Obama at NH debate finds corporatist Hillary "likeable enough"
… what?
The reason we couldn’t have Hillary, according to the *it* bloggers, was that she was a corporatist, whatever that means. Now, I’m not stupid enough to assert that corporations are persons, as the USSC seems wont to do, but I do believe that we can coexist peacefully and that a savvy politician can help both corporations and real, live persons work together for a more prosperous America.
That’s not what we have here in the good old U. S. of A. anymore. The gulf oil spill has intensified our focus on the relationship between corporations and the Obama administration. What we have here is a failure to hold accountable. The lack of accountability has been a staple feature of the past 10 years. In fact, I think that’s what the whole deregulatory movement is all about: the ability to act with impunity. No one is accountable anymore for anything.
Now, we can blame this on the Republicans or the fact that the Big Dawg’s outgoing administration cut the deregulators some slack, perhaps assuming that Al Gore would win the presidency in 2000 and sew things back up. But how do we account for Obama’s failure to hold corporations accountable for their misdeeds well into the second year of his first term? Wasn’t that what the voters hired him to do? I think when voters heard him say “Change!”, they thought he meant setting things right and making the government work for them, putting the brakes on “irrational exuberance”, making the rich pay their fair share.
That’s not what we got. So, what *did* we get? If Hillary was the ultimate DLC loving “corporatist”, what is Obama?
Paul Rosenberg has an interesting post this morning that touches on this subject tangentially. It seems to me that Paul is finally coming around to what we have always thought about Obama. Obama is first and foremost pro-Obama. That is the driving principle by which he operates. In this respect, he is no different than any other power seeking executive. His eye is always on the next position above him. Getting there is his mission in life. Now, he’s there.
What did he plan to do once he got to be president of the United States? I suppose that like many people who wanted that spot, he had dreams of making a difference. The problem is that he had very little in the way of experience upon which to draw once he got there. Maybe he bought into the management culture where perceptions and expectations can be shaped. Maybe he really did think it was possible to relate to Republicans. I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure. Any speculation at this point would be a continuation of the projection of goodness that got him into office in the first place.
But we can look at what he has done while he has been in office. And we can look at who he has used to forward whatever agenda he purports to have. (I don’t know what that agenda is because it isn’t very well articulated). From his deeds and his appointees, we can draw an early conclusion about Obama. And here it is:
He’s over his head.
It’s a complex nation. We are in an economic crisis. One of the major parties is determined to shred what little remains of the social safety net. Obama is either a willing participant or completely overwhelmed where this is concerned. I’m not sure the Republicans even know why they have to be so cruel as to remove all security from the working class. It’s like blood sport to them. There doesn’t have to be a reason. It’s simply who they are and what they believe. If their mindless enthusiasm were to affect one of their own family members, perhaps they would reconsider. But the rich and well-connected may only now be coming face to face with what they have wrought on their poorer cousins. Like rapacious grasshoppers, they’ve eaten their way through their storehouses and are now are thoughtlessly eating their seed corn in a frenzy of short term thinking and Obama is enabling them.
I think he’s weak. I think he hired Rahm Emannuel because he didn’t have enough time in Congress to know what levers to push to get things done. And if he didn’t have Rahm, he’d have to hire someone like him.
I don’t resent Obama taking his wife out on the taxpayer’s dime. I don’t begrudge him any perk of his office. Being president is hard, even for the guy who is over his head. Even in these tough economic times, it’s a good thing to show that you are committed to your wife and that you aren’t going to forego a little joy. Life goes on. I don’t think race has anything to do with his failure. Character is not fixed by a genetic mutation for melanin production. I think the birther issue is ridiculous and is racist in its formation. But in Obama, we have a man who jumped ahead in the queue not because he was African American but because he was unprepared. Ruthless ambition by the first viable African American politician for president was no excuse for abrogating the responsibility to do what was right for the country.
Would waiting until 2016 to run have made a difference for Obama? We’ll never know. But what is clear is that we ditched a politician with 16 years of executive knowledge and a thorough understanding of the mechanisms of government and how to work them. We turned our backs on a politician who came to every debate over-prepared. We humiliated a politician who was associated with the last successful presidency of our lifetime when our country needed a calm, level-headed leader. And we did it when the country could least afford to have an amateur in the Oval Office.
So, I just have to ask, now that the office has forced him to solidify out of the vapor that he was during the campaign of 2008, what is Obama? If Hillary was a “corporatist”, what is Obama?
Filed under: General | Tagged: corporatist, Gulf Oil Spill, Hillary, Obama, Paul Rosenberg, what is Obama? |
The Confluence 
Obama is corporatist, and I think he sees his role as keeping the little people out of the elites’ hair.
Hillary wasn’t corporatist. The progs never understood that just because big money threw their money at her didn’t mean she didn’t have her own set ideas about policy and that she wasn’t going to use their wanting to buy influence for what it was and still find ways to accomplish her goals.
Obama’s policy goals are amorphous. He has a knack for taking boilerplate Dem stuff and turning it into another boon for Wall Street.
more clearly–
big money throwing their money at Hillary didn’t negate the evidence that she had her own set ideas about policy and would likely use big money’s wanting to buy influence for what it was, finding ways to still accomplish her goals.
I remember when Olbermann and the other Frat Boiz on MSNBC couldn’t stop laughing at 60 year old Hillary saying she’d found her voice in the NH primary. Of course the MSNBC frat boys were totally missing the point there. But, I always thought what was even more ironic was that their darling Obama didn’t even have a “voice.” His politics and speeches were all about some formless gobbledy gook. It makes him the perfect corporate stooge.
Wonk the Vote,
I agree with you that obama’s role is to “keep the little people out of the elites’ hair.”
Those of us who supported Hillary from the beginning could see through the obama fascade and now are being vindicated by his actions. We knew during the primary that he was not in any way qualified to be president and that no amount of brilliant marketing could turn him into a real president. Axelrod played the American beautifully with his marketing of obama and “yes we can” and “hope and change”. Many were willing to throw caution to the wind and just accept that obama was the real deal, when all he was was a marketing creation or better — a brand, which far too many bought without reading the ingredients!
It’s clear to me that obama was chosen by the power elite to protect their baby, Wall Street because they KNEW the financial and housing bubbles were about to explode all over the American people (why weren’t we warned?) and they would need someone who could keep the American people from discovering the truth about this financial debacle, which, I believe was planned all along to enrich the elites and destroy the average American financially.
What we are witnessing now is obama doing what he was chosen to do and that is, protect BP’s financial interests over those of the American people. THE POWER ELITE KNEW THAT HILLARY COULD NOT BE COUNTED ON TO BETRAY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ON BEHALF OF THE CORPORATIONS! Why else did they unleash their bought and paid for MSM to destroy her and then when that didn’t work, ordered the DNC to literally steal the nomination and gave it to obama right in front us, without fear of retribution.
In fact, to make a point about obama’s protection of BP (and not a matter of being a bad executive), Wayne Madsen (an obama supporter) reported back on May 6th that obama was meeting behind closed doors with BP executive Hayward, which he states, in part:
“Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, are working with BP’s chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion.”
Here’s the entire article:
http://oilprice.com/Environment/Oil-Spills/The-Cover-up-BP-s-Crude-Politics-and-the-Looming-Environmental-Mega-Disaster.html
It doesn’t take an “expert” to recognize that obama is not being president so much as “protector” to the power elites’ corporate interests, while breaking the financial back of the American economy. After all, it will be easier for the power elites to force us into a totol corporate state once we are totally dependent on the state for financial means just to survive. We’re already at the jumping off place. Obama was chosen to push us over the side.
Hillary would never have done that and the power elite knew that.
Where is your evidence that Wayne Madsen was an Obama supporter? That would be very surprising.
I googled Wayne Madsen and Obama supporter and you wouldn’t believe what I came up with! :O
LOL!
bostonboomer,
I recall hearing him say in an interview that he had voted for obama. I will see if I can find it.
I could not find the youtube interview, but I did find an article by Madsen stating early on that Hillary should get out of the primary, so that obama could focus on McCain.
He, like most of the rest of the media, were not supporting Hillary’s getting the nomination.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_567755.html
Exactlly
Not sure I’d agree that the “birther” issue is r@cist. I hasten to say that I don’t want to belabor the alleged pros/cons of the issue itself. But I recall hearing place-of-birth arguments made against McCain, too, though not as vociferously as against Obama.
