(Note: This was posted in Comment Section on a blog and I followed it back to a paper Brenner had written that's online at U of Pittsburgh, so I think it's okay to post the whole thing since it's not copyrighted)


http://www.pitt.edu/~mbren/Commentaries.htm


Barack Obama is not as great an enigma as he appears. Here is my take on him – first written last October. I believe that most of what he’s done since january, amply confirms it.

BARACK OBAMA

by Michael Brenner

Obama’s arrival on the scene affords us the perfect opportunity to test our ideas about the interplay between narcissistic behavior and contemporary political culture. His sudden rise to the White House on the wave of a personality cult, along with his ordination as ‘The Man of Destiny,’ behooves us to take a searching look at what makes him tick, how he conducts himself, and celebrity/virtual politics in our time.

Some things are obvious to the even casual observer. Obama has an outsized ego, is audaciously ambitious and shows signs of a superiority complex. They compose a self image with which he is entirely comfortable. That is revealed in his social ease and remarkable self assurance. Some of his manner is exceptional, some redolent of public figures past, some features suggest shopworn items dressed in fancy new packaging. My impression is that an appreciable portion of Obama’s public persona lends credence to the thesis that there are narcissistic elements rooted in our political culture. They condition, they tempt, they permit behaviors antithetical to a mature polity. Obama, though, is not a narcissistic personality.

So, who is he? What makes him singular?

There is nothing of the exotic about him, contrary to the popular discourse, except for a childhood background that he assiduously has relegated to an outgrown past. A Kenyan father and the Jakarta sojourn in childhood have left few visible marks on his character or attitudes. More fruitful for understanding who he is and what he is about is the portrait of a highly ambitious politician with the self-assurance that stems from a stellar Ivy League record, a wife to match and early electoral successes. His ‘blackness’ is not part of his core identity. The only apparent residue of his experience as a black is strong penchant for ironing out all ascriptive differences in his field of vision, e.g. ‘partisanship.’

Obama’s autobiography is easily misread. He did not visit his father’s family in Kenya in search of his roots. There are no signs that he sought to integrate Africa into his persona.
Similarly, he has maintained few ties to Indonesia and takes little interest in the country, except for a close relationship with his half-sister long resident in the United States. His aim seems to have been to unburden himself of those experiences. A nominal process of self-discovery can lead to awareness and composition or to consecration of a self devoid of much inner content. In truth, he is not a cosmopolitan person. His travels overseas have been limited, before or since entering the Senate. Since his Jakarta days, he has not lived abroad. His knowledge of foreign affairs is correspondingly limited despite having chaired the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe. Superior intelligence along with legal training makes him a ‘quick study’ who can readily absorb the main points of a situation without much knowledge or understanding in depth. Facile speaking skills and social ease are complementary traits that help create an impression of urbane worldliness.

What of his chosen vocation as a black man immersed in the public life of Chicago? Clearly, that was a calculated choice he made in his early twenties after graduating from Columbia. At that time, he was ending a long affair with a young white woman from a very wealthy family – something that may or may not be of any consequence. He reiterated that choice after Harvard Law School. ‘Choice’ seems the right word since there is reason to think that it did not emerge from some strong inner impulse. Obviously, we do not know what went on in the inner recesses of his being. We do know that this is a man who is highly self-conscious, self-disciplined and who acts deliberately. The Reverend Wright revelations do offer a few clues. Loyalty to the man who ‘brought him to Christ’ probably is the least significant. Wright’s church was a natural fit for someone immersed in community affairs who wanted to be at once ‘black,’ broadly progressive and non-sectarian. Tolerance for Wright’s egregious polemics is explicable if we suppose that Obama did not take them seriously. That attitude conforms to his generally moderate to conservative views. It also bespeaks someone who feels ‘above’ or ‘beyond’ histrionics and passionate activism.

Obama is conservative, in the traditional sense of the term. One can visualize him having set down roots in a comfortable suburb and launching his career from there. It is not inconceivable that he would present himself as a moderate Republican, an Illinois John Chaffee. (Were he now in the Senate, there even could be some Republicans talking of him as the 2012 successor to a failed John McCain. A bright new ‘white hope’ for the party). We should bear in mind that the strongest influences on him during his formative years were a mother and maternal grandparents who were sliced white bread Kansans.

Obama’s ambition is not inspired by any cause or purpose. The themes he enunciates are ones of national unity – as a desirable end in itself as well as a precondition to meeting collective challenges. None in this category stand out in his writings or speeches. He declaims that partisanship is destructive; it serves no good purpose. This is the face of seven very successful years of ruthless partisanship unreciprocated by his own party. He is by conviction a conciliator. It is not clear whether he is so by temperament, too. He prefers to avoid a fight; he surely does not pick fights. While he hews to the central lines of the Democratic mainstream, Obama is not a philosophical progressive or a populist. Witness his cautious, join the consensus attitude toward the financial meltdown. He first pronounced that the entire disaster stems from a few mischievous souls “gaming the system.” He missed the obvious: the game was the system. He now takes his strategic economic advice from Robert Rubin, the godfather of casino finance along with Alan Greenspan, whose CITI Corp lost $45 billion before he bailed out.

