Posted on 11/13/2010 4:44:59 PM PST by toma29
Why has Barack Obama failed so spectacularly? Is he too dogmatically liberal or too pragmatic? Is he a socialist, or an anticolonialist, or a philosopher-president? Or is it possible that Obama’s failures stem from something simpler: vanity. Politicians as a class are particularly susceptible to mirror-gazing. But Obama’s vanity is overwhelming. It defines him, his politics, and his presidency.
It’s revealed in lots of little stories. There was the time he bragged about how one of his campaign volunteers, who had tragically died of breast cancer, “insisted she’s going to be buried in an Obama T-shirt.” There was the Nobel acceptance speech where he conceded, “I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war” (the emphasis is mine). There was the moment during the 2008 campaign when Obama appeared with a seal that was a mash-up of the Great Seal of the United States and his own campaign logo (with its motto Vero Possumus, “Yes we Can” in Latin). Just a few weeks ago, Obama was giving a speech when the actual presidential seal fell from the rostrum. “That’s all right,” he quipped. “All of you know who I am.” Oh yes, Mr. President, we certainly do.
My favorite is this line from page 160 of The Audacity of Hope:
I find comfort in the fact that the longer I’m in politics the less nourishing popularity becomes, that a striving for power and rank and fame seems to betray a poverty of ambition, and that I am answerable mainly to the steady gaze of my own conscience.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
You want adjectives ? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE ADJECTIVES !!
Narcissus had a girlfriend ... but he ignored her to the extent that she slowly disappeared and all that remained of her was her voice ... Echo was Narcissus’ girlfriend and hopefully he’ll be nothing but an echo himself soon ....
The author answers his own first sentence question.
Well, we're making an unsupported assumption right in the title.
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Do they really have to ask? Obama is incompetent, lazy, and has no leadership abilities whatsoever. He can't give a speech to a classroom full of fifth graders without using a teleprompter. For someone who has never managed anything in his live, the demanding responsibilities that come with being President of the United States are hopelessly beyond him. And to make matters worse, he also lacks the ability and understanding to seek help from someone else.
Obama just expects things to work out simply because he has told someone else to work them out. Never mind if that person is equally incapable. Obama does not possess the skills to know whether someone is capable. He knows absolutely nothing about team-building. He is incurably naive when it comes to diplomacy, and he lacks even remedial understanding of the most elementary of economic principles.
Why has he failed? The question they should be asking is, "Based upon his lifelong lack of achievement, why did anyone ever expect him to succeed?"
A GREAT read. Thanks for posting. I heard bits and pieces of this stuff before, but in the context of self-absorption, it all fits together. He is getting more terse and testy when pressed for answers. I just watch his presser in Korea - what a PUTZ he was to the press corpse (yes corpse).
With regards to Obama, we must beware of the drowning man effect.
Ever note the cartoonists are drawing Obama just like they did Jimmy carter in 1978 and 1979? Smaller and smaller and smaller.
This is stupid. In O’s mind, he is great and he did well. We need to quite evaluating him like he’s thinking of success in the same terms we are. In that light, America will never be educated as to who he is or what his agenda is.
I get sick of us saying, he failed when America needs to understand in his mind he succeeded because his agenda is Soros’ agenda, which is ruining America and our economy.
Interestingly, the guy Carley Simon wrote that song about is gay...
I like Mark Steyn’s take Obama wants to use the Presidency as a stepping stone to bigger things.
Mick Jagger is gay?
Who knew?
Yeah, like King of the World.....
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