I certainly agree that Obama is a corporatist. Just look who benefits from his administration’s action. The Obots may argue that he’s not really, it’s the fault of his staff, or of Bush, or WJC, or whomever, but that argument merely labels him as a weak executive.
McCain was born in Panama when his father was serving in the Navy. His ability to run for president was covered by some act or other many years prior to his run.
Obama was born in Hawaii.
Period. Case closed. Move on, people. There’s no legitimate reason for bringing it up. It’s a stupid, and, yes, racist, distraction. I want no part of it and neither should you. It won’t get you one iota closer to getting him out of office. He was legitimately elected (if not legitimately nominated). We’re stuck with him for 2 more years.
It really doesn’t matter where Obama was born, although there isn’t any actual rational reason to believe he was born in anyplace but Hawaii. He could have been born among the penguins in Antarctica and brooded on his daddy’s foot, for all that location matters. His mother’s American citizenship would still have conveyed to him at birth.
He’s a citizen. There is no legitimacy to the “birther” crap, even if Hawaii is taken out of the equation.
End of story.
I just find it really hard to believe that you campaign on “transparency” and yet you hide your birth certificate and college records.
I don’t get the “racist” part of this. What is racists about asking to see the birth certificate and college records? If you have nothing to hide – then show the damn papers.
Obama has produced his birth certificate, and it’s available on the Internet. They keep making a big deal about how it’s not the original document handed to his parents at the hospital, or something, but it’s the official legal document on file with the state of Hawaii. If he were a private citizen and needed to request a copy of his bc from the state, that’s what they’d send him. The racist part comes in because they demand a bc, he produces a bc, and they won’t accept it.
“The r@cist part comes in because they demand a bc, he produces a bc, and they won’t accept it.”
That doesn’t sound r@cist; that sounds stupid. The two are not always the same!
“no legititmate reason for bringing it up.”
Exactly why I said I didn’t want to belabor the points of the issue. I was wondering why it was r@cist in connection to O, but not to McCain.
Another reason for not supporting Hillary. Yawn. They are so desperate, they just make stuff up and hope it sticks.
Maybe I wasn’t clear. My point is not that either of them were “corporatist” but rather that the word has no meaning. Compared to Hillary, Obama’s actions sure do look corporatist but it ignores what Obama really is.
Obama is pro-Obama.
Everything he does can be evaluated in terms of what is best for Obama. Even his future actions. I think we can assume he is going to do something that looks very positive before the 2012 elections. But it will in the end still be pro-Obama. And it will not negate all of the pain and suffering of the people who are being crushed by this economy now.
He won’t have learned. He won’t have grown into his office. He will simply be doing what is in his own best interests.
You were clear… just offering my own two. I do think he’s a corporatist in the current connotation of the word as a criticism of corporations’ dominant influence on politics. His policies all seem to be corporate welfare disguised as “Democratic reform.” In his heart, I think he’s a closet conservative with a lot of Ronnie Reagan in him, but he knew his electoral chances were better with the Democrats.
I completely agree with you that he is first and foremost in the tank for himself. I just get this impression from him and the people he surrounds himself with overall that he really does see himself as this great gift to us all, where he intercedes on behalf of the elites and keeps us little people distracted by his “likeability” and shiny historicness.
Just like George Bush did not disappoint me, Obama does not disappoint me as I did nto expect much from either. I view both of them with contempt. Their lack of experience was evident in the campaigns. If we look at the financial and now
Dept of Interior fiasco’s they are marked by the fact that Obama has not done much to improve them. Yes there is rehtoric hot air, but fundamental change is not here. I would extend that to health care. Hopefully it will be better at the margins, but fundamental policy has not changed. The oil spill daily is starting to vindicate George Bush. Obama entirely pushed the problem off to BP as he should, however the monitoring and follow up in terms of clean up is just as dismal as Katrina. If you look at the Obama body english, he just doe not want to be there addressing that problem. He is much more comforable on a basketball court. Total lack of experience in terms of assessing and solving problems is evident. We have got what we deserve for electing him.
Hillary wanted to be President because she had things she wanted to do AS President.
Obama just wanted to BE president.
Hillary wanted the power of the office so she could use it.
Obama wanted the power of the office so he could have it.
Hillary never cared about the trappings of office.
Obama wanted them so badly they had to invent some for him while he was still a candidate (the Seal of Obama) and he went on a world tour so he could speak before adoring crowds. Remember when the rented a stadium and built a faux-grecian temple for ONE SPEECH?
Word.
nailed. remember the seal! (narcissism)
Don’t forget the Airforce 1 replica.
What is Obama? An asshat.
Sen. Clinton received sky-high ratings from virtually all progressive organizations. This alone proves she is not a corporatist. In our political climate, all negative statements about the Clintons are best regarded as lies.
RD hits the nail on the head when she writes that Obama has always been about himself. The way I see it is that everything he has done as President has been about setting himself up for the post-presidency, namely gargantuan speaking fees and funding for his legacy projects–you know, his Presidential library and whatever other monuments to his historical, wonderful, unique, historical, fabulous historicalness that he deigns us mere mortals to be worthy of.
That money ain’t coming from university students who donated a week of their beer allowance to his presidential campaign. Money at that level can only come from the likes of Goldman-Sachs, Wellpoint, and BP.
Is it any wonder he coddles them?
A Wall Street Greedo!
What are you referring to? if it’s Glass-Stegall, that was not “Big Dawg’s” administration. That was introduced by Republicans and passed by a 90-8 margin in the Senate.
See wiki:
For some reason BC always gets that hung around his neck. If you’re not referring to that, what are you specifying?
I am referring to that. I understand the Republicans held a gun to his head with their threats to take down the Community Reinvestment Act. He might have thought it was a bad bill but he signed it anyway. I think he may have thought ti could be fixed after the election. And let’s not forget brooksley born and the warnings she made about unregulated derivatives trading. She was shot down by rubin et al. I think we have to accept that the Big Dawg is partially culpable for what happened. Maybe he was not the prime operator but there it is. The Bushies took over and the pump was already primed.
Nobody’s perfect. Not even the Big Dawg.
According to this article on the topic:
And his alternative was? A veto proof vote doth not an obstacle make. His CRA deal was in exchange for not engaging in the theater of a Veto. Same thing happened with NAFTA. It was a done deal and he was negotiating regulatory provisions with promise to support it. Then of course GWB pulled back on all of the regulatory aspects and BC continues to catch grief for NAFTA — even though Mexico and Canada are not the problem at this point. I even heard someone on a lefty radio show excoriating Bill for NAFTA and all of the jobs going to China. It makes me want to pull my fingernails out with pliers.
If something is going to happen I applaud him for trying to get something in for balance. That’s why Big Dawg was the greatest president of our generation. He found the most effective way to deal with the hands he was dealt and always make sure there was something there for us.
It’s not as simple as ‘he signed it anyway.’ I just find the mythology about BC’s presidency to full of these things.
I’m not slamming the big dawg. He really was a very good president. But back then, there were few people who thought we needed Depression era checks on the finance system. We have to face the fact that many of them were Democrats and the big dawg *did* hire Rubin even though we all knew that Rubin played for the other side.
Maybe it was a case of “hope over experience”. But there it is. Veto proof majority or not. He could have pocketed it.
Not to beat a dead horse, but are you saying it would have been better to pocket / not sign and leave the CRA improvements on the table?
In my view that is weak negotiation and Big Dawg is anything but a weak negotiator.
Absolutely not. He was right to stand up for the CRA. But he hired some of the guys who got us into the mess we’re in now.
That partial culpability cost Big Dawg another heart procedure last year.
The fact that Clinton signed the legislation rather than vetoed it?
what is the point of vetoing a bill passed 90-8? Why not cut a deal to improve some other aspect in return for signing a fait accompi?
Because his own administration’s financial men (Rubin, Summers) SUPPORTED the bill by Graham/Leach, that’s why. Even Clinton has admitted he regrets following their advice.
There is a lot of CDS on the so-called left and The Big Dawg gets a raw deal.
Did Bill make mistakes? Sure, but most of his mistakes weren’t obvious at the time. We’ve all done things that “seemed like a good idea” but in hindsight they didn’t work out so well. I’m sure there are lots of things Bill would change if he could do it over again.
BC was elected in a different time politically and economically. All that DLC neoliberal 3rd-way stuff came about because the Democrats had been getting their asses handed to them in national elections since 1968
“Free trade” and “deregulation” were popular ideas politically and movement conservatism was on the rise.
