Geoff B sent along this link, which I’d also seen in my morning email, of a column by Gene Healy. Who doesn’t pull punches. Making him an extremist whose unhelpful rhetoric is sure to drive away the illegal alien vote.
It never fails. Whenever a president’s approval ratings tank, out come the deep think pieces about how the president’s personality flaws explain his political dilemma and ours.
Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum has the latest entry with a 3,000 word thumbsucker titled “Obama the Loner: The Trouble with the President’s Self-Reliant, Closed-Off Attitude.”
President Obama, it seems, doesn’t enjoy schmoozing, small talk and pressing the flesh. And that, according to Purdum, has something to do with why Americans have soured on his scandal-wracked, power-abusing, blunder-prone presidency.
Obama’s “resolute solitude — his isolation and alienation” from other Washington players — is “his greatest weakness,” Purdum argues.
Purdum’s not the first to lay this charge. The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd periodically wails that Obama acts like “President Spock” instead of being our “feeler-in-chief.” And, “he’s an introvert,” says Game Change author John Heilemann, and that’s why he’s in trouble.
It’s a common trope — and as a congenital introvert, I’m sick of it. Obama is a terrible president, but, contra Purdum, that’s got nothing to do with his “penchant for solitude.” Extroverts: You’re not gonna hang this on us!
As Jonathan Rauch explained in his classic 2003 Atlantic article, “Caring for Your Introvert,” introverts are not necessarily antisocial or misanthropic — we’re people who are wired to enjoy solitude and need it to recharge after social interaction.
And, dammit, we’re “among the most misunderstood and aggrieved groups in America.” Introversion, Rauch wrote, is “not a choice. It’s not a lifestyle. It’s an orientation.”
In that light, Purdum’s argument is so incoherent and self-contradictory, it’s hard not to suspect him of rank “lonerphobia.”
Obama’s “go-it-alone approach,” Purdum claims, “insulate[s] him from engagement in the management of his own administration.”
He asks, “were Obama’s aides too afraid to tell him” about tapping Angela Merkel’s cellphone or the problems with healthcare.gov?
Er, probably not, given that, several paragraphs later, Purdum tells us “no one in Washington is afraid of Obama.” (Because he’s not chummy enough?)
Purdum lacks a single convincing example of what victories more backslapping, jawboning and congressional “beer summits” would have delivered to the president.
When you find yourself writing sentences like, “it’s hard to imagine that Obama did not do himself at least some real harm in September by abruptly canceling the annual congressional picnic at the White House,” it might be time to reevaluate your argument.
The notion that presidents need to be chirpy and chatty as a drive-time morning DJ is a distinctly modern one — and it’s not clear it’s led to better presidents.
[…]
n his influential 1972 book, The Presidential Character, political scientist James David Barber argued that we should pick presidents by their personality type.
The “active-positive” president — the ideal voters should seek — tackles the job with manic energy and zest, and “gives forth the feeling that he has fun in political life.”
The “passive-negative” sees the office as a matter of stern duty, and his “tendency is to withdraw.” Among Barber’s “active-positives” were crusading meddlers like FDR, Truman and JFK; his “passive-negatives” included the Cincinnatus-like figures Washington, Eisenhower and the under-appreciated Calvin Coolidge, who cut taxes, shrank spending and delivered peace and prosperity.
Introverts — present company excepted — can make good presidents. Obama’s current predicament stems in large part from his flexible relationship with the truth — a personality flaw that has nothing to do with his sometimes solitary nature.
Besides, given the disaster his presidency has become, you can’t blame the guy for wanting some alone time.
As someone who has often been called moronic, or a paste-eating dullard, or an intellectual charlatan by leftists (and a couple notable center-rightists), many of whom after trying to illustrate the indictment then routinely refuse to engage me for fear I may (again) publicly eat their lunch, lift the tighty-whities up over their heads, then have a go at their wives, I am disturbed beyond belief by this ridiculous and continuous trope that Obama is simply too smart to be President — that, like some alien species from the future who has been sent here to set us straight, only to be obstructed by the modern day Romans out to crucify this secular and political savior of an entirely different and unique stripe, Obama’s biggest hurdle as President is overcoming his own unprecedented genius.
