A Different Take From Neo-Neocon: Actually Obama Insulted Everybody

Ehh... he seems to have given one side a lot more credit than the other.

But she does make a good point about Obama's Favorite Trope. You know the one: Straw Men on one side, Straw Men on the other. And Obama, in the center, in the spotlight. Like a hero.

[A]lthough Obama’s contempt for the right is obvious, he also expresses a certain amount of contempt for the left. It’s just a somewhat more covertly-expressed contempt. Each are simplistic appeals: let’s have those big guns for the bitter clingers of the right, and the little suffering children for the bleeding hearts of the left; the cold warlike aggressors versus the warm touchy-feelers. Meanwhile the great thinker, Obama, plots his brilliant course in Syria, playing four-dimensional chess with Putin.

Four dimensional? I'm assured by Ezra Klein there are at least six physical dimensions to his chess game, plus time.

Sorry I keep harping on this. I think this says a lot about Obama's temperament -- not first class, as it turns out -- and his much-vaunted power of persuasion.

This reminds me of a joke I did one time in like Real Life and stuff. A friend just gave me the greatest compliment I'd ever received, something very personal and flattering, to a group of people, and then I put my hand on his shoulder, and generously offered in return, "And my good friend here has a really nice truck."

Now I could get away with this because he was a close friend and also a ferociously funny one and understands the Rule of Funny: If it's funny, you have to say it. And he himself laughed the hardest at it. In fact, he was the only real audience for it. I didn't care if a bunch of strangers got it.

But Obama's not my friend and wasn't trying to be funny and make me laugh, as I made my friend laugh.

And he just told me I had a really nice truck. Tricked out with bombs n stuff.

Meanwhile, a Democratic strategist calls this bus accident one of the most humiliating episodes in presidential history.

A Democratic strategist who works closely with the White House, and who requested anonymity to avoid political retribution, told me, "This has been one of the most humiliating episodes in presidential history." ... As he faced an international and constitutional crisis, Obama and his team were in a familiar state: isolated, insular, and alone.

Thinking More... Neo-Neocon is on to something. I just realized the point of Obama's horrific formulation: Another implied self-brag.

See, the Left understands Freedom and Dignity.

The Right, crude-minded simians that they are, understands Military Might.

But only Obama, the Moral and Physical Hero, understands the beautiful union of the two.

In the personhood (?--personhood? Maybe not personhood, maybe something grander) of Barack Obama, we find the perfect synthesis of all virtue.

Why, he's almost Arthurian in his mind.

Skip to around 2:40 for Camelot's "Might For Right" epiphany.

posted by Ace at 05:19 PM

| Access Comments