The media and the GOP spent years and millions of dollars trying to find something they could impeach BC for – the best they could find was Monica.
Obama OTOH, has been protected by the media.
The CDS lefties give BC credit for NOTHING – as if his administration was the dark ages and nothing good happened. But they want to blame him (and him alone) for EVERYTHING – as if there were no Republicans or other Democrats in the country.
When you compare them to the last 10 years, the Clinton years were a golden age.
I don’t think people who weren’t around then can appreciate how misled everyone was by the economic and pro-business religion that was accepted as fact starting in the 80s. The whole country, including Clinton, was blinded by right-wing ideology. But by 2008, those lies had been exposed. A bold leader could have spoken out about it and taken things in a new direction; instead, we got Obama, who is worse than Clinton because what was necessary in 92 wasn’t any longer.
Bill & Hillary said when they first met they used to stay up all night discussing public policy issues. They both have had a passion for them all of their lives; that’s why both of them can talk expertly on any such subject you could throw at them. There’s no doubt in my mind that they both really wanted to make a difference.
I was not blinded by right wing ideology and I do not believe Clinton was either. Almost everything he did was to keep something worse from happening. That is why he was such an effective president.
The DLC simply wanted to take away from the republicans the ideal that only they cared about jobs and the economy.
I wholeheartedly agree that BO is entirely pro-Obama. What I also know is that he is a constant reminder to me of what could have been if HRC were POTUS. I will always feel sadness about that fact.
Consider this a click on the imaginary Like or Rec button.
Hold them accountable??!! He’s letting them walk all over him (and us) because he’s the I-never-did-anything-of-value-for-a-constituent candidate. He’s the I-don’t-have-any-experience-actually-accomplishing-anything candidate. He’s the Don’t-I’-look-pretty-as-President candidate.
Not so sure. Maybe he wants to be King of the World. That’s why he keeps going to other countries, apologizing for America. (Not that we haven’t done some pretty horrendous things in the world, but why doesn’t he put a stop to those things rather than apologize for them?)
We’ve been saying that since very early 2008. Like anyone listened.
What is he? Obama is everything he accused Hillary of on the campaign trail. He is the corporatist. He is divisive. He is the one with a sense of entitlement. He is in bed with the lobbyists (although clandestinely. He is disingenuous. I could go on… Asshat pretty much sums it up.
He’s a bigger triangulator than the Obots trashed Clinton for being.
Clinton “triangulated” to achieve some actual policies that helped people in the process.
Obama just triangulates for the sake of positioning. He’s forgainst everything so he can keep trying to be all things to all people — but power in itself is the end for Obama. It’s not the means to actually do something.
“forgainst”—-I love that, Wonk!! 🙂
“Forgainst” – yep, that’s The One. Wonk also thought of “Oblameless” and “Oprecious”, which, along with “Obumbles”, are my favorites.
Kerry’s flipfloppity in 2004 popularized the term “forgainst” so I can’t take credit for that one. But, Oprecious is mine 🙂
yup, just like Kerry Obama has never found an issue he couldn’t stand on both sides of.
I don’t even think he wants power. He just wanted to be President; as Valerie Jarrett supposedly said, he always knew he was too brilliant not to be bored by every other job. Now that he’s there, all he wants is to be re-elected. Then I suppose he will return to his life of abject boredom. He has no more goals except to find something to flatter his ego and validate his specialness.
Jarrett said O was bored all his life, knows exactly how smart he is, and is too talented to do what ordinary people do.
I actually think Obama is a pretty ruthless type and enjoys the power of being a buffer for the elites, but whatever you want to reduce it to though — power, image-preservation, cure to boredom — the triangulation involved is the ends, not the means. He’s positioning himself in the faux middle for the sake of being in the faux middle. Not for the sake of using the center-positioning to actually do something. In fact, Obama is reverse– he uses the center-positioning to change the least possible under the guise of “reforming” something.
FDR: Make me do it
Obama: Don’t make ME do it
I knew we were in a heap of trouble as soon as Obama sang the praises of that amiable dunce Reagan. I did not realize how bad the O presidency would turn out to be. Hillary probably foresaw all the disaster that would befall this country under an inept and inexperienced leader. Hillary was eloquent and sincere during the primary in New Hampshire when she said she cared deeply for the country. I have 3 or 4 choice descriptions of the Obama presidency, but they are unprintable.
‘Tis true, RD. All of it.
Another good question might be what has the United States become that it is so enamored of narcissism and so ruled by the corporate interest.
The missing term in the analogy, if “corporatist” is construed as false and demonizing label, is “socialist.”
Hillary is not a corporatist; she’s an old-fashioned New Deal Dem, considerably to the left of Obama and the Blue Dogs. Obama is not a socialist.
Obama is a corporatist. I give him this much, though: he told us early on what he is in both word and deed. The Donnie McClurking incident, and others, told us he’s a homophobe. The whole campaign told us he’s a misogynist. The debates told us he has no firm grasp of issues or policies. The lies about NAFTA told us his sympathies are all with capital, not labor. The Hope and Change hero was as much a product of Obama’s mindless followers’ adulation as it was a construct of his PR team. Like the proverbial fool bitten by the snake, they should have known what he was when they picked him up. They were deceived as much or more by themselves as by BO.
“..they should have known..”
Does “they” refer to mindless followers, PR team, both?
Here’s my take: Hillary was the odds on favorite in’08; the colorations wouldn’t have need to do anything special if she was their girl — but they came out early with megabucks for a relative unknown. Corporatist is the new name for fascist IMHO.
I would say that’s pretty close to the truth. But the corporations that got behind Obama haven’t fixed anything for themselves. They’ve simply set back the clock a little bit. They are like addicts that are out of control. They needed a check on their behavior and they didn’t get it. Their problems are still there and in some cases worse. Their reputations are ruined. People hate them. Sometimes, you have to be careful what you ask for because you might get it and then some.
For instance, destroying the American middle class was probably not in their best interests but I’m sure that weren’t thinking about that at the time.
“Long term planning” not being their strong suit?
Do they even teach that at Wharton?
They probably don’t go beyond planned obsolescence.
I suspect the bonus class’ goal is to keep setting the clock back and making as much money as they can before the ship goes down — the destruction of the American middle class is collateral damage that they rationalize away. The less strong the middle class is, the more corruption and collusion with government that they can get away with — so it’s a positive feedback loop of sorts.
They can’t destroy us without also destroying themselves. But I doubt that they’re thinking about that now. They just don’t know that we have hit the limits of adaptation. There’s not much left to give..
What is Obama? A spokesmodel.
Bingo!
Thanks, Cinie, another entry for my “Name that Obfuscator” file.
Cine, Where are you? Missing you.
Cinie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, exactly. A superficially charming hired liar for Corporate (Un)America, just like his hero, Ronald Worthless Piece Of $#!+ Reagan.
What is Obama? Lost.
Yup. It’s hopeless, really.
He’s paying the corporations back for helping him during the campaign. So the Obama is pro-Obama assessment is spot on. I don’t think he’s trying to advance any agenda it’s all quid pro quo.
One of his biographers called him a “shape-shifter,” depending on whatever will make him look good at the moment.
I think that’s the chief trait of a successful executive schmoozer. They always manage to end up smelling like a rose. Give the guy his golden parachute and get him out if there already.
Obama’s primary talent is convincing people that he is smarter and more knowledgeable than he really is.
He’s not known for hard work and long hours – or measurable accomplishments.
He steals other people’s ideas and schmoozes anyone he thinks can help him get ahead.
His real secret is a conversational gimmick – similar to mirroring. The people he impresses don’t realize he’s just telling them what they want to hear by repeating back their own words slightly altered.
If the boss thinks the company should downsize Obama would tell him that downsizing is the smartest thing the company should do. Since the boss thinks he’s smart when Obama repeats the boss’s ideas the boss thinks Obama is smart.
Look how many times in his life Obama meets someone who has money, power, and/or connections and they immediately become enamored with him and think he is all that and a bag of chips.
These people give Obama money, jobs, opportunities, etc., based on his great potential. And what does Obama do with the things he’s given?
Other than promote himself he hasn’t done much.
He gets elected president of harvard law review, but never writes any law review articles. He was a community organizer who didn’t organize anything. He voted “present.” He became a Senator and started running for POTUS
He’s just gotten by with a lot of velvet schmooze
He also bamboozled Ted Kennedy and other Kennedy family members to the extent the family ended up loosing the familial Senate seat that had been theirs traditionally.
