I have pretty much stopped paying much attention to the clown president of the USA but as we prepare to see him re-elected again, and as a result not facing the discipline of needing re-election, it may be worth looking at his character again. Like many, I was late to recognizing how deficient it was, but this frightening Ed Lasky article goes some way into analyzing the problem.
Of course the summary is we are looking at an empty suit but it is really scary how empty it is and how so many people in key positions know this.
First a short review of history:
Americans should have been alert to the paucity of his own record of accomplishment. As a state senator he showed little interest in learning the intricacies of legislation. Instead, his political mentor, Illinois State Senate President Emil Jones, allowed him to "bill-jack" the legislative work of others and claim it as his own. This was a practice he continued as a U.S. senator. He was unprepared to do the homework and heavy lifting -- that was for others to toil over.
Look we wanted to vote for him on an aspirational basis, not because of anything he had actually done or could even do.
If there is one constant to Barack Obama's life, it is his lack of a work ethic. I never doubted that the Barack Obama had stellar grades in college and law school. He surfed the wave of grade inflation that has probably always been a factor in his success. This is pure speculation, but the reason why he never released his transcripts was probably because they would have revealed that he took easy left-wing courses that would have reflected poorly on his work ethic. The laziness has persisted.
This is especially noticeable with his lack of concern for fact-checking in his loony speeches. His major Cairo speech early in his 'reign' turned me pretty much off listening to him ever again; he has his own priorities but getting facts right is a small piece of it. I am pretty sure also that he never took a course in economics or has even bothered trying to understand some of its more interesting byways.
I think the reference to education is interesting; I know I was forced to go through six drafts of my PhD thesis and called 'stupid' by my advisor because I had failed to consider and really understand edge cases. I doubt this lad's education ever featured anything like that.
For example, when Obama's experts assembled to discuss the scope and intricacies of the stimulus bill, Barack Obama was out of his depth. He was "surprisingly aloof in the conversation" and seemed "disconnected and less in control." His contributions were rare and consisted of blurting out such gems of wisdom as "There needs to be more inspiration here!" and "What about more smart grids" and -- one more that Newt Gingrich would appreciate -- "we need more moon shot" (pages 154-5).
Suskind writes:
Members of the team were perplexed...for the first time in the transition, people started to wonder just how prepared the man at the helm was.
He repeated a similar sorry performance when he had a conference call with Speaker Pelosi and her staff to discuss the details of the planned stimulus bill. He shouted into the speakerphone that "this stimulus needs more inspiration! Pelosi and her staff visibly rolled their eyes."
Presidential exhortations more befitting a summer camp counselor will evoke such reactions.
Anyone who considers this guy particularly intelligent or capable of careful thought has a lot of work to do to convince the rest of us.
Republicans should not fret, though, since Democrats are also frozen out. Barack Obama does not reach out to them for their ideas or input. Liberal Washington Post columnists noted his refusal to touch base with fellow Democrats. In her column "The Where's Waldo Presidency," Ruth Marcus noted the "startling number of occasions in which the president has been missing in action -- unwilling, reluctant or late to weigh in on the issues of the moment." Memo to Marcus: check the links, the basketball court, or the East Room jazz club.
His having remained aloof from budget negotiations and his absence from supercommittee talks made for such an abdication of leadership that they earned a rebuke from Erskine Bowles. And so it goes -- the Invisible Man hiding in the Oval Office or reveling in adoration showered on him at expensive elite fundraisers.
And he is so vain! It is now so clearly visible watching the teleprompter eyes and the upturned head.
His vanity leads to an aversion to showing how unprepared he is to be president.
The best ticket in town would be a debate between Congressman Paul Ryan and Barack Obama regarding the huge deficits and debt Obama has imposed on us and our children. Ryan has a fluency and knowledge of these vital issues that dwarf those of Obama. Instead of cooperating with Ryan, he ambushes and insults him in public and for good measure later insulted opponents of his job bill for being unable to understand the "whole thing at once" so "we're going to break it into bite-sized pieces."
Psychologists would call this "projection."
This refusal to do the homework necessary to make good decisions is worrisome on several levels. It led to not only legislation being outsourced to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, but also to foreign policy decisions that seem to come from either the Arab League or the United Nations, or from some sudden inspiration of his disconnect from reality. After all, the path of least resistance is just to do nothing, "lead from behind," or let others do the work. At times, he appears to have adopted a "hear no evil, see no evil" approach that may conflict with the facts and with statements made by his own officials but has the virtue of avoiding the mere prospect of having to make a decision.
And as for vanity, the quote about being the smartest guy in the room is really frightening:
Despite his early boast that "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors," the reality is far different than the claim. That might explain why he just decided to stop receiving daily economic briefings early in his presidency, despite the pain and suffering that millions of Americans have experienced during his reign, and why he would just walk out on Stephen Chu, his energy secretary, after only a few slides had been shown (the rudeness punctuated with "Steve, I'm done") that explained the complexities of the BP oil spill? After all, when one "knows more about policy" than mere mortals, who needs to waste one's time with experts -- even Nobel Prize-winning scientists?
Why should taxpayers even fund experts when we have an omniscient president making up fact-free policy? Perhaps we should just lay off thousands of people who toil away in the federal government trying to find facts. American taxpayers can just rely on Barack Obama.
The final section of the article is an analysis of the briefings he likes to get - basically multiple-choice exams. Lasky has some grim fun with that:
Can't the presidency be a multiple choice exam? Those are always the easiest tests especially for unprepared people in over their heads -- as President Obama has proven himself to be.
The dreadful prospect of this idiot being re-elected looms larger each week.