Little if anything in the roiled public life of America seems to anger him or even irk him. At a time of multiple crises – constitutional, economic, and in the nation’s foreign dealings – he keeps his emotional distance. It is hard to imagine him getting worked up about any of the developments in American society or attacks on the body politic that so deeply dismay some others

In all respects, Obama is very much a man of his times. Weak or absent convictions, dispassion even about grievous wrongs, incapacity for moral outrage, quiet acceptance of the precept to put self first – if not quite the measure of all things, a natural egoism – all the hallmarks of contemporary American society. A man who amasses $10 million at a relatively young age after a late start and married to a woman with no inherited wealth whatsoever is a man who looks after himself. He has none of the idealism that exemplified his mother’s life, and for which she paid a steep price in comfort and security.

Obama’s disparagement of the 1960s social movements that shaped his mother is revealing. It confirms the absence of serious interest in his own lineage. It hints at an introspection, such as it is, that has the instrumental needs of the present as its magnetic pole. It exemplifies a strongly ahistorical approach to the current world he occupies. Obama’s public remarks that the whole 1960s experience was a ‘psycho-drama’ is astonishing. He is what he is, where he is, as a direct result of the 1960s. The same holds for his wife and children. Indeed, he simply would not be were it not for the ideals and attitudes that became full-blown in the 1960s.

One of his political models is Ronald Reagan. Yet, if Mr. Reagan’s counsel had been followed, the Obama family would be drinking their Cokes in the back seat of the family car when on the road in the south. This is historical amnesia with avengeance.

Some Salient Traits

ITEM 1

Obama readily orphans policy proposals that previously he vaunted as matters of conviction and commitment. This recurring phenomenon exceeds the norm of politicians for whom the breaking of promises is part of the trade. In Obama’s case, this pattern was noticeable in the period between the primaries and the nomination, between electoral victory and inauguration, and since he settled into the Oval Office. Once is a happenstance, twice is a coincidence, three times means that we had better take a close look at what is going on.
During the few months of summer 2008, Obama swiftly cut loose from a number of positions that had framed his candidacy: inter alia, non renewal of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Statute (FSIS); withdrawal from Iraq; supporting legislation to facilitate trade union organizing. There was no compelling electoral reason to do so since these positions conformed to majority opinion in the country. Other explanations suggest themselves: an instinct to assuage the right of the political spectrum in the hope of achieving a much ballyhooed bipartisanship consensus (on him, on his policies) and/or he is at heart an establishment conservative disposed to identify with the powers that be. As we discuss below, there is much evidence to support the latter. The regrets expressed to his followers were curt. They carried the message: “don’t think you have a claim on me, I’m the one who gets it right.” That attitude became a feature of his ‘conversation’ with the movement that gave him the White House.

The pattern of abandonment was more pronounced during the fall campaign. He exulted in an interview with FOX News that “the surge has succeeded beyond our wildest expectations” – lauding General Petraeus and signing on to a fictive interpretation of developments in Iraq. At the same time, he amended his heralded commitment to withdraw American combat troops. (See below for his later, confirming decisions). He amended his declaration of a readiness to enter into negotiations with Iran “without’ conditions” to include several conditions.

When the financial crisis hit, he stressed the importance of amending the bankruptcy laws to allow heavily indebted mortgage holders to have their terms adjusted in bankruptcy court. Yet, as the debate on the TARP bank bailout plan came to a vote in Congress, he lobbied against including the bankruptcy reform. The exact same legerdemain marked his attitude toward its inclusion in the Geithner bailout non-plan – Plan I, and then again toward the provision’s inclusion in the Stimulus Package a week later. By then the plan had been pushed back to some indeterminable date – some hundreds of thousands of foreclosures later.

The transition phase saw more of the same. In early January, it was the turn of heralded rescinding of the Bush tax cuts to the super rich to be jettisoned. That idea had been the centerpiece of hundreds of campaign speeches. Yet it was discarded in a casual manner. In a major press conference on the plunging economy, he off-handedly remarked that it was better simply to let it die out at the end of its legal in 2011 rather than risk the contention that its outright withdrawal would provoke. When queried by a reporter on the matter, he went off into a riff taken word for word from his stock campaign speech on inequality in America. Those tax cuts, in the end, were not rescinded – just allowed to die at the cost of about $200 billion to the strapped Treasury between 2009 and 2011. The matter went uncommented upon by the media.

Similar episodes appeared serially. Within one ten day stretch in mid March, Obama pivoted 180% on three notable issues: the taxing of ‘gold-plated’ health insurance policies received from institutional employees by fortunate middle class salaried workers; the transfer of financial responsibility for treatment of Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans’ injuries to their private family insurers from the federal government; and the appropriateness of strenuous administration efforts to block the notorious AIG bonuses. In each, a position was advanced publicly by senior officials before the President personally beat a hasty retreat while feigning ignorance of the matter. Of course, all presidents engage in trial balloons and try to distance themselves from those that are shot down. However, this pattern stands out for its frequency, the importance of the issues, and the president’s cavalier attitude toward both their promotion and their being jettisoned.

