My Liberal Doctor nephew posted this on his Facebook page. He said he still loves Obama but imagines this must be what might be going through his mind, if he were in Obama's shoes.
Alas, I feel my beloved nephew underestimates Obama's strength of arrogance.
Pathological Narcissists don't ever doubt themselves.
Cross-posted at American Descent
40 comments:
How is Obama arrogant? How is that arrogance manifested? I'm curious.
Jim can't really be curious, he's just saying that. Jim never saw a fact he liked. The boy from Kenya has his nose WAY up in the air and is way above us poor schmucks.
Jim, you're not so dense that you can't recognize arrogance, narcissism and sophomoricism when you see it, are you?
President BO is our "Lecturer in Chief."
Every speech he gives talks down to Americans, apologizes for America and elivated all other cultures and countries, especially if they stand against what America has always been.
He is a baffoon and has baffoons for followers.
Jim, you're not so dense that you can't recognize arrogance, narcissism and sophomoricism when you see it, are you?
...said the arrogant, narcissistic old fart.
What, praytell, is a baffoon?
Seems like if you want to start calling people idiots, you ought to begin by at least spelling things right and using actual words ("sophomoricism??" "elivated?").
People, education is not a bad thing. Intelligence is not something to fear and belittle.
And Joe, I apologize right away for calling you an old fart. I'm in an angry mood today and I'm sure, later on, I'll regret acting in the same manner as you all are acting. But right now, if name-calling is something you embrace, then don't be surprised when it comes back to you. He who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind.
The phase "Let me be clear" is condescending and arrogant. Obama starts every sentence with this.
"Let me be clear" is condescending an arrogant??
Says who?
God forbid that someone should speak with clarity and emphasis.
Just because you are intimidated or put off by intelligent people does not mean that they are being condescending and/or arrogant. If you're going to start picking out phrases out of the blue and declaring them "evidence" for your point does not mean anyone else will buy into your point.
Let me guess, this "let me be clear" thing is something that Beck or Limbaugh dreamed up as a way to attack your president about absolutely nothing, am I right?
For what it's worth, I'm relatively sure that Obama is probably at least a little arrogant. As were, I'm sure, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Reagan. One does not attempt to be President of the free world if one does not have a healthy dose of self-worth and confidence in one's abilities.
However, I don't see anything about Obama to suggest he's inordinately arrogant for such a role.
"let me be clear"
if you have to say it all the time that means you're not very clear. If you think its everyone else's fault then you're arrogant.
I love having to explain simple concepts that nearly everyone understands.
Dan, a little advice if you have to invoke Rush or Beck out of the blue then you're really reaching and don't have a leg to stand on.
if you have to say it all the time that means you're not very clear. If you think its everyone else's fault then you're arrogant.
Well, that's a fine guess out of thin air, but most reasonable adults would like a little more evidence than, "some fella/gal who goes by an anonymous name on the internet is convinced that this phrase means Obama is arrogant."
Believe what you want. If you want OTHERS to believe it, you'll have to make, you know, an actual case with actual evidence.
That's how adults reason through things, not just based on hunches, but actual evidence.
if you have to invoke Rush or Beck out of the blue then you're really reaching and don't have a leg to stand on.
Sooo... does that mean I'm right? This started on some rightwing talk show of anonymous rightwing website or something? Some child went around counting the number of times Obama said a phrase and guessed that it actually meant something other than, you know, he wants to be clear?
I have seen nothing that means you're right. You've stopped making sense a long time ago and now just regurgitating.
Just because you say someone is wrong doesn't make it so even if you randomly call out names of people you don't agree with.
Read a book, think critically. Stop letting people tell you what to think.
No one but you is talking about talk radio. Yet you still think you're making a point????
And where did you get the idea that Obama is saying "Let me be clear" too often? Is that something that you thought of on your own, or did you read it/hear it somewhere else?
Be honest.
I watched his speeches and drew my own conclusions.
Something you can never do. Your conclusions are handed to you.
Drood, don't be an idiot.
Handed to me, by whom? I draw my own conclusions, like the one that you're an idiot, without anyone's help.
