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Monday, December 1, 2014

How Obama sees himself

Obama's comments at the news conference he held right after the Republican sweep in early November put his narcissism in stark relief.

First, he said that "the American people sent a message" that the public expects their elected leaders to work as hard as they do. That is ridiculous: they sent a message that they didn't like Obama's policies.

After being asked why the election was so devastating for Democrats, Obama responded that the American people felt that Washington wasn't responsive to their needs. Again, he tried to make it sound as if they were dissatisfied with Washington in general rather than with the Democrats in particular, a typical Obama dodge.

Then he added that "every election is a moment for reflection," once again implying that this election was no different than any other -- and essentially saying that he refused to draw any conclusions from the Democrats' resounding defeat.

Obama also emphasized the two thirds of the electorate who didn't vote. His clear implication was that had more people turned out, the results might have been different. But turnout is traditionally low in non-Presidential election years, and the energized Republicans base sent a strong message.

A few minutes later, Obama said that he wanted Congress to act on immigration and that America needs policies which allow "the best and the brightest" to live here. Obama's definition of the "best and the brightest" seems to mean, "those who can cross the Rio Grande without getting caught."

Obama also said that he would give Congress six weeks to act on such a bill. Two and a half weeks later, he issued his executive order.

Much has been made of how Obama has circumvented the Constitution with his order. But as any psychologist will tell you, narcissists never feel the rules apply to them.

A few days later, Obama stated that had he been allowed to campaign more actively, the Democratic candidates would have fared better. (This, after an election during which virtually every Democrat put as much distance between himself and the President as possible.)

The statements from that press conference all seem jarringly at odds with reality, but they were in fact normal for Obama, who has always been a case study in narcissism.

Just last year Obama said, “Kindness covers all of my political beliefs. Empathy, the idea that we have a stake in each other’s success, is what gets me up every single day.”

In other words, "I do what I do because I'm a kind and empathetic person."

The same rule that applies to prison pen pal advertisements applies to politicians: people who actually have those qualities never feel obliged to advertise them.

This is a man who has said, in one of the two autobiographies he had written by the age of 45, "I find comfort in the fact that the longer I’m in politics the less nourishing popularity becomes, that a striving for power and rank and fame seems to betray a poverty of ambition, and that I am answerable mainly to the steady gaze of my own conscience."

Another rule which applies here is that people who have consciences don't talk about their own as distinct entities. (It's also true that no one says he doesn't care about his popularity who doesn't, in fact, care a great deal about it.)

Obama has claimed that the reason he did not make the varsity basketball team at Punahou is because the coach just didn't "get" his style of street play. The fact is, Obama just wasn't good enough. But since becoming President, he's felt he's good enough to play with NBA players. They undoubtedly don't play their hardest against him and let him score on them. But that probably doesn't stop him from indulging his fantasy that he's far better than he actually is.

When he was at Harvard Law School, the other students coined a term, the "Obamometer," to measure the extent to which someone seemed pleased with his own glibness. The term actually outlasted Obama at the law school. (Think about that: at a place which must attract an inordinate share of grandstanding egomaniacs, one ego stood out above all the rest.)

This is a President who looks in the mirror and sees, as he said on The View, "eye candy."

This is a man whose self-regard is such that he once told an aide, "I think I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. 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."

Obama also evidently thinks he's a better military strategist than his generals, since he routinely disregards their advice.

When Obama first met Queen Elizabeth, the gift he gave her was an iPod filled with his own speeches. Even most narcissists would be too embarrassed to do that.

Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2008 was famously staged in front of fake styrofoam pillars. It was never clear whether that was meant to evoke Plato, Socrates, or Demosthenes.

In that speech, Obama famously proclaimed that would be remembered as the day the rise of the oceans started to slow. He evidently sees himself as Moses as well.

The list of narcissistic transgressions is far to long to list here, but it's apparent every time he opens his mouth.

Every time he shifts blame for a national problem.

Every time he attributes the best of motives to himself and the worst of motives to his opponents.

Every time he feels that his charisma will be enough to win over intransigent foreign leaders.

Every time he tries to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public.

Once you recognize the sound of a confirmed narcissist, you don't even have to listen that closely. It's impossible to miss. 

44 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, Obama's delusional, not the best person for the job of President. I just sit on the edge of my seat, holding my breath, looking forward to the day when he is out of office, being bothered by how he is, how he operates.

-birdie

John Craig said...

Birdie --
I feel the same way.

Steven said...

Giving an ipod of your speeches is a bit like giving somebody a framed picture of you for their birthday! A book would be better; speeches are juts political rhetoric.

