Is Barack Obama a Compulsive Liar?

American Thinker ^ | October 1, 2012 | Steve McCann

[Flotsam_Jetsome]

In an earlier column I asked the question is Barack Obama a compulsive liar or a sociopath?   (h)

A Sociopath:

A sociopath is typically defined as someone who lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little concern for others.  A sociopath is often goal-oriented (i.e., lying is focused--it is done to get one's way).  Sociopaths have little regard or respect for the rights and feelings of others.  Sociopaths are often charming and charismatic, but they use their talented social skills in manipulative and self-centered ways.

A compulsive liar:

A compulsive liar is defined as someone who lies out of habit.  Lying is their normal and reflexive way of responding to questions.  Compulsive liars bend the truth about everything, large and small.  For a compulsive liar, telling the truth is very awkward and uncomfortable while lying feels right.  Compulsive lying is usually developed in early childhood, due to being placed in an environment where lying was necessary.

While Barack Obama exhibits traits from both categories, it is becoming increasingly clear that he is primarily a compulsive liar.  How else to explain the lies and obfuscations that so easily come forth regardless of whom he may be talking to or the subject matter.   His sociopathic skills come to the fore in his ability to manipulate others to join him in his these prevarications, or to exploit the celebrity culture that has overwhelmed a deliberately ill-educated American society.

[Flotsam_Jetsome]

"Wow look at that. The definition of a sociopath is the same as that of a politician!"

There's more than a kernel of truth in that statement. At the same time however, most politicians are neither so divorced from reality nor so protected by the newser class that they could get away with even a fraction of the mendacity on display by this poser day after day after agonizing day.

This man represents the ultimate play by the collectivists. We must stop them in November at the ballot box, since all other legal and societal failsafes have apparently, well, failed.

New tag line.

[MrB]

John 8:44 was written for one such as 0bama:

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

[Richard from IL]

Thanks for referencing this article.

[Covenantor]

He’s an evil lioness OB

[onedoug]

He’s an islamist. What should one expect?

[MrB]

That’s a good one -

An evil Leo Panthera midwife.

[skeeter]

He's asking for the votes of people who he intends to impoverish and enslave in favor of a select minority - in other words he's a democrat running for office.

What else can he do?

[ETL]

He’s an islamist. What should one expect?

He's a communist. He has no true religious faith of any kind, other than Marxism. Commies use religion only to help advance their anti-American agenda. They have a (temporary) "unholy alliance" with the islamo-fascists, as both want the US destroyed. Should it ever happen they'll go at each other's throats.

[ETL]

You’re welcome. It does sum up nicely what this traitor-in-Chief commie is about.

[Mr. K]

Congenital liar: One who is born to lie

[DFG]

Is the Pope Catholic?

[palmer]

"Mein Can't" has an apropos ring to it.

Or Mine Kant (who had a rather narrow definition of lying)

[ANGGAPO]

I am not sure which is worse, telling a big lie or weasel-wording a statement. Obama has mastered the ability to weasel-word so cleverly that you have to think carefully about everything that he says. What he says and what he means are two different things.

[Mr. K]

Obama is a different liar than Bill Clinton

Clinton would parse words so that in his mind he would TECHNICALLY be telling the truth (once again, in his mind) which would lead you to think he cared about telling the truth and knew it to be wrong to lie.

Obama just flat-out lies. Says anything at all. No basis in reality.

[The Great RJ]

Obama like Bill Clinton simply has no moral standards, truth is whatever is needed to be said to gain power or protect your butt. Obama simply has no morality and the very concept of truth is alien to his thinking. What is scary is that history is full of examples of others without a sense of morality for example Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. Read Orwell’s 1984 to see an example of an entire society devoid of any truth.

[Theodore R.]

all Goebbels world class liars

There are at least 69 million in the USA.

[Theodore R.]

if “Obama” were called a liar to his face

That we can be sure will not happen; I think Joe Wilson was quickly silenced, wasn't he?

[Graewoulf]

Well said!

[The_Reader_David]

Again I commend to all FReepers H.G. Frankfurt's On Bullsh*t.

Obama (and leftists generally) aren't liars: they are bullsh*tters. The liar knows what he is saying is false and says it specifically for the purpose of deceiving the hearer. The bullsh*tter doesn't care about the truth or falsehood of his utterances, but says whatever is expedient, whatever he thinks will induce the desired behavior in the hearer, whatever supports his own position. In the end Frankfurt concludes that bullsh*t is a worse enemy of truth than lying -- the liar is at least aware of the truth.

[supremedoctrine]

I agree with you: on balance, more sociopath than liar.
All the attributes are there for sociopath in Obama, especially the qualities of charm, personal likeability,etc.
They have been noted by everybody, especially his “opponents” on “the Right”. It is those qualities and talents that have allowed Obama to get away with what he probably knows are lies, but he is merely the vehicle for an Encyclopedia of Lies that the current Left, mostly his elders from a previous generation of Lefties, have furnished him with. The reason this generation of Professional Liars on the Left rolled the dice on Obama and shoved Hillary Clinton aside is because his whole “package” was, to them,
an easier and more irresistible sell, than Hillary Clinton’s, which they feared would be sullied again by accusations against her husband and his 2007-20008 vintage
sexual improprieties. Obama was the perfect Agent to sell
the Leftist Dreambook to the American people, and he had to do nothing by smile, entertain celebrities, golf, and show up now and then with his sonorous voice on display, sounding
for all the world like he was not only the final Authority on Everything but in fact the Author of all of it.OF COURSE Obama is a Liar, also, but’s let’s not give him too much credit for anything else. He knows NOTHING about political process, and less about employing the usual
strategies through which politicians manage to get their “bills” through, like his new supporter, Bill Clinton. T’was ever thus with him—even as a State Senator he was uninterested in legislation, and was handed over wholesale a bunch of legislation he could pretend was his, but was written by a few low-level Democrat hack politicians. Obama
needed something like that to make himself look credible.
Once elected President,he gladly and willingly laid back and watched others go “over, above, around and through”, for example, to get the mistitled
“Obamacare” through as Law of the Land. He had no interest in crafting it, and has no more idea of what is in it than any Dem in Congress. He was just happy to serve as Front Man
for a whole variety of policies initiated by his Enablers.
Please, “don’t get me started”!!!!