Certain aspects of these oddities stand out, traits that have repeated themselves. One is an unapologetic readiness to shift ground radically. A second is disdain for ‘Obamites’ and the media alike. A third is the instinct to align his thinking to the conventional wisdom as represented by persons who embody the status quo. The reversals on help for potential mortgage defaulters and retracting the tax largesse to the upper brackets were harbingers of bigger surprises to come. The tip off on what ‘fresh thinking’ and ‘new departures’ would mean concretely came with Obama’s elevation of Bobby Rubin to the position of consigliore. Rubin was the incarnation of the financial crisis – philosophical and operational in government as well as banking. The placing of Rubin protégés to almost all key jobs ensured that the financial rescue strategy would bear a close family resemblance to the fatally flawed Paulson-Bernanke TARP scheme. Indeed, it did – generating the same ignominious reaction.
All important appointees were Rubin protégés. They included Larry Summers his designated Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council whose prescription a year earlier for mounting popular discontent about American plutocracy was a promise for the IRS to do more tax appraisals of the rich. No acknowledgement to Marie Antoinette. He was the partner to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, a Goldman, Sachs alumnus who, as President of the New York Federal Reserve, brought the CEO of Goldman into the small circle of officials who made the decision to let Lehman Brothers go under – and then arranged for the $180 billion bailout of AIG that allowed $92 billion to be passed Goldman ($12 billion) and other favored banks. Geithner, too, was the person who forced Senator Dodd to remove provisions of the stimulus bill that would have restricted bonuses. All these actions were taken in secrecy with evident approval from President Obama.

The most stunning of Obama’s about-turns was his precipitate embrace of the Bush practice of claiming overriding national security privileges to short circuit trials where plaintiffs sought justice for abuse at American detention facilities. This was a practice an angry candidate Obama had vowed to end. President Obama instructed his newly minted Attorney General, Eric Holder, to follow the trail blazed by Alberto Gonzales in demanding the case be shelved so as to protect vital secrets. We know what those secrets are from other legal proceedings outside the United States and leaked records: inter alia incarceration in black sites run by the CIA where the motto was ‘everything goes,’ prisoners rendition from foreign countries based on dubious tips, subcontracting of torture to Morocco, Egypt, Jordan and Syria where the interrogators really knew their business and gladly let American agents stand in as participant observers. Even the presiding judge was flummoxed. Soon thereafter, the Justice Department, acting in a similar vein, makes a court declaration that captives held at Begram airbase in Afghanistan had no legal rights as ‘enemy combatants.’

By March, Obama had reversed himself on other salient ‘terrorist’ issues. He affirmed his own interpretation of the Bush dictate that as president he had the right to attach Presidential declarations to signed legislation and would not execute those he judged to be unconstitutional. In addition, he negated a legislative provision designed to protect whistle-blowers in claiming the power to decide what Executive Branch information could be passed on to Congress.

Obama has shown that he also is capable of the outright lie. This is more revealing than his turn-on-a-dime policy shifts. Speaking at Camp LeJeune on February 27, he announced that he had taken the much anticipated action “to choose a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months.” That was untrue. A number of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) totaling upward of 37.000 soldiers would remain in Iraq after that date. They simply will be relabeled by the Pentagon as ‘advisory and assistance brigades.’ They will retain the same equipment and military capability. This deceit was devised by General Petraeus and Secretary Gates to reconcile Obama’s public pledges with what they saw as military needs in Iraq. It, At the same time, it aimed to circumvent terms of the SOFA (Status Of Forces Agreement) signed with the Baghdad government. There is no doubt that the president was well aware of this dissimulation. Indeed, the matter was first discussed in detail during the transition on December 15.

Overt lying at the top of the Obama administration has marked the public relations surrounding the financial bailout, too. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has been the immediate culprit. The most glaring examples concern the use of the $180 billion given to AIG. Geithner’s testimony that he learned of the egregious bonuses to executives in the division that sunk the company only March 10, 2009 has been belied by ample evidence on the record that he, as President of the Federal Reserve bank of New York and the principal author of the bailout agreement, personally engaged the issue as early as the previous September. More serious was Geithner’s testimony before the House Banking Committee on March 24 that he had neither known that Goldman, Sachs was a counterparty to credit-default swaps with AIG that stood to gain from the generous agreement he negotiated in September nor made Goldman, Sachs a party to the talks. Both claims were fabrications. Records show that Geithner had invited Goldman CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein to join the small group of decision makers that hammered out the terms of the accord, the only non-government person so honored. Goldman, as noted, was given $12.3 billion through the AIG conduit – after itself lying in public statements that it had no significant exposure. It is hard to imagine that Obama, who reportedly was meeting with Geithner and Summers for at least an hour each day, was unaware of this mendacity given the ultra-sensitivity of these highly flammable AIG issues.