Exactly. And all this was obvious to us two years ago. I’ll never understand why so many people could not see what was plain as day.
His supporters never stop describing him as the most brilliant person ever to occupy the office. Why? What brilliant thing have they ever heard him say or do, except to get elected to an office he was not even remotely qualified for. By that standard, Bush Jr. was even more brilliant; he got elected despite being unqualified AND having gone AWOL from the military and lied about it.
narcissism
He arranged to always be the second to answer every question when the debates narrowed down to just him and Hillary, and routinely answered “everything Hillary said, but I would ….” to make sure his answer appeared even more researched and sound. The truth was he couldn’t parrot Hillary’s words fast enough or with the same elegance, so he would simply add “I’ll reach across the aisle to achieve bi-partisan support.” His “I have magical powers and people of both D and R beliefs see me as their messiah.”
Perhaps a Chimera?
From Merriam Webster dictionary:
2 : an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially : an unrealizable dream
What is Obama? A feckless naif.
What is Obama? Oprah’s “the one” just might be Machiavelli’s “The Prince”. Obama’s core personality appears to be Machiavellianism which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary is, “the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct”. Machiavellianism is one of the three personality traits referred to as the dark triad, along with narcissism and psychopathy.
We still know so little about Obama. What does he care about passionately? What are his core beliefs and values? Where are his college transcripts that would reveal what he studied and which professors may have influenced his world view? Does Obama feel real empathy for anyone?
That i believe is the real key to Obi…there is no empathy, no passion and no compassion!!! He is a man of many secrets, many early demons in his life have led to his total lack of empathy.
There’s a lot of revisionism going on, anything but confronting reality, or the stupid mistakes from 2008. I had the temerity to venture into M0Do’s empty head to follow such an effort. You won’t believe this one: Darcy was cold to her!
http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/modos-latest-fantasy-about-media-oprecious/
Oh, Lord. Chuck Todd says Obama never needed to court the press, not because they appointed themselves his enforcers and sold his bs narrative worshipfully, but because “he never needed us.” Yes, right, Chuck, he was a spontaneous phenomenon, an unstoppable juggernaut. Obama is a member of the media class, they believe that perception is reality and they can create it, change it, sell it at will.
Ding-ding-ding.
Chuck Todd is a WH groupie.
He never needed to court the media stenographers because their bosses ordered them to support him–except for Faux Noise and other media organs, which had been so deeply branded as pro-GOP that if THEY had converted to the worship of Plastic Jesus, it would have become too obvious what was happening.
It’s funny, I always thought the O worship was a set up, they were trying to get rid of the strong candidate and once they did, they’d turn on O with a vengeance and reveal their true love for McCain. Pretty shocking to realize they really were in the tank for O all along.
I thought much as Seriously did.
I’ve said this before, but during the primary, I thought that, as usual, a preponderance of the Corporate Misruling Class wanted another GOP Prez.
I thought the CMC had ordered its Corporate Media to fellate Obama only to get rid of Clinton, whom I saw as the strongest of the Democratic candidates, in order to set up the Dems with the weaker of the two remaining Dem candidates.
I thought that once the Dems had nominated Obama and it was too late to go back, the CMC would then order the Corporate Media stenographers to turn on Obama like the jackals they are, in favor of their old barbecue buddy, McCain.
Instead, the Corporate Media stenographers continued to fellate Obama and turned on McCain. 😯
I realized this could only mean one thing: a preponderance of the CMC actually wanted the Democrat this time.
Over the past 17 months or so, we have seen why. 😡
You so nailed it today.
I don’t think Obama would be any different if he waited four more years. He doesn’t profit from experience except in political skills, because he isn’t interested. That was obvious to me the first time I saw Obama and Hillary debate. She mastered all those issues about which she wiped the floor with him from working hard to do so. Why would anyone think he would ever do that, when he never has?
I worked with enough people like him over the years to know what he’s about. The people who arrive on a team last, do mediocre work, and get promoted first, because they put their time and effort into being glib and networking, not mastering their jobs. He won’t change in 4 years or 40.
I know exactly what you mean. My daughter works in an academic situation where she sometimes has to deal with very important student issues. She said that her immediate boss simply does not show up for the meetings, doesn’t send e-mails that he is unavailable, etc. Probably Obama took the same class on how to shirk responsibility without anyone noticing. Obama would probably be the dean of that department.
Whatever we thought Obama would be, the sad and frustrating thing is that we were right; the only thing we couldn’t know was that he would be exponentially worse than even the most negative among us predicted.
One of the things I was most fearful of was that the Democratic caucus that took impeachment off the table when Bush was president, that could never seem to muster enough consensus to block the Bush agenda, would be too weak to provide any counterweight to Obama when it was called for. And so it goes…on issue after issue, Obama dictates what he wants and the Congress gives it to him. I wouldn’t mind that so much if what Obama wanted could be even remotely identified with the Democratic platform, but what he wants is somewhere over there in gee-this-seems-kind-of-Republican territory, and the brainiacs in the Congress don’t seem to think that matters.
I have long since come to the conclusion that it simply doesn’t matter what kind of president Hillary would have been, and the more time spent playing the “what-if” game is time that isn’t being spent figuring out what to do about getting us from where we actually are, to where we want to be.
The Congress isn’t going to help. The media isn’t going to help. And while there has been a little noise being made in the blogosphere about the disappointment-that-is-Barack-Obama, that noise is still filled with excuses, not solutions.
As bad as I felt during the Bush years, how I am feeling in the Obama years is even worse. Why? Because I don’t see any relief for it. The New Democratic Party is more determined than ever to put more Blue Dog-types in the Congress, we have no hope of real campaign finance reform that might allow some truly talented and capable people into the mix, and Dems have allowed the corporations to get an even stronger grip on the throats of us ordinary Americans.
I don’t know what the answer is.
The answer is to start studying Foucault. There is no such thing as power nor knowledge but simply a relation: power/knowledge. Until that is understood we are in the sand trap.
Obama understands nothing. He just wanted to be president. He is the downside of affirmative action.
You’ve really put your finger on it, Anne. I think the Dems are so afraid of looking like a bunch of infighters that there is no pushback from within against what has essentially become a Repub administration.
The only hope I see for a turnaround is to somehow identify and get behind our own Manchurian Candidate. At this point, I’m not sure who that might be.
We need to examine why we fell for the idealistic word “change” and “hope” while we are at it.
Words like these mean nothing. And we need to sxpose them as the sound bites they are. This is our fault.
Um, *we* didn’t fall for it.
*We* always knew that “change” and “hope” are well known propaganda Memes.
I’m pretty sure I know why others fell for it though a nd myiq’s comment above comes pretty close to it: Obama flattered the net roots.
I didn’t fall for it, but the suckers of “Generation Obama” who did fall for it were marketed to a very specific way. It was like kids watching Saturday morning cartoons and wanting whatever shiny toy was being advertised this time.
Um, as a member of so-called “generation Obama” I have it on good authority that Saturday morning cartoons are much more entertaining than his ass, but then, I’m not a poser, so i also did not fall for it.
🙂
Age-wise, I’m a member of Generation Obama too 😉
My analogy wasn’t to the cartoons themselves but the marketing during the commercial breaks.
Everytime I see his face or hear his voice, I get an overwhelming urge to buy one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d.html/ref=mp_s_a_8?qid=1276469561&a=B00261P67I&sr=8-8
Enough anamatronic bells and whistles to construct a better real/pretend Preznit.
*snort* Being for Obama was all about shiny-shiny, gimme-gimme, everybody else has it, can’t wait until next time, gotta have it now. Obama was made/marketed in the image of the progressive/creative/Hollywood set. They all wanted to feel cool. Nobody wanted to be left out. Many genuinely fell in love with Obama, the rest just didn’t want to be the kid that got tubesocks on election/Christmas morning while everybody else was talking about the Special Toy that They Got. 2008 was like a nonstop commercial break.
I’ve had a lot more fun playing pokemon on a DS than I ever did under this administration. I still say even saturday morning cartoon commercials are superior. Unlike pokemon, Obama cannot be trained, and he cannot be transformed.
Lol, ok but put aside the products for a second (Fisher price toys are better investments than brand Obama) and just look at the methods/medium used to market them. That’s what I was comparing. I have another comment to Seriously stuck in spam, but it’s basically “gimme-gimme, gotta have it now, can’t wait.”