I'm not disputing your analysis but the stuff he was saying about the election loss is the same kind of stuff I hear from politicians all the time. Its seems to be in the nature of the business to explain away defeats, put a positive spin on things etc.


John Craig said...

Steven --
True, all politicians are essentially salesmen, and Obama certainly isn't the only one to ever spin things. But the consistency of his behavior speaks of a narcissism that goes far beyond what most politicians exhibit.

Anonymous said...

I just hope that the country doesn't fall apart before the end of his wretched term.

Did you hear about the hammer attack in St. Louis today. Race not a factor.

Meanwhile, fing Al Sharpton was at the White House.

Coco

PS I said fing because I don't want to waste a good fuck on that POS.

John Craig said...

Coco --
It's falling apart as we speak.

What the police chief said was priceless: "There is no evidence that it was an anti-Bosnian hate crime."

Absolutely ridiculous. The kids who attacked the guy are undoubtedly too stupid to know that there's such a place as Bosnia, all they saw was a white guy.

Why, you don't find Al attractive?

Anonymous said...

I read a headline on another website. Apparently, the USA saw the highest Black Friday gun sales in recorded history. Gee, I wonder why?

-birdie

Spychiatrist said...

You ever wonder if Obama could sell snow to an Eskimo? Or sand to an Arab?

He's done a fantastic job of selling narcissism, distrust, and low morale to the American people.

Someone once said that we get the leaders that we deserve, I wonder what that says about us?

All hail the Mocha Messiah.

John Craig said...

Spike --
He hasn't been able to sell anything to the Arabs, least of all our foreign policy. They weren't fooled by his middle name or anything else about him; guess they're smarter than us.

The reason he's been able to sell himself to half the population over here is because he's had the tacit collusion of the media, who've had a very strict hands off policy on him from Day One. even the comedians wouldn't touch him, despite the wealth of material he's offered. Sickening but true.

Anonymous said...

"even the comedians wouldn't touch him"

I haven't watched SNL in years for that reason. But even they were outraged by the EO on immigration. I don't care, they are on my permanent shitlist.

Looks-wise, I prefer Matthew McConaughey (at normal weight) to Al Sharpton (any weight). I'm weird, I know. But that's me.

And isn't it funny about Obama, he only fools white liberals here, in UK and Europe. The rest of the world sees thru his three-dollar bill phony act, including Black Africans, Arabs, and Asians.

Coco

Anonymous said...

"It's falling apart as we speak. "

Do you think it's gonna blow, or just gradually sink into the mud?

Coco

Anonymous said...

One huge red flag of a narcissist is that they are incredibly bad gift givers!

I was on a forum which discusses narcissistic parents and one unusual thing that was noticed is that narcissistic parents give their children terrible gifts. God! an Ipod is bad enough but he took it to the next level.

Andrew

John Craig said...

Coco --
This is what the comedians should have done with him:

http://justnotsaid.blogspot.com/2010/02/pity-poor-comedians_18.html

http://justnotsaid.blogspot.com/2010/02/pity-poor-comedians-part-ii.html

I never thought SNL was funny in the first place.

Hate to break it to you, but Matthew is supposed to be gay; he is good-looking though.

"Gradually sink into the mud" is probably the better description.

John Craig said...

Andrew --
I'd never heard that before, but it makes sense. Here's another incredibly inappropriate gift Obama gave:

http://justnotsaid.blogspot.com/2010/02/cufflinks.html

John Craig said...

Birdie --
That's an interesting statistic. Legal guns are the best counter to illegal ones.

Anonymous said...

Personally, the way our world is going, people probably would feel better about having guns on their person, better to protect yourself from violent people (think Ferguson). That's my theory.

-birdie

Anonymous said...

"Hate to break it to you, but Matthew is supposed to be gay; he is good-looking though."

I've heard that about McC but I think his marriage to Camilla Alves might not be totals beard. Although that does go on a lot in Hollywood, I hear. Still, him being gay would explain a lot. He started out as a male model, and his career experienced quite the turnaround when he got married. Amazing, no?

Coco

Anonymous said...

I can deal with sinking in the mud, but not a catastrophic collapse. But don't rule out the latter. You truly, truly cannot predict the future, and I don't think we are set up for (example) a major epidemic. Look at what happened with 3 Ebola cases.

Coco

John Craig said...

Coco --
I don't find McC all that surprising, I think that does go on a lot in Hollywood. For whatever reason, acting, like dancing, seems to attract a lot of gay men. It's more obvious in the theater world, but Hollywood isn't all that different.