Here, again, this misbehavior received meager attention in the media and never got what Washingtonians call ‘political traction.’
What do these episodes tell us beyond the fact that Obama has begun lying to the public on cardinal issues early in his administration? Three things. One, his conduct confirms the proposition that he is at heart a politician socialized into the prevailing political culture. Two, that culture is ill-disposed to shine a light on overt deception by the highest officeholders in the land and/or lacks the necessary memory – even short term –to do so. Finally, our leaders, who have had their character formed by a severely defective culture, are emboldened to play fast and loose with the truth in their awareness of how easy it is to pull the wool over the eyes of the media and the public alike.

Obama’s exalted sense of self is displayed in other notable ways. His remarkable decision to hold his nomination party in Denver’s sports stadium before 70,000 star struck followers was the act of someone who aspired to the grandiose. So it was with the Mother of All Inaugurations. This at a time of national penury, paid for by the very financial institutions that had laid low the American economy. Some of this self indulgence would be less baffling were Obama the symbolic leader of some great cause or movement. Yet there is little content to his orations. Certainly, they do not enunciate an articulated philosophy or a novel way of approaching the nation’s grievous challenges at home or abroad. Obama is that strangest of public figures – a Messiah without a mission or a message.

If Obama indeed has a superiority complex, in some behaviorally meaningful sense, than it may well be associated with special treatment that he has received since his youth. Bright, engaging and vaguely exotic he likely was popular with his peers and singled out by teachers as well as other adults. The fragmentary evidence that we have suggests that this favored treatment greatly outweighed negative discrimination. It seems a pattern that continued throughout his adult life from Harvard University to Chicago to the beginnings of his political career to the White House. Of course, he lost many votes in the presidential election because of his color. Now, the widespread celebration of his presidency’s advent has surrounded him with a glowing aura. He already is generating laudatory press coverage while stilling criticism from all corners except the dyspeptic radical right. Such an experience naturally would bolster a strong ego and reinforce a natural self-confidence. The evidence adduced above indicates that those traits may well have congealed into a personality that presumes superiority.

From that lofty point of self-esteem, it is the distance between himself and everyone else that is paramount. That reality transcends all differentiations among the others – including their party affiliation or ideological attachment. It is qualified only by the instinctive respect for establishment leaders that he absorbed with his upbringing.

The observable combination of superiority feelings and a tendency to distance himself from the hurly-burly around him receives confirmation, and some illumination, from his career teaching at the University of Chicago Law School. By his colleagues’ recounting, he seldom engaged in the free-wheeling discussions of legal issues or political affairs. His interjections, when they were forthcoming, left unclear what his views were. He rarely pronounced a firm position. Equally noteworthy, he did not include colleagues among his social circle. What insights can we glean from this unconventional pattern?

A few interpretations suggest themselves. Most obvious, it is a behavioral pattern that conforms closely to the Obama revealed as candidate, transition figure, and president. Above the fray¸ detached, reluctant to pick sides or stake out a firm position, and not drawn to high powered thinkers as companions. It adds credence to the proposition that a superiority complex is an integral element in his personality. It is not of the variety that seeks occasion to display itself in intellectual exchanges. Rather, it is a permission slip for choosing when, how and with whom he engages the world – and always on his own terms. Any implicit challenge to that right immediately evokes irritation, a datum that is a point in confirmation of this hypothesis.

There is yet another peculiar trait that supported this hypothesis of a superiority complex that thrives in our current political climate. Obama has cultivated a trademark elevated, above the fray image. An idealized bipartisanship is its emblem. All the stranger then that he should at times go out of his way to insult his supporters. Two incidents stand out. One is the aforementioned mass e-mail message addressed to those who were upset by sudden abandonment of his strongly worded commitment to oppose the FISI legislation before Congress that put the imprimatur on the Bush administration’s worst abuses of it surveillance power. In it, he referred to ‘my left wing friends.’ These ‘friends’ were the people who had given him the nomination. Were they ‘left-wing’ because they believed in a constitutionally grounded system of laws – along with many Republicans and the Barack Obama of a few weeks back? Or had they earned the epithet of being ‘left-wing’ because they had the temerity to confront him on an egregious default on a serious matter of principle? As a matter of record, the term ‘right wing’ has never issued from the lips of Obama.
The second incident involved the private dinner arranged with a covey of ultra-conservative journalist. Held at the home of George Will, the invitees included Bill Kristol (who had smeared Obama as a ‘socialist’ unfit to hold the highest office in the land). This bunch, who accurately could be called ‘right wing,’ supposedly were convened so that the President elect could exchange thoughts with the other side of the political divide, as if they were unknown quantities. The next day, he met with a small group of liberal (not left-wing) counterparts for a brief afternoon coffee. Why go out of one’s way to insult your backers and, supposedly, allies? The most troubling possible answer is that there is something in Obama’s make-up that demands driving home the point that he is superior to them – in status, power, and intellect. Moreover, that gives him the privilege to do whatever he likes and they had better get accustomed to it. What is the core personality that generates that need?