It was kind of genius, because while it was gimme-gimme-gimme can’t wait for us, and it was generational warfare, to those of our parents and grandparents who refuse to grow up, it also somehow managed to be a look back at their glory days, an oh isn’t this beautiful, doesn’t it remind you of the 60’s, the kids are INSPIRED. Neat trick to run against the boomers but also capitalize on this schmaltzy poseur nostalgia felt by lots of people who didn’t even live through the 60’s (or did, but don’t want to admit they wouldn’t get involved but were on the wrong side). Marketing 101, a + p know their targets and play them like violins
There’s no we in TC (not a we like that, anyway)! Not one person here fell for that crap. Anyone who did and came here, left as quickly as they came.
Yeah, I actually kind of wonder how some of the people who decided, post-primary, to support Obama feel now. Most of them were cool, but there were a coupke who I think were kind of mad at those of us who didn’t get on the Party Unity train. That would be an interesting “where are they now.”
…….and who will they support in 2012?
I was wondering who will vote for him in 2012.
They’ll be bussed in?
A narcissist. But like you said, we have no way of knowing. It just seems like he cares more about reelection than what’s actually best for the little guy.
RD this is a fantastic read. Brilliant. I wish I could have expressed it in such a way. So much was made of the fact during the run that people who weren’t going to vote for Obama were the “r” word.
Well? That wasn’t the case at all. In my opinion Hillary and Obama canceled each other out because they both represent what Americans have been striving for especially Dems post JFK MLK (heroes to my gen — also Jerry Brown out here). Coming of age in 70’s CA during the protest era/ Vietnam etc and all the social movements that happened at that time shaped the tail end baby boom gen in various directions.
When you say “who is Obama” we don’t know — because for one thing he wasn’t living on the mainland like the rest of us. So, to me how he might have become a corporatist out of a Hawaii childhood is weird. Hawaii is a lot like Southern California. Same laid back beach culture.
But I think he is.
What cancelled this election out was a minority man vs a woman?
Seriously. Because as underdogs this made them completely equal.
I mean that. I remember thinking oh no. Because why did we have to pick like that? Horrid to have to.
As women, growing up post Roe “feminism” is just part of it so anybody like that was def going Hillary.
As minorities same exact milestone! Exact. But, men made the difference and third wave feminists. Men weren’t going to vote for a woman and he target-marked to the minority populations.
The gay/lesbian population was also target-marketed to?
These are the splits post 70’s.
So now, part of the huge rage when these groups feel let down is because of the splits in general? In the tail end boom forward.
Since we are his age? Damn right we wanted to know and we investigated as much as we could. For me, it was always Hillary (feminist advancement of Democratic women)
She had all the creds for my gen? And women older than I as well.
I cried the day I voted for her. And I am sure people who voted for Obama also did!
Where you are correct is that we needed somebody who would not be in over their head post Bush era. We picked person with most creds? As Dems.
In over head is looking very scary right now.
I am really unclear as well now about what that “r” word means circa 2010. My gen doesn’t suffer from that? At all. Out here post JFK/MLK we are all friends.
The narcissism in Obama is not different than what Whitman is showing out here?
It is a kind of “corporate” narcissism. But? I agree with you — like Whitman he didn’t have the experience to be in the position?
He didn’t.
The part of my gen that is mad is the disrespect toward women like Hillary. Also, she is doing all the work right now at a much harder job than he is. And a more dangerous job than his.
To me right now economically? It reminds me of Germany in the thirties. It does. And this oil spill is the capper. In a way now I almost feel sorry for Obama. He is taking it from all sides that are now dissapointed that their wishes didn’t come true.
Hillary did not target-market to specific groups in the same way.
She ran only on the strength of her creds.. Like McCain.
For me, since the two of them had years of experience in Washington they were the pick. Experience was what mattered.
I am concerned that as that goes on the country is going to erupt and we are going to see decompensation.
Why I am for Jerry Brown over a woman is the same reason I know he is the better pick. Experience.
hugs RD & Co.
The country needs to calm down. California can be seminal in showing the way, I feel. I hope so.
Seeing Hillary humiliated was one of the hardest things I have ever experienced. Right now I am seeing even dirtier politics out here.
Ever. Dem women feminists didn’t play by those rules. Now it will be open season. We are not Republicans. It may be that the rift in the political party can get healed over all of this? Hope so.
We can heal, we just have to keep moving forward. I remember voting for Hillary with my Grandma. Whatever happens or has happened, it still made me proud to be an American.
So there’s that.
I really want that. I do. littleisis. because otherwise this country will erupt into the same sorts of things that happened in pre-war Germany.
Or Italy? Very nasty times right now. I have never seen anything like it in my lifetime.
Anway — writing up a tx plan based on a genogram people can use all over the world. Here is the deal. 1910 – 2010. Right in the middle of that is WWII. We can use that to establish a marker for rage being carred all over the world. That would have been my grandparents era.
So, biggest rage is held in my gen’s bracket? Grandchildren of WWII.
If we look at a genogram crosscultually in America we can trace the rage of slavery in same way?
Why we can heal this now is precisely becuase we are Obama’s gen as grown ups.
Every country in the world will be able to use the genogram as well.
A grandchild of Nazi era is also holding rage of grandparents?
Wars will continue until we can stop the rage at the source.
Fuck. Give peace a chance. That’s’ my gen. it really is — laid back surfin’ beachy non-corporate socalian that I am. xxoo!
Ah you are doing genealogy. Now read Foucault’s lmethod of genealogy with a tribute to Neitzsche’s genalogy of Ethics and Morals. Your analysis shows great promise so carry it back and up to the present day. Not sure how at all.
this is a technique we use to assess in Depth Psych? but, over the last two years I’ve been thinking about it as we watched this election and all the news and so forth — Ecopsychology is an emergent field? One more thing about this genogram? I want to find out why we are having so many abnormalities like autism? I have a theory on that?
We can look at drug use via era? And people like RD could do the
science part? It’s a new treatment paradigm! Eff it I want a Nobel.
LOL!
xxoo!
think of it this way? somebody born at 1910 is still alive maybe?
in genogram we make that marker point for our birth year along the continum… so then we look at cultural surround? what is going on at that time. Right now we have huge prob of kids with suicidal id?
very depressed gen. I have done analysis?
my alma mater is Pacifica Graduate Institute but this is my nom de plume… thanks for those refs? never red Foucauit yet wanted to
Hey ps I’d get Ph.D but I’d be unemployed anyway so eff it.
writing therapy cures into books and screenplays now — a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do all us educated types in the mo
ask RD about gin & juniper berries. Our gen worked so effing hard OMG. FEMINISM! so effing hard. LOL!
Don’t all successful politicians have a hefty streak of sociopath in them? Sociopaths are manipulative, charming, and step over and on people as they seek power & influence. They also play a mean victim card.
As usual, I agree with everything you’ve written, RD.
I don’t think it’s healthy to agree with everything I’ve written.
You’re all individuals. (chorus: “yes, we’re all individuals”) You’ve got to figure it out for yourself.
I’d differentiate between self-esteem and sociopathy. One is good if deserved, the other is a personality disorder.
I agree with all you’ve written in this post.
I believe there are degrees of what we term “sociopathic behavior.” It has more to do with the ability to have empathy for others than measures of self-esteem.
BTW – I have figured it out for myself & I’m observing that we’ve reached the same conclusions with regard to Barack Obama.
Don’t mistake me for a Kos-type follower.
He is an impressionist. Through most of his tenure as POTUS he has done a pretty good impression of George W. Bush, and he is improving daily. When he speaks about the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico he sounds like W explaining the flooding of NOLA – to himself – to make sure he understands what he is talking about – stating the obvious that everyone else saw a long time ago. I don’t know why anybody thinks he’s so smart. We don’t need Obama to tell us that this was BP’s bad. We need some muscle exerted on Congress. If there is a faulty law that prevents the administration from stepping in, the law needs to be amended. Yeah. That’ll happen!
I think the problem is much deeper than the Administration needing to exert pressure on Congress…
This was from Rolling Stone expose the other day:
The government is in a situation where it’s required to be in charge,”
True professor! But we aren’t a sovereign nation anymore and so our government can’t be in charge.
i.e. No one in the White House even KNOWS what policy governs this situation. Great! But there’s plenty of time to play beer pong and then write speeches because, you know, he’s so good at giving speeches.
Or perhaps worse — they are aware of the Rulz and don’t think twice about flouting them. Now where have we seen that before?
That too!
His speeches are beyond lame. As for his fat boy–I mean, frat boy speech writer, I could write better with two hands tied behind my back. Put me on the f*cking White House pay roll.