And what genius is that? Well, he’s a half black dude who, we were famously told by some of his Democrat pals, is clean and articulate. He went to Ivy League schools (under mysterious circumstances) after having been by his own admission a drugged out slacker. He somehow found his way into the “parlor” of Bill Ayers and his wife, the other domestic terrorist who lives off the public teat and indoctrinates university students into the ways of blowing shit up (including some of their own buddies). So clearly, the man is the Light Bringer — not some manufactured image sold to us as an historic post partisan, post racial figure whose only accomplishments have been an ability to parrot leftist academic jargon and get himself elected to office.
If only he could somehow manage to understand we mortals, to talk with us at our level rather than have to endure the need to constantly dumb down his brilliance, his very nuanced pronouncements wouldn’t be seen as lies but rather as effectual truths, compassionate promises whose truthiness trumps his sometimes infuriating inability to make his genius amenable to smaller minds, the kind who haven’t suckled on Said or Alinsky or Marx, who haven’t taken in the incisive critiques of Whitey and the Jews offered by critical race studies and black liberation theology. If only. And his failure to do this leaves him distressed. And impossibly introverted. Too thinky for us. Too good for mankind.
Can you imagine? Even Achilles had a weakness. And Obama’s weakness, we’re constantly told by slavish followers of this modern-day Pied Piper of Progressivism, is that he can’t make us understand his righteous brilliance. That is, the very dumb among us, the bitter clingers, the NASCAR watchers, the jarheads and patriotic suckers — we just can’t begin to comprehend ideas too complex for our lizard brains. And so we strike back, not out of disagreement, but out of fear. Out of racism. Out of some animalistic attachment to a comforting illusion.
A shame, too. Because if it wasn’t for that? Paradise.
…
Yeah. That’s the official hagiography. Of a guy too stupid to understand simple economics, human nature, math, statesmanship, and his own narcissistic personality disorder.
What a surreal world we live in. One that leaves me longing for the zombie apocalypse if only to see some of these flaccid statists chased down and bitten by zombie Reagan, and the zombie Founding Fathers.
We’re supposed to believe he’s an introvert. A President? Who campaigns, etc.
Let’s be honest. He’s lazy. And probably afraid he’s going to be discovered as an intellectual charlatan he is if he’s out in public too often.
Yup. Lazy and self-absorbed. And a narcissist who just can’t be bothered trying to deal with those who fail to recognize his brilliance. But not half as bright as he thinks he is. Thank God he’s not more dedicated. Imagine the damage he could have done by now if he was a clever go-getter.
Have you heard his stumbling attempts at coherency when he is forced to give spontaneous remarks without a teleprompter or pre-screened question(er)s? He makes Biden look statesmanlike and wise.
When talking about Obama, “thumbsucker” is not the right word. Close, though. Need a hint? #GetCovered…
And Obama’s weakness, we’re constantly told by slavish followers of this modern-day Pied Piper of Progressivism, is that he can’t make us understand his righteous brilliance.
His righteous brilliance being demonstrated as we speak in the immense success of the O-Care rollout.
He’s not an introvert. He’s an under-achiever with an over-active self esteem gland… and probably a small penis… and a penchant for waffles… but only warm waffles.
I’m an “introvert” according to some stupid test I took (and Mrs Cookies) who works in field sales, and I can tell you I’m exhausted at the end of the day and would never, NEVER, decide to invite Jay-Z over to play hoops on a whim. If I did, I’d be a narcissist.
Sounds like a teacher trying to give an evaluation of a student to parents they know are not going to take it well if you tell them their kid is below average.
Obama’s brilliance is a bigger fraud than “Climate Change”.