Obama exhibits other narcissist like traits that are now endemic in American public life. Religiosity is one. At the height of the economic crisis, he averred that ultimately it was our faith in God that could do more to alleviate our condition than the government. One of his first initiatives was to create a Faith Council composed of clerics from diverse religions. Its charge would be to provide a religious perspective on matters of public policy. That initiative was complemented by an updating of George Bush’s faith based program whereby church related organizations will receive public money to provide social services. There would be no enforceable restriction on the program’s engaging in proselytizing or hiring based on belief. His unfocused but supposedly strong religious faith fits the pattern. In his campaign, Obama pledged that “this council will be a critical part of my administration.” Without a shadow of doubt, that was one promise he kept.

Once resident in the White House, Barack Obama created a ‘team’ of spiritual counselors as replacement for the unforgettable Reverend Jeremiah Wright in Chicago. It is composed of five men of the cloth of varying complexion and located at all points of the compass. Obama communicates with them frequently by telephone or email, and occasionally in person on matters of public policy as well as more individual concerns. We do not know when the contact is on a rotational basis or an issue specific division-of-labor that prompts him to seek clerical counsel. Obama’s clutching onto religious symbolism is also manifest in a related innovation: opening all public rallies with invocations that have been commissioned and vetted by the White House. This is a first in presidential practice, something that not even the born-again George Bush indulged.

Then there is Obama’s being attracted to the rich and prominent, especially financiers. Consider the stark discrepancy between his attitude toward Wall Street figures and the heads of automotive companies. Toward the latter he has been unsparing in disparagement of their competence as well as severe in the conditions he imposed on them to qualify for government assistance. Toward the former, it is kid gloves treatment – one short week of purely rhetorical criticism at the time of the AIG bonus scandal notwithstanding. The CEOs of General Motors and Chrysler may very have been poor managers. Yet unlike their counterparts in the financial world they were neither dishonest nor ready to play fast and loose with country’s economic foundations for the sake of their own glory and riches.
Admittedly, there may be differences in kind as to the systemic implication of allowing the banks ‘too big to fail’ in fact to fail as opposed to the automotive sector. Leaving aside the serious implications of gutting a mainstay of the dwindling manufacturing sector, that difference does not correspond to the glaring differences in treatment of two sets of leaders – in mode of address as well as policy. He savaged one, was ever respectful to the other – including cordial invitations to talk things over in the White House. When one adds to this reality Obama’s comfort in placing custody of the nation’s financial future in the hands, and minds, of Wall Street insiders, it is legitimate to raise a couple of awkward questions.

Is this a man who identifies with one rather than another because of their status in the society and their life style? To put it bluntly, is this a man whose wardrobe of $1,000 suits creates an affinity with the custom tailored money people? He surely was uninhibited about hiring celebrity designer Michael Smith to oversee a planned $100,000 White House redecoration. Smith is the person whose recent clients include John Thain, former CEO of now defunct Merrill Lynch, who paid him $800,000 on the company’s account for redoing his office at the moment Merrill was going belly up. The episode is notorious for the choice of a $5,000 waste paper basket and a $87,000 area rug. Are there shades of Nicolas Sarkozy in this weakness for the chic?

A further question: is it reasonable, politically as much as in terms of equity, to shrug off AIG’s generosity in giving million dollar bonuses to 674 employees on grounds that these were inviolable contractual obligations while sternly dictating that $55,000 a year skilled autoworkers had to give back salary, health insurance and a slice of their retirement funds? Whether my behavioral interpretation is on the mark or not, this is abnormal conduct by any reasonable standard which begs for explication.

I am fully aware that in posing a question of this sort I am treading on dangerous ground. It may seem that I am extrapolating on the basis of slender evidence, that I too readily am placing Obama’s behavior into a precast mold, that I perhaps am over-reaching to buttress my argument about the pervasive influences of a narcissist oriented polity. Maybe the explanation lies in something more elementary – campaign contributions come from Manhattan, not Detroit. So permit me to label this last point a hypothesis that, if correct, supports a larger thesis. Let time decide. Until it does, I feel no compelling reason not to offer it given the significance of the issue and its implications.

One further admission. I disagree with Obama’s foreign and financial policies. It requires no great insight to intuit that. I believe them ‘wrong’ on multiple grounds. However, whether they are or not has no immediate relevance to the themes of this essay. Whatever correlations exist between our political culture and leaders, on the one hand, and policy outcomes on the other, they are just that – correlations. While I do affirm is that a narcissistic political culture has serious negative implications, I do not claim that it is the cause of all our policy misjudgments.