*like*
That is his MO. State the obvious. State it again in different words. Give two reasons for the obvious and then two conflicting ways to solve the problem. Then sit back and do nothing and those fools who hear him think he is smart for seeing the problem and nuanced for seeing more than one solution. Of course the real thing with 0bama is that he is not smart, not nuanced, not astute, not principled, nor pragmatic. He is just corrupt and is happy to enjoy the perks of the office or… Let them eat sh** seems to be his answer to our complaints. He has no capacity for growth, maturity, empathy. I wonder often what is wrong with the man, Obama. Sometimes there are nefarious motives. We really don’t know. We know very little about 0bama. Just the PR they want to sell us. They have spent a lot of money hiding his past. They don’t do that for nothing. Like they don’t steal an election to do good.
My reply to your musings.
Every picture you see of Obama’s childhood is one with a radiant smile. Be sure he got lots of positive reinforcement for that beautiful smile. And it helped get him the presidency.
His male models of his father and grandfather figure in.
His father came from a dirt path village in Kenya, the son of a tribal figure. He gets in the U of Hawaii as a student, a major jump. He gets O’s mother pregnant and marries her. Now he has an American wife and child. This barefoot boy from Kenya. Then he gets admitted to Harvard Law. Wow! But Stanley Ann is from Kansas. She knows cold winters. And tromping around Cambridge with a half breed baby, a black husband, no money is not going to be an enviable life for her, this girl who everyone expected would get scholarships to major women’s colleges from high school. Everyone expected her to go places. So she doesn’t go to Cambridge to watch her eye roving husband and be poor ;with no support group. They divorce and she picks another man Indonesian and Muslim and we see pictures of her with a headscarf. Not until she divorces him does she begin to achieve her own potential of absolute brilliance by doing her PHD in micro lending. Someone else got the Nobel for it after her death, but she might have, who knows. O’s father returns to Kenya politics, is not very successful, drinks and womanizes and dies in a car crash probably inebriated.
Grandfather came out of War II with a the world at his feet. He procured supplies for his unit and was certainly liked and appreciated for his charm to get stuff. The GI bill was waiting for him. He moves to Hawaii leaves school because he is bored and doesn’t amount to much. His straight middle class wife from Kansas works in a bank and supports the family with a regular paycheck.
O goes to Columbia after a community college in Hawaii, does well and goes to Harvard Law. He enters a well educated and affluent black group that wants to go places. Michelle’s brother is a respected member and O is baby sister’s boyfriend But he gets her to marry him and is accepted inside this group. He does community organizing and develops his political chops, runs for congress and loses and finally wins a senate seat and gives a memorable keynote speech in 2004. In 2000 he couldn’t get on the main floor and his credit card was maxed out. Quite a jump eh.
His male models rose to the top and fell flat. Michelle rose by dint of hard work and being a good girl. Like his gramma she represents the protestant work ethic.
This is not an introspective man. Not an original thinker. A man with charm and the ability to rise to the top and no integrity and intelligence to manage that position. He is a good lesson to all of us.
And Hillary’s smart, calculating approach just missed. I have always thought 2004 was hers to take. But her daughter advised against it saying she would disappoint her NY constituents. Appealing to her sense of guilt. Stupid.
I have researched Obama and you have a lot of itt wrong. O’s father did not study law. Stanley Ann never went with his father. She was in u of Wash right after O was born. O was made fun of as a child for being fat. He could’ nt learn the language. So much for his brilliance. There are questions of his birth circumstances despite RD vehemence of refusing to acknowledge this for reasons I can understand. A mother can convey citizenship, but not natural born citizenship. There is a difference. We have never seen his transcripts, his student loan stuff. I still wonder if he didn’t use his foreign status to get financial aide. His mother knew how to play the system. Obama transferred from Occidental, not a community college, to Ivy League, Columbia. How was that possible? WHere did he get the money or the grades? I figure he got into Harvard on legacy. But Columbia? Somebody pulled strings just like somebody did to give him the plum spot to give keynote at Dem convention. The fix was in then. This bio of Obama is half fiction and some fact. I have never seen any evidence that he might have actually written his first book. His thinking is as pedestrian as Bush’s. No poetry only banal prose.
A while back I checked into the Birther movement to see if they had a leg to stand on. The “natural born citizen” argument is based on the idea that Obama cannot be a NBC because his father was a British subject from Kenya.
The problem for the birthers is that THERE IS NO CONTROLLING LEGAL AUTHORITY THAT DEFINES A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN THE WAY THE BIRTHERS INSIST IT IS DEFINED.
I had to ban several people who behaved like religious fanatics, insisting that the law says something that it does not say. There’s no “there” there.
Someone can insist that the law says pi = 3
But the law does not say that, and pi =/= 3
And Michelle’s father was politically connected. Her folks knew their way around the educational system. Michelle went to magnet schools. She hit the Ivy League in the age of affirmative action. Christopher Hitchens called her senior thesis unreadable.
It was Big Dawg who rose by dint of hard work and sheer brillance, not M.O.
a natural born citizen is one who is physically born on US soil. As opposed to being a citizen by blood-my child is a US citizen because I am and she is of my blood. You can be a citizen by blood or soil.
Actually my oldest daughter was born in Germany, but because my husband was in the US Air Force at the time and she was born on the base hospital–she has a birth certificate from the state dept.
She would still be a US citizen because of blood-but, being born on a US military base is like being born on US soil. McCain also had this.
If Hitchens found her thesis unreadable, he was probably mixing it up with his own column. (He also has a very low opinion of the intellect of both BillnHill, as well as considering them both evil, so he might not have the world’s greatest judgment.)
Perfect analysis! So why do people think he’s smart? I don’t get that part. If he were saying this nonsense with a Texas accent they would have his face on a tin of those “National Embarassmints” like the one I have on my desk with W on it.
Obama is an opportunist, with an incredibly over-inflated ego. I think he believes the hype about him.
And i believe we are in a heap of trouble because he doesn’t know that how much he doesn’t know–‘alittle bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.’
Yeah, that smile of his doesn’t do much for people now ruined by oily beaches and the loss of a life. I don’t expect the oiled birds and animals are moved by it either.
Great post RD, thank you.
If Hillary came upon a child being mauled by a wolf, Hillary would give a wolf a cookie so it would drop the child, then she would give the wolf a whack. If Obama came upon the same situation, he would lecture the child about the need for taking personal responsibility and shared burdens and then continue his way on to the links.
how come I can’t sum things up so succinctly. damn!
lol! And I was thinking : how come I can’t be as thorough as Valentine Bonnaire, on June 13, 2010 at 4:53 pm Said: ??
Hillary is to corporatist as Obama is to…….ethicist?
Ahhh, antonyms.
If any antonyms come crawling into this room, I’ll step on ’em!
There was a Peanuts cartoon years ago in which Sally said that about centimeters. 🙂
RD, I heard that argument during the primary. “Hillary is a corporatist!” The fact to me was that SO was Obama, even more so as he was getting more of their money and he was too soft and had no real executive experience. I knew that when that many corps really want you that bad, your going to roll over for them. It was HER they were afraid of.
It seemed to me with the very, very corporate MSM jumping up and down with glee over Obama that something was terribly fishy there. They did the same for BUSH. If they wanted him then they were more afraid of her winning. I feared he would not be tough enough to push back against republicans OR any corporations. Then there is the fact that the other argument was that everything Bill Clinton did in office was suddenly attributed to Hillary as if she was not her own person.
Pointing out that Hillary disagreed with Bill Clinton on quite a few issues fell on deaf ears. And here’s a wake up call Obots. It’s sexist to blame a female politician for things her husband has or has not done. She is her own person. People do this to women a lot in society. If someone has an issue with your husband they will suddenly see you and he as an inseparable entity and start giving YOU attitude too. Bizarre.
Yet still these arguments are put forward. I voted for Hillary because of her in depth knowledge, and the powers that be seemed terrified of HER, they wanted Obama. She was a LOT tougher and we needed that right now. I didn’t think I’d get everything I wanted with her but, I sure knew she’d push back harder than he was going to when she could.
You’ll never hear a single kool aide drinker admit any of this despite how disillusioned they become with Obama. And yes Perry,Hillary had an eighty percent approval rating four years running before that primary and it took the MSM an entire year to slant the public against her. Her ratings are nearly right back up where they were before…you know. ..just as long as the woman isn’t POTUS they like her really well. As usual. I saw a commenter say two days ago that it wasn’t sexism that kept her from winning *no it was cheating* but, it WAS sexism too. And all we ended up with was the corporate puppet whose soft on just about everybody and stands tough for no one. He was not ready for this job at all.
