The President Who Never Was

Pajamas Media ^ | 9 December 2011 | Victor Davis Hanson

[IbJensen]

A Teen-age President in Search of an Adult Identity

Barack Obama keeps looking for a presidential identity not his own. In 2008, he wished to be JFK — whom he often referenced as a youthful and charismatic figure supposedly similar to himself. So we heard references to Obama’s father’s arrival to the U.S. during the golden Kennedy Camelot years. Caroline Kennedy herself came out of seclusion to assure us that Obama had the same Kennedy zest, and she flirted with a Senate run to help restore the lost age of grandeur. And at the Brandenburg Gate, Obama would have liked to electrify Europeans with another Ich Bin Ein Berliner speech. But even the left-leaning Germans sorta balked at that, and relegated the new Galahad to the Victory Column — a nice enough gesture that earned them a snub when a later President Obama chose not to go to Berlin for the commemoration of the twenty year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. (But flying ad hoc to Copenhagen to lobby for the Chicago Olympics is a horse of a different color.)

The New Gipper

Next candidate Obama channeled his inner Ronald Reagan. He reminded us that that he too had a sense of a new “trajectory.” His supporters swore that he had the same sunny disposition and eloquence. Obama liked that new persona. Soon he was talking about being the same “transformative” president, as long as we understood that Obama was going to be Reaganesque solely in the way he campaigned and soared with “hope and change” rhetoric — a sort of ironic payback to the Reagan Revolution as Obama mimicked the Gipper’s personal talents to undue his legacy.

Young Mr. Lincoln

That did not last long. When he won the election, Obama now referenced the Civil War, slavery, and the civil rights struggle as he became the Great Emancipator to finally bind up the nation’s wounds. So he was for a bit Barack Lincoln. I mean this literally and to such a degree that he chartered a slow train from Springfield to DC in December 2008, to remind us that it had been 148 years since a similar messiah had trained from Illinois to Washington to save the Union. Aides got copies of Team of Rivals, since Obama had long seen himself as a saintly Lincoln in magnanimous fashion bringing in former political opponents who perhaps were more experienced but surely less talented than himself. A Biden or Hillary as Seward or Stanton?

Hyde Park Redux

But when he assumed office, there being no Civil War, Obama of Chicago Hyde Park now channeled FDR of New York Hyde Park to meet the same crisis of yet another Great Depression induced by Bush/Hoover. The “100 Days” of 1933 were upon us again. Those were the glory moments, as the White House let it be known, when a new FDR would bookend Social Security with Obamacare. That did not last too long —given the fury over the health care machinations, the Tea Party, 9% plus unemployment, the horrendous new debt, and the greatest mid-term setback since Roosevelt’s own in 1938.

[milwguy]

Hanson is the best imho. If Republican candidates would use the stuff Hanson puts out in their campaign they would be way ahead of the game. Hanson is more effective at exposing Obama and his utter lack of a core than anybody I read.

If I were running for POTUS, I would be calling VDH all the time for advice, he knows more about history and its relevance to what our country faces today than anybody I know.

[CORedneck]

Zero’s speech would contain the words, “Mr. Putin, please build a new wall here” !

> And at the Brandenburg Gate, Obama would have liked to electrify Europeans with another Ich Bin Ein Berliner speech.

[Graewoulf]

” - - - Empty soaring rhetoric of the day, as the president without an identity desperately searches for one about every three months. - - - “

3 months, that is equal to one season.

So now the Democrats have a Coward-in-Chief who is an illegal candidate that is arrogant, petulant, dictatorial, hates bickering, and puts on his “Emperor’s new clothes” with each change of the season.

BTW, we have always seen him as a sorry, buck-naked Socialist, pretending to be an Emperor that gives public pep talk speeches to himself.

BTW, BTW, if Obama-the-looney is not the perfect impeachable pOTUS, then who is? ( I guess it depends upon what is is. )

[zbogwan2]

Maybe Obama’s next channeling endeavor will be that Of Adolph Hitler.Then Obama can/could lip sink one of the Fuhrer’s speeches and end same with a horrendous Sieg Heil insane rant?

[Talisker]

This is a beautiful essay, thanks for posting.

Now what needs to be asked is, does anyone really believe the Rat machine saw none of this, when it kicked Hillary in the dirt and chose Obama?

And if it did, then why go so far with the Beast, only to then choose the BoyToy instead?

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. Delay just makes things a lot worse.

[Iron Munro]

Abraham Obama

[riverdawg]

“I do believe that Obama does not know who he is... Abandoned by his father and to a large extent by his mother too. Unfortunately he's in the Oval Office (when not on vacation), instead of on a psychiatrist's couch, which is where he belongs.”

And, unfortunately, we don't know who he is, either.

[IbJensen]

Here is an actual, remembered quote from one of his many speechified appearances recently. It illustrates the scope of his enormous intellectual capacity:

"I, I, I, I, it, it, it, it........"

What an enormously ignorant sociopath is this stuttering imbecile. He is incapable of debating Daffy Duck!

[roadcat]

Lincoln was a skinny lawyer - Obama is a skinny lawyer.

Lincoln was a great president - Obama is a skinny lawyer.

No other similarities with greatness come to mind about Obama!

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

Ich Bin Ein Berliner

JFK never knew what he said translated as "I am a jelly donut", and the crowd roared!

Regards,
GtG

[TXnMA]

"(But flying ad hoc to Copenhagen to lobby for the Chicago Olympics is a horse of a different color.)"

Yep.

[spankalib]

Thanks for the ping.

Most should know by now...VDH has pegged narcissism to a T>
- wearing masks
- assuming personas...personae? (none of which are true - it is to remember: THERE’S NO THERE THERE!)

This is an excellent evisceration of a complete phony, with a bit of skillz...since I don’t *think* he mentioned N at all.

Agree with the posters who said our nominee should read VDH...seems like it’s just the wimmenz in our party who have the ballz....women read, menz look at pictures...sigh.

Obama is a phony and a flake. I want a nominee who is able to point that (SO OBVIOUS THING!) out. It’s not that difficult, heck, I like it when they lift the gotcha lines from here - they’d have amerricuns laffing at that incompetent clown and all of his socialist rumpswabs for years.

If no one points out that the emperor has no clothes...