One further noteworthy point. Obama has a singular style of public speaking. It varies hardly at all from one setting to another, from topic to topic. His speech lacks any modulation. It is forceful, rather loud, cast at the same pitch, lacks rhythmic shifts or inflection, is free of qualification or doubt, and earnest in tone. It is just like his campaign stump speeches. One is reminded of Queen Victoria’s complaint that “Mr. Gladstone addresses me as if I were a public meeting.” This pattern has three possible explanations. Mr. Obama has strong convictions about everything; he has strong convictions about nothing; or he is convinced of everything he says at the moment he says it – a la Tony Blair. Thus, the Obama who can firmly reject the idea of strict controls on the executives of bailed out banks one day, can be ‘outraged’ by their paying large bonuses a few days later, and critical of taxing the AIG giveaways the day after – without any gesture implying recognition of contradiction or change of thinking. The word ‘OUTRAGE” was printed on his ubiquitous teleprompter.

Michael Brenner
mbren@pitt.edu

Mikado,
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I wonder why there was no discussion of this post? It certainly seemed to deserve discussion. :shrug:

Did I post something against Obama that doesn't fit here? (I actually like Obama...feel his heart was in the "left place") but he is being run by Clintonites. (the only way he could have won the election..was to give Clintonites their "Second Chance" like Poppy Bush's supporters gave his EVIL SON!

Maybe I overstepped something, thinking this site was for Lefties. Maybe it's just for Disgruntled DU'ers...

I'm a brand newbie here, so I don't know why there is no discussion. The essay certainly seems to fit the obama disillusionment I find here. I'm a disgruntled DUer, by the way, who sees little hope for the future. The people are just too easily fooled and have no foresight, wisdom, or ability to see beyond the propaganda, popular culture, and superficialities.

welcome to PI! :)

I remember you well from DU and am glad to see you here. I was booted from there a couple of months ago. Frankly I am surprised I lasted as long as I did. I have been disappointed about dear leader since the day he picked rahm. Every day brings even more outrage.

The reason you don't see a lot of responses sometimes is because we are a small community and also there is always a lot to digest here. I read, read, read all of the time.

I have learned to dial down my anger and choose my words carefully in order to avoid "the boot," but have been posting less and less frequently there and merely lurking, or posting in neutral forums like Gardening, but am amazed at the mindless cheerleading and absolute refusal to see reality. This analysis you have posted is really on my mind today. It seems to sum up some things very nicely. I actually did post a link to it on DU in response to someone wondering why obama was doing thus or such, but I did it subtly and without a link to PI.
I found a link at http://baselinescenario.com/2009/06/02/what-would-gorbachev-say-on-the-us-china-and-saudi-arabia/#comment-16218 that does not reveal a connection to this board (I have a hunch links to PI are "banned" at DU). I am going to continue posting this link as it appears that many, many on DU are just plain baffled about what is going on with O, whom I have come to regard with the same anger, disdain, and disgust as I regarded 43.

PI is banned from being posted there. Chicken shits! I gave up trying to convince the sycophants that obama is a fraud. Unless they are very wealthy they will be affected soon. If they don't get it when they lose their jobs, insurance, car, or home, then they never will.


I am glad to see you here, please come often. And good luck over there.

:)

it is just slower than du, check my sig pic and you will know how we feel about dear leader. Keep posting the good stuff, even though it does not get responses, believe me we have a lot of members and lurkers who check in daily and read yet don't post.

:)

Sometimes I read the great posts here, but am a bit slow to post a response. For example, right now, I have to go work with Beloved Daughter on some math; but, I will be back!

If we tend to agree with what you have written or think the piece is fairly dead-on, we tend not to post much, just enjoy the read. Don't take it too much to heart - when someone disagrees, THEN the posting starts... :hi:

I do agree with Dahlgren, however, that this process is not as frequently performed here.

A fancy shmancy version of bush. Great.


That is an excellent article. It is extremely insightful and a keeper. I am tempted to pin it to the top. Thank you! :)

Its why i din't vote fer the bastard - 'cuz i knew he wuz an oreo.

The whole article licks around the word oreo without quite getting to it;
i'm sure the writer would find it sweet.

:)

I printed it just to reinforce my linguistic intensity.

but i'm a lazy writer:

That article in 2 words:

Obama

Oreo

I thought it was good and would get more attention, and I posted it around the 'net.

Just kidding.

If you are quick to jump to conclusions,
the article is unreadable as the opening paragraphs
are without evidence and leading towards a false presumption
as to the latter content.

Its a good article - it needs an executive summary that gives it justice.

So, I took the "Silence" of "Replies" as that I wasn't welcome..

and maybe sees the Clinton "Payoffs" kind of gets to him.

What's shocking about him is that he doesn't seem to see the LEFT that worked since "Selection 2000" as a force in his being President.

That's what saddens me about him...that he doesn't see.

It was a great piece (I have a Master's in Psychology, and am a retired social worker).

Well, there's certainly NO doubt in my mind that he's being directed by the Clintons and the Clintonistas.

I think that he's well aware of his support that came from the Left; he bamboozled everyone deliberately, and does not care. He IS very narcissistic (he reminds me of my mother); people that are that self-absorbed sort of have this attitude that whatever is good for them just MUST be good for everyone else. After all, the narcissist-in-question IS the Center of the Universe.

I see now that he simply does not have the ability to empathize, to any significant degree, with the middle class, the working poor, or the just-plain-poor.

