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Victor Davis Hanson: Presidential Narcissism
National Review Online ^ | May 9, 2012 | Victor Davis Hanson:

Posted on 05/09/2012 5:56:23 PM PDT by neverdem

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To: lentulusgracchus
I heard VDH over the weekend, I think it was a tape of an interview Friday ..... these columns of his don't capture the absolute despair in his voice when he talks about Obama and the leadership of the country. That's the only word for it -- he is in despair for his country.

Because his personal situation is awful because the raisin farm he owns (and other farmer friends) are besieged by thievery by Mexicans. Equipment thefts and copper wiring thefts etc. Have you read his accounts over at Pajamas Media? Also he sees his farming area descending into 3rd world status with lots of mobile home shanty towns. He likes to bicycle around and see things. The farm towns are sliding downward too. He has lived through the best of California's years and now he sees the worst when farmers and their workers are deprived of irrigation water over a Delta smelt. He sees liberal insanity and hypocrisy a lot closer than others

The vandalized valley
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286354/vandalized-valley-victor-davis-hanson#

 

21 posted on 05/10/2012 1:14:23 AM PDT by dennisw
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To: Tenacious 1
In a friendly debate with a close friend of mine in 2009, I asked him, "Imagine you are interviewing Obama for a job, any job." I have interviewed a lot of people over the years.

That's the kind of guy that interviewers 150 years ago had a trapdoor for, down to a secret chamber where the patsy would be rolled, knocked out, and wake up on a brigantine bound for China -- Shanghaied. Shanghai-ing was invented to fill ships' billets and make guys like Obama go away for about five years.

22 posted on 05/10/2012 2:10:10 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: dennisw
Also he sees his farming area descending into 3rd world status with lots of mobile home shanty towns.

The description reminds me of something I read once about the Gallo-Roman senatorial magnate Sidonius Apollinaris, who sat in his classical clothing in his classical villa farm-house (which would come soon to be called a "mansus" in the common people's tongue), writing letters in elegant Latin to his colleagues in the cities, advising them to come away out into the countryside. Then he would look up from his writing across his fields that stretched to the horizon, and see little knots of Burgundians walking across his seizings, thick gobs of butter in their hair to frustrate the lice and flies, heading steadily in the general direction of the Pyrenees and Nearer Spain. That same sort of end-of-an-era feel ....

Lyndon Johnson did this. He did it out of malice, and he did it on purpose. But I know how to pay the old bastard back. The one thing he feared was the lack of a legacy, and being consigned to obscurity. Well, all those LBJ monuments, and that fancy gravesite? Guess what, Lynt'n .... you're taking a little trip. And by God, I'd do it.

23 posted on 05/10/2012 2:30:12 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: dennisw
From your VDH "Vandalized Valley" link, the money quote:

In the new pay-as-you-go state, shrouded in politically correct bureaucratese, Californians have developed a keen sense of cynicism. The scores of Highway Patrol cars that now dot our freeways are looking for the middle class — the minor, income-producing infractions of the generally law-abiding — inasmuch as in comparison the felonies of the underclass are lose–lose propositions.

This cynicism and instrumental targeting of law-abiding people and shunning of the habitually criminal recidivists and scofflaws is created by the financial pressures of socialism. An unplanned, unforeseen liability of "communism with a human face".

The cynicism and pragmatism of liberal socialism is an ouroboros that consumes itself -- indeed the whole society and state -- in an attempt to carry out its infinite powers and responsibilities.

24 posted on 05/10/2012 3:09:33 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: CitizenUSA
“And true! The man’s biggest (single) accomplishment as president is killing Osama.”

Remember Obama was asked what his skills were and he said he had run a successful campaign and got elected.

25 posted on 05/10/2012 9:02:24 AM PDT by hummingbird (I am Breitbart.)
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To: Lancey Howard
Flabbergasted is precisely the right word and disgusted also applies. It still amazes me how such a worm fooled enough people to get elected, even though he's half African.
26 posted on 05/10/2012 9:03:34 AM PDT by jazusamo ("Intellect is not wisdom" -- Thomas Sowell)
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To: Lancey Howard; jazusamo; xzins
Even though Zero is definitely a narcissist with an evil ideology and a hatred for America, sometimes I honestly believe we're dealing with a terribly warped child who has never grown up. Normally I would experience sadness for such a person, but not in this case. He's been given everything, had every opportunity, and yet he chooses darkness and destruction.



27 posted on 05/10/2012 9:20:39 AM PDT by smoothsailing
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To: smoothsailing
I believe you nailed it about the terribly warped child who has never grown up. The tighter the spot he gets himself into the more transparent his foolishness becomes.
28 posted on 05/10/2012 10:33:16 AM PDT by jazusamo ("Intellect is not wisdom" -- Thomas Sowell)
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To: lentulusgracchus

Yeas that was one of the best points he was making. How the police and justice system are much more interested in the easy cash they can extract from the law abiding middle class. There is no cash to be gotten from prosecuting the illegal aliens and other farm equipment thieves

I like your allusion to Sidonius Apollinaris, VDH’s parallel to his situation


29 posted on 05/10/2012 11:37:24 AM PDT by dennisw
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To: dennisw
...Vlad and others have him by the balls via blackmail. About homo relationships and more....

Ah, the essence of Manchurian epicure! I am not a security pro, but I do know a principal of espionage: can he be bribed, blackmailed, turned or some combo thereof? The big O was "the one" for a long time. However, BHO must be a disappointment for them. He is just too slow, too weak, too lazy, too narcisstic and just plain incompetent.

30 posted on 05/10/2012 3:21:22 PM PDT by VRW Conspirator (Article 58)
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To: neverdem
The common characteristics in Obama’s I/me/my career have been such rhetorical, visual, and symbolic efforts to mask an absence of accomplishment (e.g., why not even one Harvard Law Review article, or perhaps a single publication as a University of Chicago lecturer, or a successful program as a Chicago community organizer, or a signature piece of legislation as an Illinois legislator, or an acknowledged legislative record as a U.S. senator?).

Good point.

31 posted on 05/10/2012 3:32:25 PM PDT by x
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To: PhilDragoo; LucyT; pookie18

see #20, lol


32 posted on 05/10/2012 8:11:02 PM PDT by bitt (“There are only two races of men: the decent and the indecent.” —Viktor Frankl, survivor, Nazi co)
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To: PhilDragoo

I absolutely love this graphic!

I challenge anyone who views it to highlight your text.

I couldn’t agree with it more.

China is looming more than anyone at present...economically speaking.


33 posted on 05/10/2012 11:47:59 PM PDT by dixiechick2000 (This hobbit is looking for her pitchfork...God help the GOP if I find it.)
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To: bitt

Thanks, bitt!


34 posted on 05/11/2012 1:20:48 AM PDT by pookie18 (...OK, plan C: Newt or Rick...I guess it's plan D now)
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To: Lancey Howard

And so am I!!!


35 posted on 05/12/2012 10:40:47 PM PDT by Semper Fi Mom (Mother of a Marine and proud of it! (www.WeSupport Frank.com))
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