I believe everyone here has talked to and or listened to a true genius and knows what the encounters feels like and the impression you get. Obama does not leave that “in the presence of genius” feeling at all. Anyone who says they feel that way about Obama is either lying or too dumb to know. They probably zone out when a real genius is speaking.
– Don’t buy the troupe that hes a victim of his “inability to tell the truth”. If hes a victim of anything its his slavish ideology that drove him to follow the sirens call into the straight-jacket demongoguery that the Progressives prepared for him. He has bascically worn the skin while doing very little that fits the mold of the manufactured public perception, so his options are limited, both by his own real shortcomings and that manufactured pose.
– Aside from entitlements, which of course is the mothers milk of Socialism, hes done nothing in other areas that you could characterize as true Leftist. Take away ObamaCare and hes followed the Bush/Cheney doctrine to the letter, and is still amplifying on it. In foreign policy I thinks hes basically MIA, which is why you see so much total chaos in terms of policy.
– Now , after the fact of the health care disaster he wants to pivot to immigration, another plank in the Marxo-Socialist platform, but public sentimate is running strong against him and at the same time hes being subtly and not so subtly shoved aside for the Beast.
– Man has a boatload of problems you’d have to say. The country, as a direct result, even more so.
– Wonder how it will go the next time Progressivism is pushed as a viable governing dogma.
– All of that aside, I think one take away from the Wans sum total actions in office is that the Left really suck at picking candidates that will advance their fascist intents.
Purdum has a history.
Thanks to RSM.
– For me, since at this point he seems stuck on dead in the water politically, it all seems past tense. What I find more interesting at this juncture is speculating on just how well or not well his narrcisistic self will take being thrown under the bus. How “off-beat” will he get. Bad enough that revsionists won’t be able to patch together a kindly hyper-inflated fairytale for him like they did JFK?. I guess we’ll know in time.
Clearly, Obama is (in the words of our friend happyfeet, before he went insane): A lying liar what lies.
And he’s caught right now. By the short and curlies.
Sure it would be cool to watch the zombies chase down and gnaw on some statists, but be realistic.. As the old saying goes, they don’t have to run faster than the zombies… they just have to run faster that that walrus Chris Christy..and I’m betting his cardio ain’t that great.. He’ll feed them until they’re gorged (dude could feed a small state) and they’ll all go lie down for a nap..
What I find more interesting at this juncture is speculating on just how well or not well his narrcisistic self will take being thrown under the bus. How “off-beat” will he get?
I lived through the last two years of the Ventura administration. Trust me — when the tide finally turns, and the job is no fun any more, things are going to get really interesting.
He has accomplished exactly what Valerie wanted. He has turned this nation into a liberal cesspool which was the plan all along. Jarrett is the shot caller. He was groomed to be a figure head and nothing else.
Uff da! I watched Jesse melt down from several states away. It was funny and scary at the same time.
Remember when he was so stressed out by Bin Laden he had to be alone… to play cards with Reggie?
Yeah, only an introvert can’t recognize an extrovert when he sees one.
Jarrett and the Center for American Progress and all their fellow travelers.
Amazing how coordinated people can be when their only goal is “get power.”
History is never kind to sycophantic demagogues, especially those who don’t hold office.
Why would Purdum and his ilk pursue that kind of infamy?
Political Scientist James David Barber is full of shit. And so is his book. That is all.
To the people who assured me that O was the “smartest president EVAH!!”, I always said the same thing that I say to the people who assured me that “he’s a good man:”
Evidence, please.
My (at the time) teenaged daughter saw through him before he was immaculated: “He talks a lot, but he never says anything.”
“He talks a lot, but he never says anything.”
And the things he never says — directly anyhow (like, that he hates the country he makes pretend to lead) — are the very things people most need to hear.
Remember that the state that gave us Governor “The Body” is also the state that gave us Senator *spit* Stuart Smalley.
I’m waiting for someone to suggest that Garrison Keillor run for office.
I thank the Lord that I live on the west side of the Red River of the North.