I'm glad that you thought of that on your own and you didn't have to have someone think it up for you. Regardless, it is an asinine and pointless hunch, unsupported by anything in the real world except for irrational hatred (apparently) towards those who are smarter than you or who simply disagree with you.
If THAT's the best you have ("Obama's arrogant and I know so because he uses this phrase in his speeches sometimes..."), then it's time to move on to more adult reasoning.
No Dan you're an idiot (said with the inflection of a small child)
Are we back to name calling again? Thats twice today. Adult reasoning indeed.
When someone speaks with clarity and emphasis they don't need to tell the audience that they're speaking with clarity and emphasis.
The worse part is he uses a teleprompter all the time. We could just call it a unique "tick" if he wasn't reading verbatim.
I'm not trying to make a federal case out of this, it's just a bad habit that he does on purpose. It shows that he is afraid of being misunderstood, not because of his own words but because of the intelligence of the audience. If thats not condescending and arrogant then nothing is.
"Let me be clear: I support the Civil Rights Act because I overwhelmingly agree with the intent of the legislation...
~Rand Paul
But let me be clear -- our approach is not to seek agreement for agreement's sake, but to settle only for agreements that truly enhance our national security and that of our allies.
~Ronald Reagan
Let me be clear: I did not endorse the Senator from Arizona.
~Republican Congressman Mike Pence
More than anything else, let me be clear - we need to be willing to fight for freedom
~Republican Congressman Mike Pence
Let me be clear. I am not a citizen of the world!
~Newt Gingrich
Let me be clear as to how disastrous this administration will end up being.
~Newt Gingrich
And let me be clear as a matter of first principle.
~Newt Gingrich
Let me be clear, and I say this having been active and thinking about this party and thinking about governing this country for 51 years
~Newt Gingrich
Let me be clear. Our first line of defense is a simple message
~W
"Let me be clear: The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq are without conscience
~W
....
Dang. An awful lot of "obvious" arrogance out there. What next? Will our politicians say, "God bless America..." as a way of "obviously" indicating that they feel smugly holier than thou?
OK. Y'all want examples?
Here's some:
The Washington Post reported that in a closed pep talk session with US House Democrats Tuesday evening, Obama talked about his triumphant visit to Europe and declared, "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."
During Obama's Campaign, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank weighed in with a piece that starts: "Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee."
From an article at Townhall.com:
The examples of President Obama’s overweening sense of pride, hubris and superiority are, in fact, legion. Certainly a man who writes his autobiography twice by the age of forty-three, who makes no secret of his intention to be the President of the United States while he is a neighborhood agitator in Chicago, and, later, as an Illinois state senator is not a model of modesty, humility and self-effacement. Moreover, his short tenure in the U.S. Senate was marked by continued exaggerations of his experience and the supposed jurisprudential acumen he demonstrated as a lecturer at the University of Chicago School of Law.
(cont.)
In 2006 Senator Obama voted against confirming John Roberts as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court based on differing “legal opinions” concerning affirmative action and abortion. Then-Senator Obama used his former position as a law school lecturer to issue a mild rebuke to Roberts for his insufficient respect for fictitious constitutional guarantees. Similarly, Senator Obama invoked his experience when helping his party create a scandal over the Bush Administration’s firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. Obama solemnly declared, “I was a constitutional law professor, which means, unlike the President, I actually respect the constitution.” In actuality, Barack Obama taught courses on racism, voting rights, and social policy. During his twelve years at the law school Obama never published a single work of legal scholarship. (Although he did find the time to engage in five electoral races) Still, this meager record of accomplishment did not stop the Senator from claiming that he was something of a constitutional expert as opposed to the presumably unlettered President Bush.
During the 2008 campaign examples of Obama’s arrogance and petulance abounded. His infamous slap at small town Americans who bitterly clung to their guns and religion received wide play and surprised many observers who had grown used to the tightly scripted candidate on the campaign trail. In this same forum Obama also boasted that he understood the world better than Hillary Clinton and John McCain and that he needed no foreign policy expertise on the bottom half of his ticket...
Shortly after nearly a quarter million Germans chanted his name at the Berlin rally Obama, the proud citizen of the world, claimed without the slightest cringe of embarrassment, “…this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Such examples of Obama’s overheated rhetoric strike many as colossal arrogance but we must remember that this is the candidate who assured the world that “We are the change we have been waiting for!”
