Posted on 09/16/2008 1:57:43 PM PDT by Nachum
It is difficult to screw up an appearance at Ground Zero on September 11th. You have to be either completely oblivious or completely indifferent. It is a signal feat of idiocy.
And yet Barack Obama accomplished it.
John McCain and Obama visited Ground Zero together. Obama and McCain entered the site. But while McCain took the time to shake hands with uniformed firefighters and a construction worker with an American flag helmet, Obama ignored them and stood around.
But he wasn’t done yet. Both McCain and Obama brought roses to place on the makeshift 9/11 memorial. Obama casually tossed his rose on the memorial, looking somewhat like Don Barzini tossing a rose on Don Corleone’s grave near the end of Godfather I. McCain and his wife, by contrast, approached the memorial gingerly, then placed the roses with care on the memorial. In case you were wondering, Michelle Obama was back in Chicago tending to the children – she somehow has time to accompany Barack to the DNC, but not to Ground Zero on September 11th.
Small gestures matter in large campaigns. That’s why Obama reversed himself on wearing an American flag pin. That’s why John McCain takes care with how he hugs Sarah Palin. In a campaign, everything is analyzed, re-analyzed, and over-analyzed.
And that’s why Obama’s flower-tossing exhibition matters. It demonstrates a lack of concentration, a lack of respect. Most of all, it displays no reverence. Perhaps Obama feels reverence. But his behavior at Ground Zero didn’t show that. Instead, it showed a man so concerned with himself that he wasn’t willing to take the time to shake hands with the “little people” or bend down to lay a rose on a monument.
That self-concern is at the center of Obama’s polling free fall. He has ranged far afield, away from policy and toward personal combat. He has done that because he cannot stand being personally affronted.
Sarah Palin attacked Obama’s community organizing. Obama responded by sending out his minions to talk about how Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate a governor. Meanwhile, he blundered into the “lipstick on a pig” controversy.
Obama attacked McCain on education. McCain responded with an ad accusing Obama of supporting comprehensive sex education for kindergarteners in Illinois. Obama came back with an ad talking about how McCain is old and doesn’t use e-mail.
The common thread is this: when attacked substantively, Obama counters personally. He gets angry, and he gets mean. He has read his own press clippings, and he believes them. He is The One. No one is allowed to attack him.
There are only two problems with such hubris. One is that Americans don’t like it. Arrogance bugs us. Ask John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.
The other problem is that when you believe yourself to be a messianic figure, you have to live up to that image – and you are bound to fail. Presidential politics is a game of attacks and counter-attacks, feints and bluffs, insults and retorts. It cannot be won up in the clouds – it has to be won in the mud. Even if your image demands that you remain the clouds, you will be brought down into the mud.
And so we see the new Barack Obama. The new Obama is no longer the “united we stand,” rhetoric-blowing giant. He is now the street-smart Chicago politician willing to unsheathe the knife on occasion. Only he’s not that street-smart, and it shows. Obama vowed to bring a gun to a knife-fight. Americans are beginning to realize that Obama’s gun is filled with water.
Obama’s behavior at the 9/11 memorial, then, represented two impulses. First, there was the anger of walking down to the memorial with the man who was sinking his highfalutin’ aspiration’. Second, there was the inability to bend down, even for a memorial.
And that betrays a disturbing lack of self-knowledge and self-restraint.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Ben Shapiro, 24, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School. He is also the author of the recently published Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House, as well as national bestsellers Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future and Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.
Nail him on his attempt to thwart any troop withdrawals from Iraq, or his general assholiness, but this "controversy" is weak, weak, weak.
He left his teleprompter at home.
Was he caught scratching his forehead with his middle finger...again??
Wow, this person graduated from UCLA and Harvard... I need to re-evaluate what I think of these graduates.... To much about Obama graduating from Havard. Long way of saying that good article.
It also seemed like he was sending a subtle signal to those who are on the other side of the 9/11 thing. It seemed like he wanted to quietly show the very least amount of deference to claim deference while showing a certain quiet level of contempt, like a kid who was dragged to church when he would rather be playing ball.
I wonder to whom that subtext body language was meant?
I’ve only heard of the rose toss on 9/11, haven’t seen it. These kind of gestures need to be seen and circulated widely. Typically, they speak for themself and don’t need a full blown ad. Get an animated gif created and posted all over the net.
This is a total non-starter. If you look at the entire 20 minute ceremony, Obama shook everyone’s hand. He finished first and was waiting around for MCCain to finish up. This is garbage. We need to focus on real stuff.
Agreed.
His behaviour was perfectly acceptable.
I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Obama’s gestures were not out of step...little rough but normal. If he’d whipped it out and peed...now that would have been something to talk about.
We all know that Obama has no respect for American life, why do you feel he would pay respect to the deceased?
Do you have a video link, as I'd personally like to see it.
Even if O was “reverent,” I still would’ve nailed him for being a big fakey-fake like Clintoon. So, I guess it doesn’t matter what he does. We know what he is.
I caught a glimpse of Obama planting a zinger of a kiss right on the lips of Biden's wife. I was shocked and amazed and perplexed as to why no one picked that up. Was it featured on uTube?
“...but this “controversy” is weak, weak, weak.”
Tossing the Rose rather than placing it displayed the man was there not to show his respects to those whom suffered and died in that horrible attack, but that he was there because of the press he would get if he had done as he preferred, which was to NOT be there.
His actions reflected an arrogance and a lack of concern for the meaning of the place, the people, and the memories.
When I watched Obama toss the rose on the memorial I said to my wife, “Tell me he didn’t do what I just saw him do?” We were both not disgusted or upset, but disappointed in the man that in whatever upbringing he’s had that he missed an appreciation for the subtle nuances that help express personal character.
When I watched Obama toss the rose on the memorial I said to my wife, “Tell me he didn’t do what I just saw him do?” We were both not disgusted or upset, but disappointed in the man that in whatever upbringing he’s had that he missed an appreciation for the subtle nuances that help express personal character.
This one is filed under the things that are relative the libs phony outrages.
There are several things wrong with this article.
Obama went first in the receiving line. Several Utube videos cut that out and slam him for not shaking hands. Guess again he already did.
I dislike Obama and think he is a dishonest snake charmer.
I hope we dont have to go down his dishonesty road in attacking him because there are plenty of truths available without diluting them with false ones.
To: Nachum
You Said:
This ground zero angle is crap. Obama was tossing his flower onto the larger pile of flowers. There was nothing disrespectful in the gesture.
Nachum, did you view the video? I did. Obama was so obviously rude to the small reception line that is was embarassing to watch.
It DOES matter that the President of the United States have the good manners and good will toward citizens and our fallen heros.
You, sir or madam, are supporting a losing cause if you are trying to take up for Obama’s behavior. He is a jerk. You should read the accounting of what a secretary had to report on Obama’s behavior when he worked for a law firm.
Maybe he didn’t want to diss his Muslim brothers that caused this tragedy, by showing too much respect for the American dead!
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