We raised smart kids, TW. Mine said the same thing.
Remember that the state that gave us Governor “The Body” is also the state that gave us Senator *spit* Stuart Smalley.
Yeah, and then you stop to consider that this is the same place that once boasted of Mondale and Humphrey. Which, even if you opposed their ideology, you could at least acknowledge their competence.
Also, in Ventura’s defense: the first two years of that administration were brilliant. In hindsight, they were a sort of dress rehearsal for the Tea Party to come.
I think we’re there.
last week I was accused of implying women were evil when I said that the left was marketing to women as just wanting irresponsible sex and that it was cool:
https://twitter.com/sarahkliff/status/400318902300708864
You can point to that as evidence of your clairvoyance, bgbear.
I dream of a world where progressives are judged by the results of their policies rather than their intentions.
That would require bringing back the stocks and thumbscrews, wouldn’t it? Oh, wait, I think I see your point.
– The coming years promise to be a little more fun than the last 5 have been, thats a given.
– But just watching Bumblefuck take the gas, only to have the Beast shoved up our electorial asses isn’t what I want to see, IYKWIMAITYD.
– I want to see Jarrett, Carney, Holder, and the gestoppo et al, ground down and shamed and never allowed to seek public office again in any capacity. If “progressive” was joined to something on the level of child molester, that would be nice too.
Stuart Smalley’s election was done via voter fraud. There is no question in my mind about that.
But yes, the Twin Cities are chok-full of commies.
this porridge is too cold
Microwave it.
– Or teach it to be more caring.
Bambi has been well sliced and diced above (and I concur) so I’ll move on to this:
“Introversion, Rauch wrote, is “not a choice. It’s not a lifestyle. It’s an orientation.”
I don’t agree. Introverts can become extroverts and it’s usually a good idea if they at least head in that direction by choice. I was introverted as a youngster but changed my programming to allow me to do many things I didn’t imagine possible when I was a teenager. I had strong stage fright and fright of public speaking, and had some trouble even talking from my seat in class. I was very shy around girls. I went from that state to speaking in public, playing music in front of crowds up into the thousands, and selling real estate. And being popular with the ladies. I chose, and it was a great choice.
Good for you! I was terribly shy as a child and made a decision as a young girl to face my fears. It worked well, but I still need my down time with no people around.
oh my
CNN source: If White House doesn’t have solution to canceled plans by Friday, Dems may vote for GOP’s “Keep Your Plan Act”
hey orangeman have a repeal O!care vote 1st
Must not get my hopes up. Wouldn’t be prudent.
Must be that there are two very different forms of smart.
“He talks a lot, but he never says anything.”
From the beginning I’ve said “READ his speeches” … it’s Professor Irwin Corey!
BTW … it was fun today to hear Prager state, emphatically, that Sarah Palin is both brighter and more accomplished than Hillary.
And love his suggestion that someone should offer Hillary $1 mil to her favorite charity to debate her.
I wonder whether his speeches would actually yield actual substance if sifted through a semantic analyzer, or if it would all just cancel out.
Oregon has spent over $300M to sign up zero people.
I guess hellomynameisrandomidiot still hasn’t gotten around to getting him some cheap, subsidized, and Totally Awesome Health Insurance.
I, for one, am shocked.
From -11.2 yesterday, to -11.4 this morning, to -11.9 tonight: it’s spreading wider and wider, ladies and germs.
O! dear
Feinstein backs bill to allow Americans to keep health plans
By Kasie Hunt, NBC News
Re: Democrats running for the weeds on Obamacare:
Think where the GOP would be today were McConnell and Boehner to have between them a single set of balls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U13xOvDa19U
Roger Waters, Dave Gilmour, and the Beegees have a party and admit that once you get past all the posing, the 70’s was artistically speaking a lot of bullshit.
“I believe everyone here has talked to and or listened to a true genius”
I’ve been privileged to know several. Obama ain’t one.
