Posted on 10/07/2012 3:01:25 PM PDT by Kaslin
David Remnick's piece in The New Yorker, attempting to "understand" Obama's debate defeat, begins thusly:
When Barack Obama was a student at Harvard Law School, he was never known as a particularly good debater. In class, if he thought that a fellow student had said something foolish, he showed no forensic bloodlust. He did not go out of his way to defeat someone in argument; instead he tried, always with a certain decorous courtesy, to try to persuade, to reframe his interlocutor’s view, to signal his understanding while disagreeing. Obama became president of the law review—the first African-American to do so—but he won as a voice of conciliation. He avoided the Ames Moot Court Competition, where near contemporaries like Cass Sunstein, Deval Patrick, and Kathleen Sullivan made their names.
It is amusing to see Obama supporters try to spin these facts (all true except the part about Obama winning the Review presidency as a "voice of conciliation" -- he won boosted by conservatives, who saw him as the lesser of two evils, given the two finalists for the post) to justify the President's poor debate performance.
But as someone who knew Obama in law school, and now has observed his presidency, his avoidance of debate does seem to conform to a pattern. It has nothing to do with a gentlemanly or conciliatory reluctance to be aggressive. Rather, it has everything to do with a reluctance to be aggressive when his opponent ispresent -- where he can experience some push back from the person he's demonizing, and where his lack of preparation or knowledge can reveal him as foolish. (Hence, perhaps, the "decorous courtesy" in face to face encounters, where discourtesy might prompt a more vigorous blowback.)
Think about it. There's never seen such a trash-talking campaigner -- one who accuses his opponent of lying, who allows his campaign to call Romney a murderer and a felon, one who calls Americans with whom he disagrees "fat cats," or accuses doctors of performing unnecessary surgeries. He has no problem going after Romney the day after the debate, when he's no longer there face-to-face, and when Obama's trusty teleprompter is back. In fact, President Obama is one of the least gentlemanly and most uncivil men to occupy the Oval Office -- certainly publicly (Richard Nixon's private utterances put him in the running, too).
Notice that the only time Obama apparently shrinks from throwing a punch is when his opponent can punch back. That's not a guy who's just too "conciliatory" to get down and dirty -- that's a guy who's afraid to get down and dirty when it means he might have to suffer the consequences.
In my book, that's what's known as a "bully" -- full of big talk in the locker room (or on Letterman) . . . but considerably less cocky when he actually has to address his opponent face to face, unprotected by the friendly aid of the MSM.
AMEN!!! LIAR....BULLY....ANTI-CHRISTIAN or at least ANTI-CATHOLIC since they re the religon that is the most pro-LIFE!!
Romney can use this observation to great advantage.
At the end of his first response, Romney could take a few moments to address the issue, such as like this:
“Now that I have given a complete answer to the question and I note that I still have a minute of time, I would like to note that my opponent Mr. Obama has never called me a liar during debate, but that he and his campaign people have been calling me a liar afterwards behind my back. Mr. Obama, if you feel I am lying about anything in the first debate, this debate, or any future debate, please have the courtesy of bringing it to me face to face rather than waiting until after the debate, oe kindly grow up and learn to concede like a gentleman. That is dishonest. May I orhave your word of honr that we are both bound to this principle before we proceed any further in this debate. Thank you in advance.”
We have heard ad nauseum about Obama being president of the Harvard Review. That is a popularity prize. It would be far more impressive if he had been editor of the review. That is the position where brains are required.
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/us/first-black-elected-to-head-harvard-s-law-review.html
Romney reminded all of us last Wednesday of something we already knew—at least those of us who can say this isn’t our first rodeo—but possibly forgot: The way you deal with a bully is by facing him down. And that’s exactly what he did.
I’m so sick of the lies spun out to justify this boob’s existence. A story I read this morning talked about how “wow - maybe Romney is just as wonky as Dear Leader!” Funny, that’s not what I was thinking as Dear Leader was being shown for the boob he is.
Buchanan sure screwed up.
She was at Harvard Law with O and also on the Law Review. if I remember, she also accused him of laziness and always looking for the easy way out. Some things never change.
“When Barack Obama was a student at Harvard Law School, he was never known as a particularly good debater. In class, if he thought that a fellow student had said something foolish”......
I stopped right there. Probably the only person saying something foolish was Obama.
And it still is.
Carol Platt Liebau (Leebow - like ‘curtsy’)
has substituted for Hugh Hewitt on occasion for some years.
I was so happy to know a conservative knew BHO ‘back when,’ and relieved when she talked about ‘knowing him somewhat’ from Harvard Law.
Thought she would give us lots of ‘skinny.’
Not much really, but back 3 or so years ago, she did say something about he basically didn’t write or do anything at Law Review.
David Remnick - childhood friends with comedian Bill Maher
In “The Bridge,” Mr. Remnick seemed particularly interested in Mr. Obama as “shape-shifter,” how “Obama could change styles without relinquishing his genuineness.”
My colleagues Amy Davidson and John Cassidy did a brilliant late-shift job of analyzing last night’s disastrous debate performance for President Obama: his I-don’t-wanna-be-here-please-get-me-outta-here manner; his barely-able-to-rouse-himself incapacity to pounce on Mitt Romney’s empty and contradictory policy prescriptions; his unwillingness even to craft a solid two-minute closing statement. This is a President who could easily have made the argument that he inherited a catastrophic economic collapse and, despite all kinds of duplicitous right-wing opposition, managed to rescue the country from a full-blown Depression; who saved the auto industry; who … well, you know the litany, even if the President could not bestir himself to recite it last night with any passion or precision.
We already know that Obama didn’t manage to talk effectively, if at all, about “the forty-seven per cent” or women or so many other things. So let’s talk sports.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/10/obama-no-ali-in-debate.html
Has anyone ever divided a country more?
If re-elected he’ll be working on a consensus as Hitler was able to achieve...
“Has anyone ever divided a country more?<< Yeah. Jefferson Davis. He was a Democrat too.
Barack Obama is fully as dumb as Saul Alinsky..
No wait.. Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals”
is being worked out in the entire federal givernment as we speak.. and beyond..
Beyond.... meaning in academia, main stream media, in all Police, Firefighter and Teachers Union’s in their “precincts”.. cloak rooms.. all over HollyWierd, in most Newspapers, Network News rooms, and Magazine editorial boards, in all manner of 501c organizations, The US Senate, The White Hut, Justice Department, a whole range of other Executive Branch Departments, on the internet, Givernment Websites both Federal, State and Local.. Most Junior Colleges and Trade Schools.. and even the Post-Office and Amtrack..
Just Maybe, Obama is not as dumb as he looks..
I don’t think The Won is dumb.
I do worry about a large sector of the electorate.
Good article.
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