Obama, the Confidence Man, and the Virtues of Humility

One thing that neither Barack Obama nor his acolytes in politics and the media lacked was confidence.

DAVID BROOKS: So there's a lot of very smart people [around Obama], and it's a testament to Obama's confidence.

You know, there was a great quote in a Ryan Lizza piece in the New Yorker about Obama's confidence. And I'm not going to get it exactly right, but he essentially said, "I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policy than my policy directors. I think I'm a better political director than my political director." It was a speech of confidence.

Republicans should not preen. Americans can remember the over-the-top boast of Newt Gingrich in the 2012 presidential debates. He said, "in my second term, we will have established a colony on the Moon." However good an idea that was, it was the voters place to decide about his having a second term, or even a first. It was not the prerogative of the former Speaker to pronounce.

With such examples of self-indulgent arrogance before us, we could not have a better time for the new book by David J. Bobb. This accomplished author and teacher has written Humility: An unlikely Biography of America's Greatest Virtue. Dr, Bobb has headed up Hillsdale College's very successful Allan P. Kirby Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C. The mission of this think tank is to better equip the rising generation of students and political activists with an appreciation of America's Founding ideals.

Bobb's book chooses to illustrate the virtue of humility through short biographical sketches of great Americans -- Washington, Madison, Abigail Adams, Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass.

Frankly, I'm tired of articles about liberals finally coming to terms with the self-evident truth that Obama is a dunce. It doesn't matter. . because the only reason. . .THE ONLY REASON they appear to be waking up is to lay the groundwork for Hillary, their next messiah.

Liberals NEVER simply "wake up". . .they are not "asleep". .they are sick. They, being sick, can only be rehabilitated from their disease and ONLY after they find themselves collapsed in the gutter and covered in their own vomit and even then it is nearly immpossible. We are just being stupid (again) if we think their "disappointment" in Obama has anything to do with truth.

Thank you for sharing this information! The book should make an excellent gift for young Americans who must watch the public spectacle of arrogance and lack of modesty on exhibit today.

Does anyone notice that with this President, the debate, no matter how it is framed, is always about "me," "I," and "my"--even if he uses the words, "best for the country"?

Where is the eloquence of a Washington, an Adams, a Jefferson, or even of a Reagan?

The very nature of the "miracle at Philadelphia" was one of passionate defense of liberty for future generations, selflessness in the face of danger to the personal life and property of the participants, and of a greater interest in the lives and liberties of countrymen and posterity than in the careers of themselves.

Let us pray that Divine Providence will send such leaders for this critical moment in America's history!

Perhaps leaders in Washington today might consider Jefferson's description of how he and his contemporaries in the early days approached matters of interest for the new nation:

Thomas Jefferson:

"Sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but wordy debate, he asked how I could sit in silence hearing so much false reasoning which a word should refute? I observed to him that to refute indeed was easy, but to silence impossible. That in measures brought forward by myself, I took the laboring oar, as was incumbent on me; but that in general I was willing to listen. If every sound argument or objection was used by some one or other of the numerous debaters, it was enough: if not, I thought it sufficient to suggest the omission, without going into a repetition of what had been already said by others. That this was a waste and abuse of the time and patience of the house which could not be justified. And I believe that if the members of deliberative bodies were to observe this course generally, they would do in a day what takes them a week, and it is really more questionable, than may at first be thought, whether Bonaparte's dumb legislature which said nothing and did much, may not be preferable to one which talks much and does nothing. I served with General Washington in the legislature of Virginia before the revolution, and, during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves. If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150. lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected." - Thomas Jefferson, 'Autobiography'"

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