You're right about the future being unpredictable, but most of the predicted calamities, like Legionnaires' disease, swine flu, Asian bird flu, Y2K, and most recently Ebola, haven't been all that destructive. Even AIDS, which was fairly widespread, didn't really unravel the fabric of our society. And in the meantime, we have continued to sink into the mud.

I'm more worried about a manmade catastrophe than a natural one, though the latter could occur too, like a meteor or the great Yelllowstone caldera swallowing up six states as it supposedly has the power to do. I'm actually sort of surprised that there hasn't been any nuclear terrorism yet, given the number of warheads which supposedly went missing when the Soviet Union collapsed. And I've always thought it would be easy for a group of terrorists to take a bunch of passenger jets out of the sky with Stinger missiles. Anyway, those are my pleasant thought for the day.

Anonymous said...

I checked out this bitchy gay gossip site about McC and I got nothing. Yes, he was mentioned but mostly it was the kind of BS "Oh sure, I can tell" and nothing substantive. There are sometimes substantive claims on that website. So I will continue to think that his marriage to a supermodel is real. Why would a supermodel marry a gay man? They could have anyone. Kelly Preston on the other hand is a nobody and without her marriage to John Travolta she would be doing toaster oven infomercials, if that.

Yes, acting attracts a lot of gay men but not all actors are gay. There are even straight male ballet dancers - strange as that sounds!

Coco

John Craig said...

Coco --
Alves was hardly a supermodel, Preston had much more of a career than her, was in over 40 movies, even if most of them were forgettable.

With a lot of Hollywood couples, it's not just the guy looking for a beard, sometimes it's the woman too, as with Penelope Cruz and Javier Barden.

I wasn't suggesting that all actors are gay, some of the straight actors end up as incredibly prolific womanizers (mostly because they can). Think of Warren Beatty, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Errol Flynn, Russell Crowe, etc, etc.

Anonymous said...

Just read your article about giving the Dalai Lama cuff links. Wow you picked up this 4 years ago.Was a very funny blog post.

Obama obviously is so wrapped up in himself that he gives people gifts that he would want. He can't see other people.

But giving cuff links to the Dalai Lama takes the cake! Obama is straight out delusional! Did someone not try and stop him?!

Andrew

John Craig said...

Andrew --
Thank you. That's a good question, don't know if anyone tried to stop Obama, it sure doesn't look as if there was anybody paying attention.

You've just analyzed why narcissists give lousy gifts perfectly: they can't see beyond themselves.

Anonymous said...

OK, not a supermodel, but my point about comparing her to Preston (who really is in an obvious beard marriage for obvious reasons - it gives her the cushy life she wouldn't otherwise have) is that in this case, Alves took up with a guy whose career wasn't doing all that great. She had the first baby in 2006, so she met him before that, when he was a B list actor in forgettable romcoms. She sticks with him thru 3 kids and then they get married, and around 2010 he starts to resuscitate his career and becomes A-list. This is not the usual trajectory of a fake marriage. Not putting my rent money down, just saying - in any case, what are the smoke and rumors you've heard about McC? I haven't heard them. (I've heard bad stuff about his costar Jared Leto and groupies, tho, and relationships with other men.)

About the downfall, as I said, you never know what will set off a firestorm.

Coco

PS

Maybe two more years of this?

http://tinyurl.com/ll7edag

Anonymous said...

About the comedians and Obama.

Confession. I used to be a dedicated watcher of late nite TV. I used to watch Carson. Cavett. Do you remember Merv Griffin? He had a good show. I never liked Leno or Letterman much but it was such an ingrained habit, I would switch between them depending on who was on.

Midway through the first Obama Admin, I noticed that neither Leno nor Letterman was making fun of the Prez. I was puzzled. Yeah, call me stupid, but it took me two years to pick up on the truth. That was the end of my late night addiction.

I sampled both of them intermittently until, I think, the first year of the 2nd Obama Admin, when I finally, irrevocably, gave up, admitting that both of them were fucking pussies and not worth watching.

Coco

John Craig said...

Coco --
McC was already a big star by the time he started having kids with Alves, even if the romcoms he made were all forgettable. Also, I'd attribute the career revival to his taking on more character roles in offbeat films which required a little more acting (Mud, The Paper Boy, Dallas Buyers Club, Wolf of Wall Street).