I’m sorry but, these frat boyz clubs have voted for male democrats for POTUS that are ten times worse than Hillary ever thought of being without blinking. Yes, it was sexism. She was held to ten times the standard. It wasn’t just the corps that were scared of her winning…it was the oh so progressive boyz club too and their “yes women” All good reasons to have voted for her imho!!
Sexism was part of it. Tearing down her womanhood was the method they used. But, they feared her because she was an autonomous woman that they couldn’t count on to be in their control.
Yes, and besides, it’s hard to tear down the womanhood of a woman who has THAT much woman, know what I’m sayin’
As you and I so know!
We must all remember, it was the Democratic Party, that DID NOT want HRC!! Her own PARTY, that thought
she would be worse than someone who had so little experience..in anything, because he never stayed long enough to accomplish ANYTHING!!!
Oh yes, sexism had a lot to do with it, and so did misogony, and so did fear. So many men feared a woman could not take charge,and now they look at the mess we are all in, because it was easier to hire an EMPTY SUIT,than let someone with knowledge and know how lead this country.
What do you think now Dem.Party? Are you happy and do you feel our President is in control?
Yep. Look at all the stooges they’ve ever voted for, and suddenly she’s the worst Democrat in the history of the world, ever? They can cross every line, but not this one? Maybe if there was a better alternative, but there wasn’t. (Hell, even O’s defenders are now reduced to “Hillary would have been–just as bad!” Gosh, hell of a lot of angst expended on someone who’s on the exact same level as your hero). It quickly started to become obvioud that there was a lot more going on.
O couldn’t even push back against Hillary in his campaign. The director of my rescue group has voted dem all her life. She refused to vote for him because he said he wouldn’t take campaign donations, only public funds. When he got the nomination he flipped. She said he lied and would lie again.
Hillary would have fought for health care and won and she would fight BP now. O put her in as sec state to control bill and get her out of the way.
Yeah, I thought that was weird too. Like with nafta, you had to practically scream at obots to get them to realize it was actually the Big Dawg that passed it, not her.
The Hollywood “progressive” types turned around and blamed Hillary for Bill’s infidelities. During Bill’s presidency they had generally bent over backwards to treat Bill like a rockstar even when they made fun of him for it, laying the blame where it belonged (with the Republicans).
Bill himself said that his issues were his responsibility and she had nothing to do with it. Frankly, blaming Hillary is a marketing gimmick. She is a very attractive woman, but because she’s smart and a feminist, she has to be painted as a ball busting lezbo.
Similarly, because Palin is socially conservative and has a gazillion kids, she has to be a dumb bimbo, despite the fact that she is reasonably intelligent and well versed on energy policy and she’s really not much prettier than Hillary is, IMO.
It’s simple. Women are sub-human in our society, so they are either sex kittens or nuns, good or bad, smart or dumb. There can never be an in between that makes them a human being.
Right. I just thought it was a blatant example of how his weaknesses were received as ultimately character-building for him amongst that crowd, whereas his weaknesses were transferred to Hillary as if they were hers not his, without any of the benefit of the character-building aspect. They used her to deflect their anger at him for not being perfect. Behind every imperfect man is a woman to blame.
Amen.
And behind every imperfect woman is women as a whole to blame. You can quote me on that one.
There is a bitter irony that Hillary was indeed characterized as an evil corporatist, someone willing to give the store away to the moneymakers and we end up with Obama, who was/os a corporate-made man. He’s taken the meme to the nth degree.
I never believed the nonsense regarding Hillary Clinton and I think it’s why those with the power and money didn’t want her in the WH. She would not have bent herself into a pretzel trying to please the power elite. Her lifelong career has always put her in the corner of ordinary working people, the empowerment of women and the welfare of children.
The most egregious sins were the raw sexism that dominated the 2008 primary [and then repeated in the GE], the in-your-face-cheating and the filthy namecalling. I’ll never forgive the Obamacrats for that, ever. Or, as this essay points out, humiliating and trashing one of the most talented women of her generation.
Hillary was able to get over it. But I never will.
Her lifelong career has always put her in the corner of ordinary working people, the empowerment of women and the welfare of children.
Yes. FEMINISM — her gen were “it” my gen followed — she is not bra burner ste? Thos early pix of she and Bill where they are hippies?
he was anti-war during early 70’s — like Jerry Brown Vietnam. There is a vid in youtube I watched of that — those were the times at Berkeley, UCSB and also Kent State.
ps: this period everyone is disillusioned by Watergate. Earlier on comments re O’s mom? While here in Wash caught up in same stuff but earlier? Marriage is “Guess who is Coming to Dinner era”
When I did my research I found links. So, yes, very diff for his mom at that time — tremendous social pressure having child? Rebellious.
Her dad named her for a boy? Dad also was abusive. My thesis was DV. two years ago. His brother has written a book confirming. So, early DV in utero poss narcissism, malig. pre-verbal. tremendous abandonment & wounding there. Shuffled around. “Home” is Chicago and MO, finally.
MN is fragility of core ego strength. Personality functions only with positive mirror? Under pressure can decompensate. I used a lot of Vaknin’s research because it was in web already typed but this is all core Object Relations stuff common to many in cases of DV. esp preverbal.
Yes, I just saw self confirmed progs comment last week that it “wasn’t sexism” Another twenty something male telling us all what we did and did not see. More sexism, gas lighting and utter denial. They can be “progressive” about every other issue but, canNOT look in the mirror on that one. They’ll vote Obama, Kerry, BILL Clinton but, oh god not that Hillary person! It starts to look glaringly like sexism to me. If Obama is this bad and awful with regard to progressive goals.. it’s just b.s. to continue to say she would be worse. Based upon what facts exactly?
I think there’s always been a great big proud blindspot when it comes to sexism, because fundamentally, nobody cares. No matter how egregious, it is not a big deal. As I said yesterday, I was reminded of O appearing with Floyd Mayweather, the boxer with violence-against-women accusations and convictions longer than your arm. When a few people complained, the response was, he’s paid his debt to society. Translation: You think this is going to be an issue? You think anyone’s gonna care? Go kick rocks, you live on a different planet. It costs pols nothing to do this stuff, and it probably earns votes.
It does earn more votes.
Another twenty something male telling us all what we did and did not see.
Their sexism is so extreme because if Hillary, or another woman, is in the oval office, how can the male Obot pretend it’s them in the WH ? The woman does not mirror them and their fantasy greatness therefore, she is evil. Hillary particularly comes in for slams because she’s so great . As the saying goes ,everything they say after “because”( like she’s a corporatist or whatever) is bull shit….it’s not in the least why they hate her .The bottom line: it doesn’t make them feel big to see a woman advance. Their feeling big is the most important thing possible of course….everything else can go over board…and has . These guys understand Obama very well…since they and he care more about their self image than anything else.
I think the larger issue is who would be more effective at governing us away from the current corporatist climate.
What Obama-tards don’t seem to get is that these labels like, “war hawk,” “corporatist,” “feminist,” and while we’re at it, how about “socialist” are immaterial when you’re presiding over a giant bureaucracy.
Hillary’s case was that you didn’t need “judgment” to lead—you needed know how, and savvy.
I think all people in the world should have fresh flowers and bacon and eggs every Sunday morning! Wow that’s some spectacular ‘judgment.’ I guess I should be President.
One more thing to think of in terms of that genogram idea? Being born in 1960 NYC or LA or NOLA or Georgia? Look diff. fast forward to 1970 what does it look like? 1980? 1990? even in just three decades what is thought and what is taught differs.
In 70’s communism is “bad”
But what is taught by 1990 in terms of history?
same time radical feminism begins to lead to transgenderism? by 2010.
So everything changes given what decade. Here in web what we “know” may differ from what someone 25 knows in terms of what has been taught? Or taught to think?
gay/lesbian movement wants to marry? these are same kids who came out in 70’s forward? Now grown up. If you aren’t left or right coast big city dem you have no idea? Imagine a Georgia, say, that didn’t really integrate like a CA? How do the 70’s 90’s and so forth look demographically?
This will look very different on individual genograms along the timeline? State by state? Country by country?
My gen saw Vietnam end, and until 2001 no real war. Somebody 30 now was 21 in 2001. These kinds of cultural surrounds shape diff experiences of how we perceive events and even terms like sexism?