“His speeches, delivered in the oratorical manner of a Baptist minister, were more memorable for style than substance, Mr. Mack said.”
“Dude think he be making plenty sense; don’t be sayin’ SHIT!” — the late, great Richard Pryor (describing a pimp high on cocaine, as I recall).
This is what happens when those who live by the “effectual truth” are finally seen to be functioning at a “subeffective level” and telling subeffectual truths.
I remain introverted. Either that, or the misanthrope in me has decided the best way to remain positive about his fellow man through avoiding any sort of communication with said fellow man. Unfortunately my fellow man will sometimes catch me off guard, open their mouth, and remind me why I’m a misanthrope and generally pessimistic about my species.
– Keep up the good work Blake.
– On the poll data, apparently Rasmussen hasn’t gotten the memo that ankle licking for Bumblefuck is sooooo two weeks ago.
– Go ahead and hope for the best Leigh. As Pablo said earlier, looks like we’re there already.
– Not to rain on some potentially blessed good news for a change, you can also bet if the Beast gets anywhere in her run for ’16 one of her pet ideas will be a return of HillaryCare.
– The much maligned snowbilly cuts through all the bullshit and gets straight to the matter as usual: “Quite frankly I can’t think of a single policy thats working”.
– Now that Bumblefuck is no longer of any use, and the Beast is being groomed for fearless leader, the chum is in the water and the political sharks are circling.
– In other news…..
– Comedians salivating at rich new trove of material.
– War? Fucking A Lurch. Bout’ time the US drove some bamboo sticks up the Mullahs asses. Probably would have saved a whole lot of money and lives if we’d have bombed their asses instead of Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. So answer is hell yes. The only way the Iranians will be stopped from nuclear ambitions, and everyone with a working brain cell knows that except the Ketchup pimp.
– “Ah the hell wit it Mi’chell, lets just pack for Hawaii.” Worser and worser.
– On that last item, I am still trying to figure out just what aspects of the healthcare rollout that 39% of polled idiots approve of. Must be from the group of lo-fo’s™ that vote themselves for expected free shit.
“It’s the inspiration of the speech rather than the specific content,” he said.”
Dumb. It is not possible to be inspired when the flagrantly false style is so off putting that he is not listened to. Not once. Not one single time all the way through. Annoyed to the tits every single day, and it’s not his fault really for providing so much material, just because he provided it doesn’t mean it’s required to be covered so extensively, hourly. Hourly! The man cannot have a poo without it being reported all day long. I have never experienced anything so annoying so prolonged. Honestly. The nagging is amazing.
I sensed a conspiracy. Everyone knows America first adores irrationally and kills it’s heroes out of impatience. Surely they’re overloading early to ensure everyone is perfectly sick of the man. People are worse than I am about overexposure. That’s the conspiracy.
My ears could never get past the sibilant “Ss” they actually hurt my ears. It physically feels like a bottle-washer being run through my ear canal. An icepick. It fucking hurts. So *click*
3 remotes in the span of 15 feet so I can hit that thing before the next “S” jabs my ear. Replaced the batteries in each one twice already. That’s 18 batteries. Just to help avoid Obama’s sibilant Ss. They are not entirely avoidable.
And then blog posts. I stopped viewing the ones with Obama the first three months. Why? Sibilant Ss.
So, no. No inspiration. That’s ridiculous. Fake-ass preacher’s cadence, faker than Flip Wilson’s comedic black preacher character, more fake than any comedian’s depiction of a stereotypical televangelist or tent revivalist. When I hear that damnable.
“We are *pitch* FIVE DAYS *sing* aWAYee…”
repeated, again, that was the pinnacle of the inspiration, apparently, I heard it AGAIN today, my impulse is to grab the nearest heaviest object and hurl it toward the source. No inspiration. Not one single moment of inspiration. Cynicism is what is inspired. Deep cynicism is the thing that is breathed in.