The police were once called to McC's house because the neighbors complained he was making too much noise; it turned out that he and a "buddy," were both playing the bongos, both stark naked. Now I realize that people drink and crazy things happen, but I honestly cannot imagine the circumstances under which I'd get together with a friend and we'd both get completely naked together, just the two of us. He is, as we agreed, very good-looking, yet he was never linked with women before Alves, and a guy like that who was a movie star should have been cutting a wide swath. He would often show up to awards ceremonies with his mother as his "date," and people would say, aw, how sweet, but that was sort of a giveaway too. He's obviously been on steroids, and I remember seeing a picture of him from before, and being surprised at how effeminate he looked. He's long been rumored to be gay, and I remember hearing somewhere that he was so aggressive with some guy that he had to pay him off to be quiet. Now, some of this is hearsay (the cops being called and the mom "dates" are not). But put it together and it's a lot of smoke, and where there's that much smoke.

(Should I be embarrassed that I know all this? Probably. It makes me sound sort of gay to just know this gossip.)

I honestly never found Letterman funny, and Leno wasn't much better. (I know, if you're "sophisticated" you're supposed to prefer Letterman to Leno.) I'm also, full disclosure, sort of a health nut, and have always been an early-to-sleep type anyway, so usually wasn't even up when they were on.

I do remember Merv Griffin, and he was very good. He didn't fancy himself a comedian, he was just a chatty host. I didn't watch him all that much, have never been one for talk hows, but I do remember my favorite moment. He was interviewing Jacqueline Bisset, who had recently shot two movies, The Deep, based on a Peter Benchley novel, and The Greek Tycoon, a thinly disguised account of Aristotle Onassis (in which she played the Jackie Kennedy role). Bisset was complaining to Griffin that the poster (showing her in a wet t-shirt coming out of the water) the producers used for The Deep was "exploitative." Griffin let her say her piece, then gently asked, "But you don't feel that doing a movie like The Greek Tycoon was exploitative?" She hemmed and hawed, but had no reply; her hypocrisy had been exposed. The way Griffin let her go on and on about it beforehand, nodding at her sympathetically as she vented about being exploited, was just perfect

As far as the link you sent, I couldn't agree with you more. I wrote on that subject back in June:

http://justnotsaid.blogspot.com/2014/06/you-are-whoever-you-say.html

Steven said...

I think I've quoted this before but there is a lot of truth to it:

"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." Douglas Adams

Anonymous said...

I used to watch Griffin* religiously. He was a fantastic interviewer, just the best. You should look up on Youtube the video of his the very last interview Orson Welles gave just a couple days before he died. It's very moving. Welles was an authentic genius. Such an overused word - but in his case, it fits.

OK, you win on McC!! I didn't know all that. I agree that going with Mom as your date is not only gay, it's gay. (I think you get my point.) Although I had heard something about the bongo incident. He lives in Austin and I heard rumors that it was open house with underage UT girls and that in the bongo incident, there were underage UT girls involved.

But maybe that could be BS. Hollywood gossip is such a strange thing to work through, you never know what's what until 30 years later. Such as Clark Gable and Loretta Young being the parent of a daughter. Yes.

http://tinyurl.com/725d3ax

If you tell me Gable was gay, I'll die!

Coco

Anonymous said...

Regarding your link, the AMA seems to have gone clinically insane. They recommend that gay men should be able to give blood.

Coco

John Craig said...

Steven --
Great quote.

John Craig said...

Coco --
I must have told you all that stuff about McC because I'm jealous you like him.

No, Gable was not gay.

Speaking of old time movie stars, my parents recently had dinner with Eva Marie Saint. Sort of blew my mind. There's a piece of Americana for you.

When did the AMA change that rule? That wasn't the case a little while ago.

Anonymous said...

The AMA opposed FDA's ban on blood donation by gay men in June 2013.

John Craig said...

Anon (Coco?) --
Thank you.

Anonymous said...

I wasn't Anon 9:48. I mentioned the AMA because it was in your recommended post about birth certificates. I don't know when they changed, but they now recommend that gay men be allowed to donate blood.

I've never found either Leno or Letterman funny either, I just enjoyed watching show biz chatter. As they revealed themselves to be partisan chumps, I also realized that show biz chatter ain't what it used to be. Carson used to have a lot of forgettable C-list celebs and somehow it was entertaining, but even A-listers nowadays are crappy.

Here's a video that illustrates the comedian problem:

http://tinyurl.com/kg3ls68

(warning, stupid advertisement before video)

Now, I think Obama is purposely screwing up a bit to prove how difficult these words are, and to humblebrag. And the jokes about setting up a beer-brewing operation in the WH like the NIH scientific apparatus are funny, in that corny Presidential way.

