I love me some me.
Posted on 05/22/2009 7:33:10 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Put Barack Obama in front of a teleprompter and one thing is certain — he’ll make himself appear the most reasonable person in the room.
Rhetorically, he is in the middle of any debate, perpetually surrounded by finger-pointing extremists who can’t get over their reflexive combativeness and ideological fixations to acknowledge his surpassing thoughtfulness and grace.
This is how Obama, whose position on abortion is indistinguishable from NARAL’s, can speechify on abortion at Notre Dame and come away sounding like a pitch-perfect centrist. It’s natural, then, that his speech at the National Archives on national security should superficially sound soothing, reasonable, and even a little put-upon (oh, what President Obama has to endure from all those finger-pointing extremists).
But beneath its surface, the speech — given heavy play in the press as an implicit debate with former Vice President Dick Cheney, who spoke on the same topic at a different venue immediately afterward — revealed something else: a president who has great difficulty admitting error, who can’t discuss the position of his opponents without resorting to rank caricature, and who adopts an off-putting pose of above-it-all self-righteousness.
Obama has reversed himself since becoming president on detaining terrorists indefinitely and on trying them before military commissions. Once upon a time, these policies were blots on our honor; now they are simple necessities. Between the primary and the general election, candidate Obama changed his mind and embraced Pres. George W. Bush’s terrorist-surveillance program. In recent weeks, he countermanded his own Justice Department’s decision not to contest a court decision that would have led to the release of photos of detainee abuse.
A less self-consciously grandiose figure might feel the need to reflect on the fact that his simplistic prior positions had not fully taken account of the difficulties inherent in fighting the War on Terror. Not Obama. On the commissions, he explicitly denied changing his view, instead trumpeting cosmetic changes he’s proposed as major reforms that will bring them in line “with the rule of law.”
For all his championing of nuance, Obama comes back to one source for every dilemma: Bush, as though without his predecessor every question about how a nation of laws protects itself from a lawless enemy would be easy. Under Bush, according to Obama, we set our “principles aside as luxuries we could no longer afford.” Even now, there are those — are you listening, Mr. Former V.P.? — “who think that America’s safety and success require us to walk away from the sacred principles enshrined in this building.” What a shoddy smear.
Consider Obama’s breaks with Bush: We have stopped using enhanced interrogation techniques for now, but Obama reserves the right to use them again; we will have military commissions but with four procedural changes; we’re going to close Gitmo but find some equivalent detention facility for that category of detainees who, Obama says, are dangerous but can’t be tried or released. These are matters of degree and therefore questions of prudence, not principle. If Bush violated our fundamental beliefs, then Obama is violating them, too, only a little less so.
Excoriating Bush is good politics for Obama, which is what makes his repeated exhortations to look ahead so disingenuous. In his speech, he rued that “we have a return of the politicization of these issues.” In other words: Dick Cheney, please shut up. But when did the politicization of these issues end? Has the Left ever stopped braying about Bush’s war crimes?
Obama bracingly politicized these very issues on the stump, staking out unsustainably purist positions because they suited his momentary political interest. Now that’s he’s president, he wants the debate to end. He’s above the grubbily disputatious culture of partisans and journalists. And he’s above contradiction because, as ever, he occupies the middle ground, one “obscured by two opposite and absolutist” sides: those who recognize no terrorist threat and those who recognize no limits to executive power.
And there Obama stands, bravely holding his flanks against straw men on all sides.
A long, well written column. Translation: Øbama is a phoney, not exactly breaking news.
Most of them aren’t paying any attention.
Excellent article. Very insightful. The problem is this moment of truth has come too late...
I never thought I would say this; but I liked Bill Clintons lies better than Obama.
It’s never too late for the truth.
I love me some me.
Yes, I’m afraid that Obama makes Bill Clinton look good.
Clinton was a pathological liar, but Obama is a Malignant Narcissistic pathological liar. It’s like the difference between Pinocchio and Hitler.
Clinton left a trail of dead bodies all over the place, of people who crossed him, but Obama wants to kill our entire country.
uggh... this article is spot on.. brilliant from Lowry. this smug little brat lawyer prez...I sure hope we don’t have to sit through 8 years of this guy.. what a creep.
Few if any, I'll betcha. They don't know the details and they don't care. All he has to do is keep smiling from those TV screens and magazine covers and he's in.
nobama: empty suit yesterday, today and tomorrow*.
*Gives us something to look forward to.
That’s what I think, too. The people who voted for him were ignorant, and now they’re still ignorant of what he’s doing to our country.
Soon they will know something has gone horribly wrong, because they will have a lot less money and everything will cost so much more. But even then, I’m not so sure they’ll relate it to Obama’s policies.
The majority won’t “get it”. Any more than they did during the election.
They think we can talk to evil and reason with them. They think he is taking on the “evil rich” and “corporate rapers”. They don’t care that he sells this country out in multitudes of ways.
Didn’t you know...he’s cool. He has a blackberry. :(
His personal approval ratings are still high and Obama voters can always rationalize that better Obama than McCain. The reality is that there was very little difference between the two policy wise when it came to the economy, drilling in ANWR, amnesty, cap and trade, closing Gitmo, etc.
Obama's narcissism and hubris make him thin-skinned and unable to take the slightest criticism without responding. He has also never held any executive position, which is why making decisions are difficult for him. Anything that goes wrong is blamed on his predecessors or some other forces. He only takes responsibility for successes.
Axelrod is the puppetmaster. PR is what he does and will continue to do. The upcoming trip to Egypt will be part of the stagecraft and political theater that is becoming a little shopworn at this point. It is hard to manufacture a crisis a week so he can find a pretext for another national address. Cheney had scheduled his appearance at AEI weeks ago so Axelrod had to conjure up a venue for Obama to short circuit Cheney's appearance and to show his displeasure with the Senate vote, which he must have known the result days before the actual vote.
Obama is not a leader. He is still a community organizer railing against the Establishment and the failures of America. The only problem is that he is now the Establishment. “WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US.”
Anybody notice how 0 tilts his head up and lets his chin jut out when he speaks? Check out some movies of Hitler and Mussolini speaking.
...Someone said he is a hologram, not really in the same room. It’s a carefully crafted act, the voice, the actions. the mannerisms, stagecraft...
I would rather have two Bill Clinton’s over this one POS we have now.
Yeah it’s never too late, but it’s later than necessary and we are suffering as a result.
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