A Dog in the Manger Presidency : Obama's character described 2,500 years ago by Aesop

Is it possible to base an entire presidency on venal acts of jealousy and illicit confiscation? This essay argues such is currently the case. If one accepts that Obama has socialist/Marxist values, then he seeks, by definition, an economy based upon a shattering of the 10th Commandment… "Thous Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's House…." But the Greek pagan moralist writer Aesop had Obama's character pegged in his Dog in the Manger fable 2,500 years ago.

If you run a campaign on the argument you are an unprecedented natural-born leader, despite utter inexperience — can you afford to let anyone else outshine you? The notion that an exemplar, par excellence, will fall full-born, like Athena from the head of Zeus is appealing. This concept is seductive probably for the same reason Jesus has unmitigated attraction to this day: A young man who has never sinned arises to lead His people to the promised land of enlightenment and salvation.

Question: Could Barry O still be savior of the world? The project of turning Barack Obama into a Jesus-like Messiah presents an impassable gulf. First, Jesus was an ultra-pure idealist teaching His followers they should so closely follow His Father's Word that earth would be turned into God's Kingdom. But Obama merely riffs upon vague, pleasant-sounding generalities, "hope," "change," et al, while using these empty phrases as an excuse to launch innumerable elaborate Chicago-styled scams.

Second, Jesus spent an apparent 3 decades studying the Tanakh, aka Old Testament, and quite probably memorized the whole, based upon His peerless knowledge and ability to improvise off the cuff. Yet, Barack seems relatively untutored in any subject, but especially biblical traditions. Third, Obama seems positively Pharisaical, being a holier-than-thou, smug, sanctimonious, hypocritical finger pointer who positively scoffs at unenlightened non-liberals.

Ironically, these were exactly the types Christ most harshly condemned. And it was the Pharisees who finally had him eliminated because His purity was a constant remonstrance against their greed, arrogance and corruption. In fact, the ancient personality Barack most resembles is not Jesus, but the Dog in the Manger—a fable by the Greek Aesop. It is the story of moral failure born by incompetence and jealousy. The fable is as follows:

A Dog looking out for its afternoon nap jumped into the Manger of an Ox and lay there cozily upon the straw. But soon the Ox, returning from its afternoon work, came up to the Manger and wanted to eat some of the straw. The Dog in a rage, being awakened from its slumber, stood up and barked at the Ox, and whenever it came near attempted to bite it. At last the Ox had to give up the hope of getting at the straw, and went away muttering:

Obama transparently fails as a leader in several remarkable ways. First, he lacks leadership ability by any traditional criteria. Second, the leadership that he has imparted has roundly failed by objective consensus. Third, he attacks the genuine acts of leadership by others as if they were a krypton stake ready to be plunged into his abdomen. Obama has the crafty and evasive character of a natural-born fraud. The fake is always the enemy of the real, and will battle to destroy the actual—regardless of the costs to others.

An instance of Dog in the Manger assault occurred when the US Coast Guard stopped Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal from running barges with water vacuums sucking up oil. This was another in a list of shutdowns Obama threw at Jindal. He also stopped him from erecting barrier islands to sop up the oil, which supposedly must be vetted for "environmental impact." (analogy: testing a hangman's noose to make sure it doesn't cause excessive rope-burn). Here is a classic example of Barack "Manger Dog" Obama stymieing a real leader from doing something proactive, clever and effective to help his state.

Other examples include Barack refusing aid from thirteen European nations within days after the Gulf oil leak. For instance, the Dutch offered four skimmers that could have taken 20,000 gallons of oil out of the water a day. And the British offered chemical oil dispersant, which Obama refused on the spot. The UK Times reported on this: "Top officials in the British Cabinet offered assistance to help clean up the oil spill a few days after the explosion. The Obama Administration turned them down because they did not have the correct paperwork."

These types of reports sicken the spirit and make clear that Obama not only refused to lead, but even blockaded the help from others.Obama has an inability to accept any help that would make him look weak, derivative, or not the source of all earthly good. What possible reason could Barack have for refusing assistance other than personal vanity or the aggrandizement of power? In fact, Foreign Policy magazine had this to say about the foreign offers to help the US:

Late Wednesday evening, the State Department emailed reporters identifying the 13 entities that had offered the U.S. oil spill assistance. They were the governments of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations.

"These offers include experts in various aspects of oil spill impacts, research and technical expertise, booms, chemical oil dispersants, oil pumps, skimmers, and wildlife treatment," the email read.

"While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet, the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future."

There are several different species of failed leadership. One type is to direct followers into an undertaking that is ill-advised or doomed. The second type is leadership that seems to bring the followers into a successful course but which later collapses. An obvious example is when Obama smugly gave fellow Democrat candidates his blessing and campaigned for them, only to watch them fail in their races, as happened to Jon Corzine, Creigh Deeds, and Martha Coakley.