As I have mentioned before, I spent a number of years selling automobiles and I know bullshit when I hear it. Obama likes to think of himself as Mesmer (the guy who popularized hypnosis).
Ha!
Smarm, thy name is Obama.
Yes, you’ve nailed it.
What we see when the body politic notices Barack’s lies? The MSM and the collective of talking heads are seeing the results of a planned but carefully hidden progression to our new ‘Fundamentally Transformed’ Republic, the ‘real deal’ that is the (artfully hidden) purpose of the Barky Presidency. Results are starting to be noticible, and can’t be explained away by ‘normal’ means, so these ‘lies’ are crafted as cover.
I expect the ‘real deal’ to be a sudden economic and perhaps social collapse.
These ‘lies’? a feint within a feint, within a feint. Very carefully managed; don’t mistake this bunch as dumb, ignorant, lying bumblers. They are not that at all.
Chris Christie is the new Tom Dewey.
“Obama the Loner: The Trouble with the President’s Self-Reliant, Closed-Off Attitude” — notice that this really explains the problems the press corp[se] has with Mr. Obama.
Our problems with Mr. Obama go back to him having no executive experience prior to becoming POTUS.
Gah! I’m watching the Healthcare hearings on C-SPAN. It’s turning into a dick measuring contest between Issa and Cummings.
What is Barack Obama? What indeed? He is the sum total of his ideas, his accomplishments, and his legacy.
Which would be why, as I have observed, far fewer people refer to him as “44” than as “Zero.”
Every promise he has uttered was a “subeffective” promise.
TheClownDisaster, President Subeffective.
Number of people who purchased a firearm through a dealer in October 2013.
1,687,599
Number of people who dropped an Obamacare policy in their shopping cart and may or may not have actually bought it in October 2013.
49,100
Ratio 34.37 to 1.
Link.
Speaking as an introvert (and whether we can be “cured”), it isn’t really about social anxiety/shyness; it is about how you recreate/rest. Introverts rest and recharge by solo activities or time with their significant other. Extroverts, from what I hear, think a big party is a great way to relax and have fun.
Yeah, I’ll never be that person, but I can probably pull off a speech or talking to a few strangers.
Every move you make,
Every breath you take,
Every post you stake,
Every change you make,
I’ll be watching you…..
– Now begins the panicky change atempts wherein an illegal, ineffective, unpopular, unworkable law falls completely apart.
– If Feinkle-ass wants it you know its a trainwreck of a disaster. Shes scared to death this is her swan song.
I hope her fears are realized. That old bag has been around since the 70s. Give someone else a chance, DiFi.
Next up: Babs Boxer, Jane Harmon and Nancy Pants.
Between those three, their jewelry alone could make a significant dent in the deficit. Why do Dems vote for the super-rich to represent them?
Why do Dems vote for the super-rich to represent them?
– The masters of pander, why?, surely you jest… :)
Why do Dems vote for the super-rich to represent them?
Somehow or other it seems connected to their greater love of abstractions than of actual people.
Introverted? Obama is energized by adoring crowds, whether its yet another campaign trip to rally support for his latest pet cause, or attending a party/fundraiser that’s all about him. What he doesn’t like is people, though he’ll tolerate the company of those who can get him what he wants (and then it’s under-bus time!).
. . . then it’s under-bus time!.
Mr.
KurtzAlice PalmerBobby RushJeremiah WrightDemocrat . . . he dead.Why do Dems vote for the super-rich to represent them?
I never got a
jobhandout from a poor man.– If the fairytale that only Republicans/Conservatives are the 1% were true there would be no Democratic/Progressive party.
They love to accuse Republicans of being the Party of the Rich, never considering that means the Republicans should therefore want every voter to be rich.
On the other hand, if Democrats are the Party of the Poor, they’re pretty much on track.
– They are not so much the party of the poor as the herders of the poor. The leaders were probably all plantation owners in a former life, and that includes Bumblefuck who was one of those rare Blacks that owned land and slaves, and did a brisk business with the Kenyens through Haiti.