Obama's Swelling Ego
· Monday, November 16, 2009
President Obama was too busy to attend the celebrations in Germany this week marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. But he did appear by video, delivering a few brief and bloodless remarks about how the wall was "a painful barrier between family and friends" that symbolized "a system that denied people the freedoms that should be the right of every human being." He referred to "tyranny," but never identified the tyrants - he never uttered the words "Soviet Union" or "communism," for example. He said nothing about the men and women who died trying to cross the wall. Nor did he mention Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan - or even Mikhail Gorbachev.
He did, however, talk about Barack Obama.
"Few would have foreseen," declared the president, "that a united Germany would be led by a woman from [the former East German state of] Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it."
As presidential rhetoric goes, this was hardly a match for "Ich bin ein Berliner," still less another "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." But as a specimen of presidential narcissism, it is hard to beat. Obama couldn't be troubled to visit Berlin to commemorate a momentous milestone in the history of human liberty. But he was glad to explain to those who were there why reflections on that milestone should inspire appreciation for the self-made "destiny" of his own rise to power.
Was there ever a president as deeply enamored of himself as Barack Obama?
The first President Bush, taught from childhood to shun what his mother called "The Great I Am," regularly instructed his speechwriters not to include too many "I's" in his prepared remarks. Reagan maintained that there was no limit to what someone could achieve if he didn't mind who got the credit. George Washington, one of the most accomplished men of his day, said with characteristic modesty on becoming president that he was "peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies."
Obama, on the other hand, positively revels in The Great I Am.
"I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters," he told campaign aides when he was running for the White House. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that . . . I'm a better political director than my political director."
At the start of his presidency, Obama seemed to content himself with the royal "we" - "We will build the roads and bridges. . . . We will restore science to its rightful place. . . . We will harness the sun and winds," he declaimed at his inauguration.
But as the literary theorist Stanley Fish points out, "By the time of the address to the Congress on Feb. 24, the royal we [had] flowered into the naked 'I': 'As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress.' 'I called for action.' 'I pushed for quick action.' 'I have told each of my Cabinet.' 'I've appointed a proven and aggressive inspector general.' 'I refuse to let that happen.' " In his speech on the federal takeover of General Motors, Obama likewise found it necessary to use the first-person singular pronoun 34 times. ("Congress" he mentioned just once.)
At this rate, it won't be long before the president's ego is so inflated that it will require a ZIP code of its own.
Then again, how modest would any of us be if we were as magnificent as Obama knows himself to be? "I am well aware," he told the UN General Assembly in September, "of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world."
In 1860, writes Doris Kearns Goodwin in her celebrated biography "Team of Rivals," an author wishing to dedicate his forthcoming work to Abraham Lincoln received this answer: "I give the leave, begging only that the inscription may be in modest terms, not representing me as a man of great learning, or a very extraordinary one in any respect."
Obama has often claimed Lincoln as a role model, but apparently it only goes so far.
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Andrea
People have many reasons and negative comments on our President, but bottom line he will always be ridiculed because of his race. As much mess that Bush have gotten us into i've never seen such negativity as I have since Obama has become president. Bottom line deal with it for the next 4 years
Posted November 16, 2009 at 1:22:39 PM
Matt
Andrea,
What a wonderful, all-encompassing and always handy excuse you have for any negative comments regarding President Obama. How handy for you that without knowing the intent behind any comments you are able to assume and assign race as the intent of all of them.
We will be dealing with the effects of Obama's misguided efforts for far longer than four years.
Posted November 16, 2009 at 4:02:22 PM
MichaelSSEC
Never saw such negativity?? Apparently some of us slept through the entire 8 years of the Bush administration, during which the guy couldn't give away billions in AIDS money to Africa without the media twisting it into some kind of snide observation.
Note to Liberals: it's time for the big-girl panties. Whining about imaginary racism in criticism of Obama has long ago worn thin. It's racism to notice that his stimulus was a fraud? It's racism to notice that his claims of "jobs saved or created" were laughably dishonest? It's racist to notice that Obama throws Israel under the bus every chance he gets? Or to notice that he utterly failed to side with the democracy-seeking multitudes in Iran? Or that he inexplicably cast aside Honduras' Supreme Court to support a failed coup by a failed dictator over the legally-installed government there? That he keeps trying to ram Obamacare down our throats, regardless of the fact that America has said repeatedly we do not want it? That he yearns for the economy-crippling Cap & Tax bill, the worst possible thing we could do during a major recession?
Liberals, this is your chance to play with the big boys. It's time to put away childish things. If you expect to be taken seriously by grownups, then you need to get past this knee-jerk race-card. If you cannot do that, then you do not deserve a place at the grownups' table. Your fate is in your hands.
Personally, I don't think you can do it. I don't think you can let go of the race-card, because in your hearts you ARE racists. You're the ones obsessed with race, who see racism everywhere in the LEAST RACIST COUNTRY IN HUMAN HISTORY. I think Liberals are the second most hateful people on Earth (behind radical Muslims) and they cannot pull themselves up out of the morass of racism to mature into a genuine movement.
Prove me wrong.
Posted November 16, 2009 at 5:08:10 PM
Marcus
Andrea,
obama is not "our" president. he is your president. he chose to be divisive and play the race card, not me or millions of other whites who simply demand performance and adherence to AMERICAN principles and ideals. he choses to apologize for the AMERICA I love and served. he is simply an abomination.
and BTW, there's 3 years left, half of which he will be campaigning to lose, but then how will we know the difference since he has yet to do anything resembling governing?
Posted November 17, 2009 at 7:24:21 AM
DC Resident
Obama vs Bush
If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?
If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?
If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?
If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?
If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is?
If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?
If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?
If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?
If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?
If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?
So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 5 months -- so you'll have three years and seven months to come up with an answer.
Posted November 17, 2009 at 1:14:25 PM