Can Obama really be charming? I remember when people used to talk about Clinton’s charm. I thought he was as charming as a sleazy, oily used car salesman, but at least I could see what other people were alluding to. If you didn’t viscerally recoil from the man, yes, Clinton could be ‘charming’.
I don’t see that w Obama. He is cold and humorless. Not only is he incapable of empathizing, but he cannot—unlike Clinton—fake it. I read somewhere that to vary the pitch of his monotone telepromptering he shifts into a weird, creepy half-whisper, half growl-type-voice. He can’t take even a hint of criticism, much less sincerely joke about it and do the age-old political self-effacing deflection.
I haven’t even heard his supporters call him charming in a while. (Maybe I’m just not listening to the right supporters?) When opportunities arise in which to show and use charm, he generally just looks awkward. For example, when he sits down for a beer summit, he sticks his pinky out like a stilted woman sipping tea, and spends all his time and energy *not* yielding a scintilla of ground/risking even a faint hint of someone inferring he might possibly have been even vaguely, remotely wrong about the slightest, smallest thing.
There’s really nothing charming in him...or am I missing something?
You are right. Clinton was “Bubba”, you could easily see him sitting around a poker table keeping everyone there laughing, or enjoying a Razorback game on a Saturday afternoon with the guys. He was that guy most guys don’t mind hanging out with, they just never wanted him to meet their sisters.
Obama is stiff and uncomfortable. He is uncomfortable in his own skin and he doesn’t make other people comfortable as a result.
The main thing that keeps 0bama afloat is his melanin-based criticism shield,
but even that is wearing thin.
You're quite right... WE don't, but many among the average rubes in the American electorate do.
I'm not sure charming is the word. Hussein is an exceedingly good speaker, comes across as decent and genuine and most Americans WANT to like him. Almost half the country is still emotionally wedded to him, and it is very difficult for them to move past it.
Unfortunately, in politics, being right just isn't even close to being enough. Obama is wrong about pretty much everything, but people tend to like him and want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Obama knows that, and as long as he distracts, deflects and otherwise blames others for his failures he has a good chance to win again in 2012.
“Can Obama really be charming?”
Once said of Louis Jourdan in his PBS role of “Dracula”;
“He is charmingly sinister”
Frankly, he gives me the worst case of skin-crawling heebie-jeebies I’ve ever had.
I’d spend the whole night in Charlie Manson’s cell before I’d spend 10 minutes with The Won *anywhere*.
He’s mega-creepy.