In my gen men were sexist? Not women. Now it appears to be a blanket term for something else?
What is he?
Two things, I think. Two sort of contradictory things. Ambitous, and lazy.
The first one is easy. No job but what is widely regarded as the top job in the world, POTUS, was ever good enough for him.
The laziness is obvious too, but it kind of makes you wonder why he is ambitous. It is pretty clear he doesn’t read anything more taxing than a newspaper. He gets up late. He holds few meetings. He ain’t working the phones. He mostly seems to play golf, go to parties, and watch sports on TV and in person.
He apparently never had a summer or after school job as a kid. It’s pretty clear he was a bright but lazy student. The kind who always took the final exam course, rather than the term paper course, in college. He has never held any job long enough to really learn it and do it well. He was a Harvard Law Review editor and U of Chicago Law School professor who didn’t write. He was a lawyer who didn’t prepare briefs or try cases. He was a legislator who didn’t legislate. He was an organizer who, as far as I can tell, did nothing at all. His best “work” is as a figurehead, either as a candidate or as the frontman for a can’t miss, well funded voter registration drive.
Even his so called atheletism shows his laziness. He had some talent as a basketball player. But he wouldn’t practice, he wouldn’t work to improve his game. Hence he never started in HS, not even as a senior. Instead, he yelled at his coach for not playing him.
The failure of that approach, yelling at people in authority, is what perhaps led him to learn and perfect the art of the schmooze. He learned to be all things to all people. To do well without working hard. To “mirror. To be a racial chameleon. To pretend to be a Christian when it suited his interests, and to be a secular humanist when the crowd was different. To craft and refine the written and verbal versions of his own self mythologized “life story” and present them as the alpha and omega of a political campaign (as opposed to ya’ know, actually knowing the issues and stuff).
And that’s where I think his corporatism comes from too. It’s not that he cares anymore about corporations than he does about people. But he needed them to get elected, and he will need them to get re elected. So he caters to them. The people, who, to a degree, he also needs for electoral purposes, are satisfied, apparently, with his BS. Wall Street demands policy choices. So he gives that to them.
Notice that all of these things take some cunning, they take some basic intelligence, but none of them take hard work.
Laziness is not the worst thing in the world, and not unusual. But ambition tied to laziness? I repeat, that’s odd.
His ambition is of the highest sort, but what is behind it? Clearly, he has no particular set of policies he wants enacted. No group of people he wants empowered. No wrong he wishes to right. Nothing. Nor does it appear to be a matter of appettite, as you might say for Bill Clinton or LBJ. Nor love of power for its own sake, as with Nixon.
Even the perks don’t really seem to mean that much to him. He is a guy who doesn’t appear to like to eat or drink, or to be with the ladies particulary much (or the boys either!). He doesn’t have some wide circle of friends he likes to lord it over. The one thing he does seem to like, smoking cigarettes, he has to hide precisely because he is POTUS! It’s not really money, as his books have already made him rich. And, anyway, his Harvard Law School credentials could have made him a fortune right away, if that’s what he wanted.
It’s like he just has to be Number One, but then wants to go home at night and watch the NBA finals undisturbed with oil spills or economic crises and so on, just like some ordinary Joe. And after 4 years of that, go on the stump again and give the same speech he always gives, and then back to four more years of doing what the corporations want, to the extent he does anything at all, and acting annoyed that he can’t just put in his six hour day and be left alone.
After that, it’s anyone’s guess. Mine would be more phony books. Two, three, maybe four more autobiographies. Attempts to make sure he goes down in history as :”The First Black President.” But what will safisfy that ego, that ambition? I don’t know. That’s why I’ve always felt that, no matter how feckless he is, he is still a little bit dangerous too.
Ambition *or believing yourself deserving of grandiose jobs and titles without experience equal to those titles or jobs* is a trait of narcissism.
One note to Valentine. Oh please don’t use Vaknin if you can help it at ALL! He’s Obama personified. His only so called..doctorate is from Brain Bench. The man is a psychopath who is exploiting the victims of narcs and sociopaths all over the media. Dr. Robert Hare perhaps?? Vaknin has spammed the web so much it’s hard to find other “research” that is legit. Vaknin has co opted the work of others and thrown it all up in a word salad to make himself sound smarter than he is. He despises women and exploits them and has said so. The most important point though is that the man does NOT have a counseling or other psychological degree of any kind. A test at Brain Bench was his only claim to fame.
As I said many parallels to Obama…*shudders*
Vaknin is correct on traits of MN — My approach is Object Relations. When I saw the narcissism two years ago it was puzzling? Very. So, knowing the traits I diagnosed? Using newspaper research in web. Piecing together what must have been the story using Kohut/Winnicott et al.
When I began to see the aggression/anger that we see now. This is all two years ago. NQ ran my diag piece? I was proud of that. He is textbook DSM. So, what does it mean?
Ego strength. Empathy.
Why are these important when you have a nation to lead?
Well, everything written along this string by all here makes up the public perception? In era post Bush? My feeling was that we needed to see the country heal. Based on that divisive target-marketing and knowing what would happen post that (like we saw) it wasn’t going to look good if he won.
Better would have been someone who could relate, and who lived here? Who knew our “history.” Like the struggles post Civil rights era. Instead that was exploited to raise $$$$$.
The splitting is a major, major problem. Also we are seeing things happen that are very questionable due to economy. So there is tremendous scapegoating going on. Read Italy/Germany 30’s economic climate. It’s like a pressure vat on the whole country.
Everything was okay as long as the big shiny mirror was held up? All smiles. But, as soon as the public mirroring began to turn sour?
This is retreat into schizoid style described above by freemansfarm.
This personality needs the constant mirror. So, if you think of the life as skipping toward the next great thing, over and over — there is always going to be one? He is probably bored at present unless getting accolades? But when the times are tough as right now?
Empathy is the ability to “feel” what others feel? Gulf. (Tears?).
This personality type is incapable of that? Literally. I already knew Hillary but I did a depth read on McC. If I were to read O’s narrative which I haven’t yet (assuming he did write it?) I could do the same depth read. Narrative Therapy. Makes it very transparent to me.
So, what we needed was an empathic leader to hold the country together post Bush. Now we are seeing the splitting as the populace is getting angry and that is building daily.
Add in what that right wing seems to be doing to incense the country it is a very dangerous time for everyone.
Anyway. Vaknin is correct in what he has written on Narcissism. But don’t worry. I have bookshelves full of others — I just didn’t feel like typing from them. You don’t need to “know” this stuff? But you can read through this and take what fits? That we have seen.
At this point what the country needs is calm, in my opinion.
http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/jsp/db/view.jsp?columnId=158&contentType=column
I finally heard from by best friend in the world just yesterday. He said “you tried to tell me about Obama 2 years ago and you were right. I have never been so disappointed in an administration and especially Obama. This White House just keeps getting worse and worse”. Music to my ears since my friendship had suffered but it never helps to be right about something so serious.
I wish my friends were getting there, but they just don’t talk about him or they say wistful things like “I wish people would give him more time to get things done….”
A cartoon capturing Obama’s “anger”
http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/cartoon-the-insult-that-made-a-man-out-of-obama/
Tabloids finally out
http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/tabloids911-golf-and-gulf-pain-casus-belli/
I am pretty sure the single reason that the media didn’t support Hillary is because she is a smart, savvy, sophisticated woman who is a knowledgeable statesman and therefore not easily manipulated.
Hillary is to corporatist as Obama is to Soros Fund Management.
I just saw a book that looks very timely.
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine
You know? I don’t have much to say. Except who is that guy anyway?
I heard that name over at NQ’s two years ago. He had something to do with the collapse of pound, once. England?
Now I’m seeing him in a TV ad with Sting.
More on that book in a review.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Kotarski+Exploiting+crisis/3150408/story.html
hugs Conf & Co.
“Maybe he really did think it was possible to relate to Republicans”
I am now a Republican by default and it is possible to relate to me. Obama was elected to be President of the entire USA not President of the Democrats or A$$ kisser of the Corporations. He would not have needed to bargain away women’s right to choose in his insurance industry bail out bill, he could have simplified the bill by making it illegal to drop a sick person or refuse to cover people, make all first degree relatives insurable on a persons policy, etc. But the Dems are in power now and they may not be able to pass their extreme preferred legislation but they can and should make life better for us to the extent they can. All I see is a stampede to blame the previous administration and Republicans for their failure to lead.