He will do what the Powers That Be tell him to do, and forget about anyone else, largely (the PTB being the ultra-rich corporatists that have the critical influence as to what goes on in the world).

So, one side of me sees him as a "figurehead" for the Clintonistas to rehab themselves after "Monica/Blue Dress" and the other side of me says he took "the job" figuring he could manipulate them and make some changes.

I'm still hoping for the guy...and it's only been short of five months...but he's now on "borrowed time" given the choices he's made to make the changes he was elected to do.

It's worrisome......but, I'm the "ever optimist" just hoping that it isn't as dire as what our darkest thoughts are about him. Watch and Wait...and try to do what we can.

If we had STRONG DEMS with real PRINCIPLES/ETHICS in our CONGRESS...it really wouldn't matter much who was President, though...would it?

Where should the REAL BLAME be placed. And what can citizens do about the kind of people we elect to the House and Senate. So far...not much. We need to get control over the vast Lobbying Money that funds our CongressCritters.

It's gone too far. Not get rid of lobbying...but severely restrict it and the money involved. I'm not against Lobbyists...we have them on the Left...but they never have the resources the Libertarians and Corporate Lobbyists have where the virtually write our bills for the companies that feed them. We on the left just have our Enviro people who subsist on the puny donations we can cough up for them...and some citizen groups who are as poorly funded as the environmental groups.

THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE... If one wants to lobby then make sure the funding doesn't favor the Fat Cats over the People who have little.

I'm a fan of mandating campaign like those described in the Clean Money campaigns.

We do have curtail the current lobbying system.

Obombem surrounded himself with Clintonistas.

On these points, we do agree.

And, I do agree that I need to stay positive, and notice the things that have been achieved. For example, I am grateful that the Mexico City policy was reversed, and the U.S. may fund birth control and reproductive care around the world again.

Talking to Obama staff people back 5 years ago, they made no secret of their intentions. The Bush years were causing a resurgent populist Left (far left, McGovernites, fringe, etc, is how they put it, and "discontent among the unwashed masses") and that was the threat they saw. They were much more worried about beating down the Left than they were about going after the Republicans, and of the two they saw the Left as the main enemy.

Way back then they were meeting with Wall Street financiers, explaining their plans and ewasurinf them that while Obama would need to sound like a leftists during the campaign, to seduce and confuse the political left and to harness the growing populism among the general public, that once in office he would be their friend. They then put together a crack team of propagandists, who set about creating a campaign plan that would fool people, that would build a cadre of fanatical cult followers to act as shock troops, and that would lull the various activist groups with vague, but seemingly heartfelt, promises.

All politicians make promises, of course, and then break them. But never in our history has any campaign so methodically, cynically and effectively misled the American people. It is breath taking in its audacity and moral depravity.

The Obama movement was always mainly about suppressing the Left.

I've heard a number of the DLC types bragging on television about successfully "taking back the party from the left."

"The Obama movement was always mainly about suppressing the Left."

Dead-on.
I have just stopped talking to my son about this issue and now just listen to him expound. He was really sucked into the "Obama phenoma" and it breaks my heart to see him so disillusioned. But he is a young man, with years and years of disillusionment ahead of him - at least he's got me to sound off on...

It does catch one's eye and can draw one in. Thanks for the critique... Seriously.

I think after my DU experience I got tired of trying to do something that would catch "eyeballs" and figured I'd just throw the whole thing out there without a "Summary" that might give a clue to my opinion on it. I found that no matter how unintrusive one might try to be...that bias can be concieved as something to be attacked...over there on DU.

I threw this out here for what it was...just because I wasn't quite sure in my mind how much I agreed with it. Wanted to get a discussion without my opinion because I wasn't sure of it. But, do understnd that we are all busy these days and a catchy "Summary" often get's someone to read and therefore thing more about a piece.

(and perhaps himself and Michelle, have fallen into an "American Idol Syndrome" as the only way to catch American's attention.

What worries me is that WHAT IF...HIS HANDLERS ARE CORRECT..about the American Public? And, that the Serious Americans who do have a handle on how they've been bamboozled, manipulated, swindled, lied to, and pillaged with lack of health care, forced 401-K's down and manipulated from credit cards to housing are being marginalized so that our Mainstream Media can make more bucks out of obfuscating issues while covering Obama's every Move and Michelle's every outfit while ignoring what's going on "under the table" in our financial/global markets and economy?

I'm worried that Obama is falling into the "Sports/Entertainment Hero Syndrome" where there's little substance but much "HYPE." I thought this article was interesting in that way. But, I wonder if Obama knows this and at some point can pull himself back into REALITY. Although, Karl Rove, according to David Susskind in his book said: "We [Repugs] write our own reality."
That's worrisome.

And, that's the real problem... Why do we have to elect "Charismatic Personalities" (Clinton...and to some extent Carter after the Nixon "Dark Years")as Democrats when the Repugs can win by stealing elections as they've done for awhile in Congressional and Presidential Elections '00 and '02 and '04.