On a deeper level, one can argue that all of Obama's completed tasks are failures on a timed-release schedule. For example, his near-trillion-dollar Stimulus bill is already reckoned an utter failure for what it was designed to do — creating quality, longterm jobs. And as these funds go down the toilet with all the interest payments as well, so do many wonderful options which this massive amount of cash could have been spent upon. For a trillion dollars, we could have funded: half the Obamacare costs for a decade; a national high-speed rail; wind farms across America; a slashing of income tax for a year to reboot the economy; a rebuilt NASA; etc etc etc

Obamacare will be an open ulcerated sore on the American economy for all its years until it is (hopefully) repealed. Studies have already come out revealing half US employees will shortly be on Obamacare, that the costs will be much higher than the WH advertised, and that the negative unintended consequences will be massive. Likewise, Obama's unnerving habit of proposing spending to answer all problems—even the growing deficit, is producing toxic fruit, to say the least.

In foreign policy, Obama's instinctual and frankly bizarre habit of bowing to alien potentates, apologizing to despots, and giving aid and comfort to enemies while punishing our allies enrages US patriots. In general, the combination of Obama's trite rhetoric in concert with a toothless response to bad players has opened the floodgates on evil deeds. But imagine how our situation might be different today, for example, if Obama had merely supported the Iranian election uprising, instead of pretending this spontaneous mass demand for real democracy was lawlessness. We might not be trying to sanction Iran for their nuclear weapons program today! Talk about feckless. Here is the UK Telegraph's Nile Gardener's list of Obama's Top Ten Foreign Policy Blunders:

1. Surrendering to Russia over Missile Defence; 2. Appeasing the Mullahs of Iran; 3. Ending the War on Terror; 4. Announcing a Surge while Declaring an Exit; 5. Apologising to France for America‚Äôs "Arrogance"; 6. Giving DVDs to the British Prime Minister; 7. Siding with Marxists in Honduras; 8. Bowing to Emperors and Kings; 9. Embracing Genocidal Killers in Sudan; 10. Throwing Churchill out of The White House.

If one is a socialist or Marxist, who then are your role models? Much like a photo-negative of normally successful people, Marxism dotes upon failures, ne'er-do-wells and hopeless rebels. Such misfits are heroes, and such people collapse when placed upon the greatest pinnacles of success, like a presidency. It should surprise no one the socialist idea of leadership is merely contained to speechifying and making insulting and critical comments about those whom the tyrant despises.

Lenin's absurd statement: "Any cook should be able to run the country," shows the utter contempt that Marxists have for the nuances of democracy and capitalism. Does Obama share this absurdly condescending opinion of Western leadership? The shattering lack of real world knowledge, training, or responsibility for the consequences of decisions the "leader" makes is a recurring theme in communist dictators who believed they will recreate humanity itself upon their own image.

Why did Obama turn down help from those offering it who had the most experience with oil catastrophes, especially when he and his team have none? Further, why does he block those leaders, such as Governor Jindal who are making sound decisions to lessen the impact of the crisis on their states? Really, only two reasons make any sense: Either Obama is completely intimidated and angered by real leaders making good choices on his watch, while he himself fearfully sits on his hands.

Or, he is trying to magnify the impact of the disaster to meet his own goals of aggrandizing power, as regards stopping more oil exploration or passing Global Warming and Cap'n Trade initiatives. Also, it has been reported that Obama simply would not harm the unions by breaking the Jones Act, regardless of the costs to American wetlands, fishing fleets, and tourist resorts. Or as Rahm Emanuel says, ... "never let a crisis go to waste."

In terms of a natural ability to inspire and direct — could Barack Obama even lead Mama Cass to a Burger King? Obama is reminiscent of the lead character in the movie The Ladykillers — the pretentious Prof. Goldthwait Higgins Dorr, PhD., played by Tom Hanks. The Professor assembles a group of criminal misfits to rob a riverboat casino, but fails spectacularly. Here, Obama is the pompous professor full of ridiculous verbosity, while the criminal gang boasts David Axelgrease, Rahm "Beau" Emanuel, and other dishonest buffoons. At least in the movie, each gets the comeuppance he richly deserves.

Has Obama permanently lost his mojo over his misplayed response to the Gulf oil spill? Has the Theater of the Absurd now cast him as a full-fledged, emasculated castrati, doomed to warble his last few year's speeches in a permanently high-pitched voice, like a Flaccido Domingo? In any event, fate or something approximating it, has conspired to unveil the full-bloomed imbecility of the former Messiah's White House. His political suicide impulse seems to have kicked into overdrive, and we can only hope he will leave willingly, and without a peep when his first term thankfully comes to a whimpering conclusion.