But, I am positive that if Bush had done this, the "comedians" would be all over him. They would rip him apart for being too dumb to understand the words, for mispronouncing them, for humorously comparing setting up a brewing apparatus with fighting disease. You name it, they would attack him.

I hate these pricks. They're not funny, and their guests suck.

I mentioned Gable. There were and are better actors, but he puts these jokers to shame.

The Real Coco



Anonymous said...

Someone on the bitchy gay gossip site claimed that they went to parties he used to host at his Austin home. Lots of underage UT students and he would go after the girls.

Eva Marie Saint, wow!!! A Hitchcock blonde, wow!!!

Coco

John Craig said...

The Real Coco --
I don't hold it against Obama that he doesn't know the word "electrophoresis," frankly, I'd stumble over it in a sentence too. Of course, thinking that there are 57 states is a different matter.

But I agree with you: the people I really hold this against are the media, including the comedians, who are so hypocritical in their choice of targets. George W. Bush mispronounces "nuclear" and it's fodder for the next five years; Obama makes a similar mistake and it's like a tree falling in the woods.

That was my reaction about Eva Marie Saint too. It's hard for me to imagine my parents having dinner with her and her husband.

Anonymous said...

Oh, that was my point about electro whatever. No one can pronounce it properly. My point was that if Bush44 had done the same thing, in a joking manner, the our phony comedians would have held it against him.

You know, I think this is all very obvious to most, not just to us. And in a way it encourages racism. To think of an elite black man like Obama as a precious snowflake, who shoulnd't be touched, or subjected to the same ridicule as any authority figure, demeans him.

Coco

John Craig said...

Coco --
You're right. The black friend I had whom I wrote about in October (Why I feel free to be honest about race) liked it when we first met that I would call him on stuff, make fun of him for mistakes, etc. He was so used to having white people tippy toe around him that I think it was refreshing for him to meet me. Of course, in the end I got a little TOO honest for him….

Anonymous said...

I have had the exact same experience. As you may guess (or not? be honest) I do not pull punches. Now, I am not as open IRL as I am online, but I either keep my mouth shut, or when I open it, I tell the truth. I never condescend to blacks. Most of the time they love this.

But not always.

Here's more about condescending to Obama the Precious Snowflake:

http://tinyurl.com/nfflkgo

When this thing happened I thought it was mildly inappropriate for the woman to have criticized the First Daughters. I mean, why? And I thought the response, although totally over the top, was just part of the same old predictable partisan crap.

But I was ignorant. Read the article and see how she was persecuted. "This included two network news vans camping outside of her parents’ home in North Carolina and a search of Lauten’s leaked juvenile records and college writings."

WTF???

I am coming to believe that we are truly living in a police state. Just because it doesn't look like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union doesn't mean it isn't a police state. Maybe the word police state is wrong. I have to think of a better phrase - but it's all the same. A society controlled by dictators.

The one, the only:
Coco

John Craig said...

The One and Only --

Yes, I'm familiar with that brouhaha, and reacted the same way you did: it was a little inappropriate (kids should be off limits), but the reaction was so over the top that it was laughable.

I"m actually almost glad the libs and the media are overplaying their hand this way, it drives more and more people to the right. Just think of how many people were driven away from the Dems by the overreaction to Ferguson. A guy who tries to take the gun from a police officers gets shot, and a lot of people react as if the cop just wandered into a black neighborhood and started shooting kids in their cribs. How many people saw this and realized how ridiculous the Sharpton/Holder/Obama camp are?

Baloo said...

And again!
http://ex-army.blogspot.com/2014/12/obamacentrism.html

Anonymous said...

As we were saying, the future is a mystery, but I sometimes think that there could be a Harper's Ferry type incendiary incident. It might be touched off by some pro-transgender ruling at a school, and parents just won't take it anymore.

Google Minnesota, transgender.

Coco, TOAO

John Craig said...

Coco --
Not sure I like TOAO, it sounds too much like "toad."

Yes, I've been following the Minnesota situations. I've been wondering, what's to prevent a regular, athletic, heterosexual guy from saying he identifies as a girl, don a girl's bathing suit, and set the state records in the 50 freestyle and 100 butterfly, then have the pleasure of going into the girls' locker room and watching all the girls shower? Who's to say he's a liar?

If I were a Minnesota h.s. student, that's what I'd be tempted to do.

As I said before, I love the way the libs are overplaying their hand.

Anonymous said...

I love it too but I feel sorry for the poor folks who are caught up in the undertow.

Coco