks
empathy: 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 • Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or
attitudes.
Check, check, check and check. Sooner or later all
this stuff starts to add up, and the probability of it all being a
series of extraordinary coincidences drops to zero.
Then again,
these traits are strong in anyone who is successful in politics. I mean,
the first two especially, basically define how politics works, and what
politicians do. Kip Esquire used to say that "all politicians, by
definition, are moral defectives." Perhaps severe narcissistic
personality disorder is that defect.
It’s one explanation.
Obama Falls Headfirst Into The Hypocrisy
Trap
Chris Stirewalt says Obama is caught in the
wickedest of political binds: the hypocrisy trap.
Obama says he's
sick and tired of the Washington blame game, but still can't resist
doling out piles of blame himself.
His compulsive, reflexive
finger-pointing at Republicans, George W. Bush and vague villains on the
right is not only unbecoming, it also reinforces the gathering public
verdict that Obama is a weakling.
Victims do not make good
leaders.
Even if Republicans were responsible for every evil
attributed to them by Democrats, why bang on about it after 17 months in
office? The only answer is self-preservation, which is an
unattractive trait in someone who's supposed to be leader.
But
because he is stuck in a defensive crouch on the BP spill, the economy,
Afghanistan, Israel, the bungling political maneuvers of his operatives,
and more, Obama's has no alternative but to play the blame game.
In one day in Kalamazoo, Mich., he managed to preach responsibility and
try to avoid it.
In a speech to high schoolers he said: "Don't
make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes.
Take responsibility where you fall short as well."
While still in
Kalamazoo, Obama sat down with NBC's Matt Lauer for the journalistic
equivalent of heavy petting and blamed everybody but himself.
The
interview is already famous for Obama's line about relying on experts to
tell him whose "ass to kick." The line is funny because what was
supposed to be proof of his red-blooded American anger came off as
clueless. What kind of leader needs advice on ass kicking?
So what is the matter with Obama?
Conservatives have been asking this question for some time. I've
written a number of articles trying to solve the mystery.
Even
some liberals are starting to wonder. James Carville railed about
Obama's blasé attitude after the catastrophic oil spill. The New
York Times' Maureen Dowd revamped Obama's "Yes We Can" motto into "Will
We Ever?"
The liberal women of the TV show "The View" have
expressed sympathy for Michelle Obama's living with a man so out of
touch. Peggy Noonan, hardly a vehement Obama foe, recently
pronounced him disconnected.
Obama's odd mannerisms intrigue a
psychotherapist like me. He also presents a serious diagnostic
challenge.
For one, Obama's teleprompter and the men behind the
Blackberry keep him well-scripted. We know so little about the
facts of his life.
But it's more than just a lack of information.
Obama himself is a strange bird. He doesn't fit easily into any
diagnostic category.
Many people attribute Obama's oddness to his
narcissism. True, Obama has a gargantuan ego, and he is
notoriously thin-skinned.
Yet a personality disorder like
narcissism does not explain Obama's strangeness: his giggling while
being asked about the economy; his continuing a shout-out rather than
announcing the Ft. Hood shootings; or his vacations, golfing, partying
and fundraising during the calamitous oil spill.
Take also
Obama's declaring on the "Today Show" that he wants to know whose ass to
kick. Consummate narcissists would never stoop to this vulgar
display of adolescent machismo.
Obama is flat when passion is
needed; he's aggressive when savvy is required. What's most
worrisome is that Obama doesn't even realize that his behavior is
inappropriate.
So if it's not just simple narcissism, what is
wrong with Obama? Since I've never evaluated him, I can't say for
sure. But I can hazard some educated guesses.
Interesting
stuff. Continue reading Robin of Berkeley
here . . .
Obama Blames Folks For Things He Imagines
They Would Say
Obama, in an interview with NBC’s "Today"
show, broadcast Tuesday,
said he hadn’t spoken directly to BP CEO Tony Hayward because
his experience tells him someone like that would say "all the right
things" and that he’s more interested in action than in words.
Now, we have this:
I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago,
before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had
said
we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to
spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic
spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would
have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and
wasteful spending.
Hmmmm. Notice a pattern?
Seems like
our faux-Commander-in-Chief feels that it’s not necessary to engage
another being in conversation, because with his superior intellect, he’s
able to discern what they’re going to say, without their having said it!
And then he blames them for what he thinks they would have said!
He Knows, He Just Doesn’t Care
Daniel Greenfield
says
the most damning thing about Obama’s response to the Gulf Crisis (the
other Gulf Crisis) is not what it reveals about his lack of competence,
but what it reveals about his lack of interest. And it has forced
many liberals to recognize, what so many conservatives knew all along.
That Obama just doesn’t care.
Politicians who don’t care what
happens to the little people are nothing new. But Bill Clinton was
a master at pretending to care. His performance in that infamous
funeral clip testifies to a man who could turn on the facade of emotions
in the blink of an eye. Obama isn’t very good at that. Where
Clinton was a natural actor, Obama is an unnatural one. Unlike
most politicians, he lacks that instinct, because he lacks any degree of
empathy. And so Obama needs extensive prep time to get his show on
the road. Without prep time and a teleprompter, the mask begins to
slip and the man underneath is cold and distant delivering a mechanical
performance.