Kelly O’Connell is a writer and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico. Kelly can be reached at: hibernian1@gmail.com

First published in the Canada Free Press ( http://www.canadafreepress.com )

I must disagree with the author. I think Obama has been immensly successful in reaching HIS GOALS.

If it acts like a Marxist, has been tutored by marxists, has Marxist and communist friends, promotes class envy and hatred like a Marxist and tries to expand state power like a Marxist, IT IS PROBABLY A MARXIST.

Obama at the least is a hard line socialist. His actions show that he is not a patriot. All actions that he has taken since he became president have weakened our country and at the same time promoted socialism.

“I think Obama has been immensly successful in reaching HIS GOALS”

Agree with you that he has made some progress in attaining his goals, which in essence are to cut America down to size and mold it into his socialist vision. However, he’s not going to fullfil his ambitions. Obama was the unlikely beneficiary of a perfect political storm but he is just a narcissistic ideologue, not a leader by any definition. His character flaws are already doing him in.

Not mentioned is the fact that Jindal is a Republican. Imagine the grief Obama would have if the only pristine beach in the Gulf was due to the initiative of a Republican governor? No, the DNC could never tolerate a Republican success story in the middle of such a huge Democratic failure. And Jindal has been pegged as an up-and-coming leader in the Republican party - the Dems could never allow him such a victory.

Dog in the Manger, maybe, but that's not all there is to this story.

excellant read, will enjoy it more later.

I am not sure that O has succeeded in anything or reached any of HIS goals. If any goals have been reached it has been the goals of those that tell him what to say and do. How to run a country? he leaves up to his other bosses, then he just repeats what he is told, that is why he keeps flitting from here to there, so you will never get to pin him down to answer a question. He only has a press conferance when he has been rehearsed.

The boy is an idiot and has not proven he even went to college, we have no proff of anything about him.

It's a sophomoric article. Here's what the author misses:

Unilateralism. 0bama criticized Bush for being “unilateral” in Iraq and Afghanistan...yet 0bama is himself “unilateral” in pushing a cap-n-trade that exempts China and Russia as well as that is incompatible with Europe's carbon trading system (a farce in itself, yet no one on the Left dares criticize even the Euro farce...which means that 0bama should be working with Europe's carbon trading instead of on his own system).

Overt betrayals. 0bama promised his liberal base that he would filibuster Telecom Immunity. Instead, he voted for it. 0bama promised that if elected and his Stimulus passed, that unemployment wouldn't rise over 8%. 0bama promised that he would use only public election funds. Instead, he raised the most private campaign funds of any candidate, ever...worldwide. 0bama promised to close Gitmo within a year of taking Office. 0bama promised civilian trials in NYC instead of military tribunals. 0bama was one of 28 Senate Democrats who refused to vote for the Senate resolution “fully supporting General Petraeus” after 0bama’s Move-On.org ally ran the full page “General BetrayUs” ad in teh NYC...even though (wonder of wonders) 0bama was actually in the Senate that day. Now 0bama has put General Petraeus in charge of saving 0bama’s Afghanistan Strategy. 0bama promised to not hire lobbyists. 0bama promised to post *every* bill on his web site for at least 5 days before he signed it. 0bama promised TV cameras in the debate for healthcare reform. He broke all of these promises.

Open lawbreaking. 0bama violated the very law that he co-sponsored in the Senate when he illegally fired an inspector general who was investigating one of 0bama’s NBA friends. 0bama violated federal campaign law by promising government jobs to Democrats in Colorado and Pennsylvania if they withdrew from their Senate primaries. 0bama violated federal budget law by cancelling an entire NASA program without Congressional approval.

These are not Aesop's traits of the dog in the manger...these are all traits of a megalomaniac.

I agree he’s a Marxist.

I’ll even up the ante by conceding he’s a competent Marxist, i.e., good at advancing Marxist goals.

But ultimately, it isn’t a quality of leadership per se that he can’t attain and must therefore deny to others. It’s that inner quiet that lets you enjoy your life fully and be happy with your blessings.

As the author mentioned, socialism is predicated on the structural rejection of the 10th commandment, which, put simply, is to be internally happy with the just rewards of your own labor, thus eliminating the need to even think about stealing your neighbor’s stuff. Side effect? Personal peace. Socialists/Marxists don’t have it, and don’t want anyone else to have it either.

And that’s what he’s good at. Preventing peace. In fact, I’d say he’s so good at it that it deserves a name:

Zui Quan Marxism.

Zui Quan is a Chinese martial art which translates roughly as “Drunken Fist.” The practitioner disarms you psychologically by appearing to be no more than a stumbling drunk. And then he rips your throat out, or whatever. Because he knew exactly what he was up to, and was totally in control of his attack. Too bad for you if you don’t figure it out soon enough and treat him with the respect due a worthy, and deadly, opponent.

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