Of course, they won with the "Charismatic Actor, "St. Ronnie," and if that's where our Democrats are then they are some decades living in the past to manage to fit Obama into "St. Ronnie's Skin." But...what if they succeeded... Bad Thought..

:shrug:

The people Obama has appointed to his admin.
The various stands he has taken on the Unitary Executive.
The domestic spying continuation.
The back-pedaling Obama has done on torture, "black" prisons and rendition.
Obama's health care fraud.
The bait and switch with troop withdrawal from Iraq.
The reneging on ending "Don't Ask/Don't Tell".
Bombing of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Just to name a few..

There is much more. Obama touted himself as the agent of "Change", and many folks believed it wholeheartedly. But, that is a lie. The man is simply the next Emperor of the American Empire, nothing more and his hands are already covered in the blood of innocents...

Which is why I don't post here much.

I should chime in more often, since I'd like this board to stay healthy.

I rarely start threads, since my focus tends to be very specific, and not necessarily an issue people pay much attention to (until they're ready to bitch, lol.)

but I just wanted to throw out a few things:

- I agree that Obama is not a great public speaker. He is consistent, but what makes him stand out is how BAD other political speakers are. I mean, come on... McCain, Romney, Palin, Biden, Kucinich (sorry), Hillary... none of them are very talented or even watchable.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people around who are great speakers...that's not what TPTB want. That kind of thing can get out of hand.

- Yes, he was hired by the oligarchy to get in front of any left populism. In fact, as many know, David Plouffe was the head of an "astroturfing" firm in Chicago before he worked on the campaign. Somehow, people found a way to ignore that.

- I find a lot of the psychological analysis to be kind of guesswork. He is definitely cold and distant on a political level, although he can be very personable around certain "normal" subjects: sports, food, family. I tend to think he is a real team player (sorry, cliche) who is hired to do a certain job and does it, and goes home. I highly doubt he has been surprised one iota by the major events of the past 6 months-- I mean even the stock market watch thread at DU (bless 'em) knew that the shit was going to hit the fan and they warned us years in advance.

- I have my own little theories about his Kenyan family... but that's a whole nother ball of wax...

Not seeing the connection between the two. "the propaganda bothered us, BUT without it he could not have won." Isn't that like saying "the tear gas and billy clubs bothered us, but without those the police could not have broken up our march?"

"Sure, the low wages the boss is paying us bother us, but otherwise how could he exploit us?"

"The billions given to the Wall Street bankers bothered us, but without that could Obama have saved the Wall Street bankers?"

"Breaking the UAW bothered us, but without that could Obama have saved management?"

"sure, the illegal detentions bother us, but if he didn't do that could he avoid turning those people loose?"

"If he were not like Bush, and following the same agenda, could he be successful?"

Millions of Democrats are forced to ponder these questions today. I fear for their sanity.

deal with all of it. It seems so calculated. But, thanks for your reply. It's something to think further about.

that's saying something about "snake charmers."

:shrug: You didn't bother to read the whole article? And, your personal portrayal of Obama seems very "off course" from what most of us have seen of him who were glued to his campaign.

The deception and cynicism and sophistication of the Obama marketing campaign, and the intentions of the Obama team are pretty well documented.

Some of it is here:

http://socialistindependent.org/board/index.php?topic=165.0

You don't need the word "republic" to answer.

to differences of opinion...

as far as being better than Clinton-- I'm confused, do you mean Hillary or Bill? Because he is definitely better than Hillary... He and Bill are somewhat different, but I think Bill has the edge in terms of variation in delivery. Obama can hit high notes just like Bill, but Obama's tend to all look alike in the end... if you look at video of his campaign, it is difficult to tell one speech from another, one applause line from another. Obama is so measured and consistent you can set your watch to him. Bill has the volatile mix that adds a more human element.

As far as being "off course"... well, what specifically do you disagree with? I am from IL and had seen him around before the campaign ever started... so I didn't get my impressions of his personality from being "glued" to the campaign circus.

And yes, I should read the whole article... but let's face it, is this really about the man, Barack Obama? Or is it about the carefully constructed facade that every politician puts on to convince their followers to believe what they say in an emotional sense, rather than with their critical faculties?


On edit: Well, I thought there was more at the link, so I guess I have read the whole article.

The problem is...what lies behind this magnificent oratory. His delivery is pitch perfect and goes beyond what Clinton could do for Populism...and yet..like Clinton...it comes down to "follow through."

Giving a Block Buster Speech with all the right "high notes and low notes, and the rest of the inbetween notes" does take some skill to carry it off.

Our Democrats always EXCELL in GREAT SPEECHES and RHETORIC...but fall down on Follow Through. Ted Kennedy, Mario Cuomo, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama..

Well...then "Where's the BEEF?"

I bookmarked it. Oh, and you're quite correct as to the Obombem marketing campaign.

Didn't mean to be doing self-promotion, but there was too much info there to drag over here. I have been interested in how the Obama phenomenon was created - it was not spontaneous, but rather it was carefully planned and executed.