Look at Obama and you see the mirror of liberal
expectations. No sooner does Bill Maher deliver his black man line
then Obama begins talking about kicking ass. As always Obama tries
to manipulate people by becoming what they want him to be. But
underneath it, the fate of Americans means nothing to him.
A
selfish regard for his own self-image means that Obama avoids negative
crises. Particularly ones that seem to have no quick solution.
If he tackles a crisis, then it’s only to promote his own agenda, which
usually has nothing to do with the crisis. The stimulus plan is a
case in point.
Liberals expected that Obama would feel their
anger toward BP. But there’s no reason for him to feel angry.
Obama is not animated by anti-corporate outrage. He wants to
control corporations, but unlike so many of his hypocritical followers
with hefty stock portfolios, he doesn’t actually hate them. To
Obama, BP and the people suffering from the consequences of it are
equally of value only as tools.
Con artists don’t get angry at
the people they rip off. They only get angry when someone else
gets in the way of their scam. Which is why Obama gets angry at
Republicans. They’re interfering with his con.
The left
expected that Obama would fight for them. But he only fights for
himself. And his emotion is reserved for what matters to him.
Himself.
This created the disconnect between Obama and his key
demographic. They wanted action. Obama wanted to play golf
while avoiding any association with an insolvable problem. They
expected him to care. But there was no reason for him to care.
And so Obama created his own My Pet Goat narrative stretching on and on.
Leadership In The Abstract
Mark Steyn says Obama is slipping on the oil
while bestriding the globe.
So, a man swept into office on an
unprecedented tide of delirious fawning is watching his presidency sink
in an unstoppable gush. That's almost too apt.
Unfortunately, in the real world, a disastrous presidency has
consequences. So let me begin by citing the leader of Her
Majesty's Loyal Opposition in Canada. Whoa, whoa, don't stampede
for the exits. The Canadian thing's just a starting point, I
promise. If I'm still droning on about inside-Ottawa stuff five
paragraphs down, feel free to turn the page to our exclusive 12-page
pictorial preview of "Sex and the City 3," starring Estelle Getty as Kim
Cattrall.
Anyway, a couple of years back, Michael Ignatieff, a
professor at Harvard University and previously a BBC late-night
intellectual telly host, returned to his native land of Canada in order
to become prime minister, and to that end, got himself elected as leader
of the Liberal Party. As is the fashion nowadays, he cranked out a
quickie tome laying out his political "vision." Having spent his
entire adult life abroad, he was aware that some of the natives were
uncertain about his commitment to the land of his birth. So he was
careful to issue a sort of pledge of a kind of allegiance, explaining
that writing a book about Canada had "deepened my attachment to the
place on earth that, if I needed one, I would call home."
Gee,
that's awfully big of you. As John Robson commented in the Ottawa
Citizen: "I'm worried that a man so postmodern he doesn't need a home
wants to lead my country. Why? Is it quaint? An
interesting sociological experiment?"
Indeed. But there's a lot
of it about. Many Americans are beginning to pick up the strange
vibe that for Barack Obama, governing America is "an interesting
sociological experiment," too. He doubtless would agree that the
United States is "the place on earth that, if I needed one, I would call
home." But he doesn't, not really.
It is hard to imagine
Obama wandering along to watch a Memorial Day or Fourth of July parade
until the job required him to do so. That's not to say he's
un-American or anti-American, but merely that he's beyond all that.
Way beyond. He's the first president to give off the pronounced
whiff that he's condescending to the job -- that it's really too small
for him and he's just killing time until something more commensurate
with his stature comes along.
And so the Gulf spill was an
irritation, but he dutifully went through the motions of flying in to be
photographed looking presidentially concerned. As he wearily
explained to Matt Lauer, "I was meeting with fishermen down there,
standing in the rain, talking." Good grief, what more do you
people want? Alas, he's not a good enough actor to fake it.
So the more desperately he butchers up the rhetoric -- "Plug the damn
hole ... I know whose ass to kick" -- the more pathetically unconvincing
it all sounds.
No doubt my observations about Obama's remoteness
from the rhythms of American life will be seen by his dwindling band of
beleaguered cheerleaders as just another racist, right-wing attempt to
whip up the backwoods, knuckle-dragging swamp dwellers of America by
playing on their fears of "the other" -- the sophisticated, worldly
cosmopolitan for whom France is more than a reliable punch line.
But in fact, my complaint is exactly the opposite: Mr. Obama's
postmodern detachment is feeble and parochial. It's true that he
hadn't seen much of America until he ran for president, but he hadn't
seen much of anywhere else, either. Like most multiculturalists,
he has passed his entire adulthood in a very narrow unicultural
environment where your ideological worldview doesn't depend on anything
so tedious as actually viewing the world.
The first video on this page,
funny [scary] as it is, looks "movieshopped," but the two videos after
the photos are on the level, and The Freedom Fighters Journal is asking
a reasonable question.
Does Obama Have A Drinking Problem?
It's not just the social
drinking. After Obama's February physical, his physician recommended
that Obama moderate
his alcohol intake." Wouldn't a physician need a reason to make such a
recommendation?
