Self-Made Man - Barack Obama’s autobiographical fictions

Weekly Standard ^ | June 18, 2012 | Andrew Ferguson

[neverdem]

--snip--

If it’s pure invention it reads like a testy exchange between Norman Bates and his mother.

What’s dispiriting is that throughout Dreams, the moments that Obama has invented are precisely the occasions of his epiphanies​—​precisely those periodic aha! moments that carry the book and bring its author closer to self-discovery. Without them not much is left: a lot of lovely writing, some unoriginal social observations, a handful of precocious literary turns. Obama wasn’t just inventing himself; he was inventing himself inventing himself. It made for a story, anyway.

We can see the dilemma he faced. Obama signed a contract to write a racial memoir. They were all the rage in those days, but in fact their moment had passed. Even with the distant father and absent mother, the schooling in Indonesia and the remote stepfather, Obama lived a life of relative ease. He moved, however uncomfortably, into one elite institution after another, protected by civil rights laws, surrounded by a popular culture in which the African-American experience has embedded itself ineradicably. As Obama’s best biographer, David Remnick, observed, this wasn’t the stuff of Manchild in the Promised Land; you couldn’t use it to make the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass or the Auto-biography of Malcolm X. So Obama moved the drama inside himself, and said he’d found there an experience both singular and universal, and he brought nonexistent friends like Regina and Ray to goose the story along.

He did in effect what so many of us have done with him. He created a fable about an Obama far bigger and more consequential than the unremarkable man at its center. He joins us, haters and idolaters, as we join Huell Howser, looking this way and that, desperately trying to see what isn’t there. Isn’t that something?

[television is just wrong]

he gives the meaning of a self made man an entirely new meaning.

[DoughtyOne]

He is to a self made man, what masturbation is to a real ladies man.

[ClearCase_guy]

Barack Obama does not exist.

[fhayek]

I have posited the theory that Barack Obama is a bona fide confidence man. This transcends, I believe, the usual given that all politicians are con men. Most politicians are politicians first and then con artists. Obama, I think has been a con artist from the start.

I guess what I mean is that while other occupants of the Oval Office have aspired to be great presidents, Barack Obama aspires to be a great con artist. Consider the following classic characteristics of a flim flam man:

Great at talking, but little else.
A product of a dysfunctional family.
Highly guarded about details of their past.
Tends to make grandiose promises. (con artists don't promise a 7% return on your investment, they promise 30%).
Tend to live extravegent lifestyles
Appear to act sincere until you ask direct pointed questions, then they are arrogant and indignant.
Amoral about lying to people.

My guess is that Obama cooked up a scam to become president and wasadopted by elements on the left to be used for their own purposes.

Obama forgot one universal law of the big con. Sooner or later, you always get found out. The trick is to get out of town with the church funds before the feces hits the fan (hello, Bernie Madoff). I think that he thought that if he became president during bad times, things would improve no matter what he does (after all, they always have in the past). He didn't factor in that he could totally f--, uh, screw things up by his action. He invented himself, alright, like all grifters do.

[ClearCase_guy]

It's certainly a plausible theory.

On the other hand, he may just hate America and he may be actively working to cause as much damage as possible, and he may be in league with people from around the world who want to destroy this country.

I think we'll find out which theory is true, eventually.

[cricket]

I think we'll find out which theory is true, eventually.

Think 'eventually' already happened. And your theory, demonstrably true. . .and of course; plenty 'here at home' with 'foreign' thinking to accommodate Obama's 'signature' 'Change'; as well. . .

As for Obama's 'Dreams'; very interesting summations; but unfortunately; without any credit given to Bill Ayers!

[JmyBryan]

I agree with your theory. However, I think Obama is in the act of “getting out of town”. His pre-election announcement in support of gay marriage, is, regardless of the possible increase in fund raising, an act of political suicide.

Obama knows the next year is not going to be good economically. He can lose the election, cry racism and be the highly paid speechmaker/entertainer that he wants to be, losing the demanding aspects of being the POTUS that show his incompetence.

He’ll probably have his own cable network where he’s on 24 hours a day...

[TexasFreeper2009]

My greatest fear is that after Obama loses to Romney... Romney caves to his liberal tendencies and messes things up even more... and Obama would still be eligible for a 2nd term in 2016...

*shiver*

[devolve]

To: The Great Pretender

Sing-A-Long

[MrB]

That’s what I was thinking - “self made man”, in 0bama’s case, takes on a whole new meaning.

Yep, he just made “himself” up out of whole cloth.