Shall I go on?
I think I will:
Now that he is the President we see further evidence of Obama’s arrogance. He has apparently declared war against Rush Limbaugh, and certainly the verbal potshots are the first salvoes of the campaign to reinstate the “Fairness Doctrine” and silence conservative talk radio. The President refused to discuss his stimulus plan in any substantive manner with GOP House Whip Eric Cantor, responding to Cantor’s reasoned arguments by stating icily “I won.” Vatican officials criticized Obama for the high-handed manner in which he overturned the ban on state funding for family planning groups that perform abortions overseas...
Like most liberals Obama claims to be receptive to all points of view, but he really tolerates no opinion but his own. He cavalierly dismisses those who disagree with him as “bitter and frustrated” and he does not hold himself and his entourage to the standards he easily imposes on everyone else.
There are other examples of Obama's arrogance listed in the article, but truthfully, they are better examples of his hypocrisy than his arrogance, although, one could argue that he is so arrogant, that he believes himself above having to follow his own advice in matters of energy conservation, etc, i.e:
President and Mrs. Obama have hired a hugely expensive designer to redecorate the White House at a cost estimated to run over $ 100,000. The Obama inaugural gala also proved to be the costliest event of its type in history. Of course, what is another $ 40,000,000 or so when the nation is facing trillion dollar deficits each year for the next couple of decades? Finally, when reporters mentioned that the White House seemed warm to the point of stuffiness in late January, senior adviser David Axelrod said that Obama was a native Hawaiian who likes his house warm, and added that one could grow orchids in the warmth of the family quarters. He must have forgotten that Obama lectured Americans last spring that it was no longer permissible to drive SUV’s, eat as much as we want, and keep our thermostats set at seventy-two degrees the year round. When you have been elected to the Presidency and lived in taxpayer subsidized housing you can forget about practicing what you preached to the public eight months earlier.
Now, Dan, as to the several examples of Republican's arrogance you provided...
The question Jim asked was not "who is arrogant", but rather, How is Obama arrogant, and how is that arrogance manifested?
My point is that Obama is arrogant.
The charge that others might also be arrogant is immaterial and irrelevant.
I noticed you did not deny Obama is arrogant.
In all your "citations", many of which are opinions, there is nothing that could be considered out of the ordinary for a person with ambition. (BTW, The Audacity of Hope is not an autobiography.)
It's not arrogance. I think the word you are looking for here is "uppity."
You know what, Jim? I really didn't have to produce any other example of Obama's arrogance other than the two words he often repeated shortly after he won the election in response to any criticisms offered by his opponents:
"I WON"
If you continue to argue that isn't arrogance, I have to conclude you are not only willfully blind, but willfully deaf, dumb, and ignorant as well.
When Obama's storm troopers break into your home to cart you and your family off to the death camps, will you still be praising him?
'cause, you know, the first to be executed in a totalitarian takeover are the ones who supported the traitors in the first place. See, the thinking is, "If they will turn their back on their own country, they will turn their backs on us".
Obama exhibits all the traits of a Mussolini. He was arrogant, too.
Wow, apparently I got away with that.
I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being President.
George W. Bush
If you continue to argue that isn't arrogance, I have to conclude you are not only willfully blind, but willfully deaf, dumb, and ignorant as well.
Knock yourself out. "I won" is arrogant? Man you have really lowered the bar.
When Obama's storm troopers break into your home to cart you and your family off to the death camps, will you still be praising him?
Holy shit! Black helicopters, too?
Oh, my. The Obamas raised $100,000 to redecorate the White House when they moved in? And that's "evidence?"
Consider this, then...
Mrs. Reagan spent $25,000 on her inauguration wardrobe, and a planned redecoration of the White House family quarters was to cost $800,000. Apparently, that was a lot back then, judging by the breathless tone in which the figure was quoted. The price tag for the White House china was $209,508, which still seems like a lot.
So the Reagans spent over twice as much as the Obamas ON PLATES ALONE, and that was a generation ago!
I reckon they must have been an order of magnitude more arrogant than Obama? But of course, one does not run for the White House unless one has a healthy ego.
The question, then, is, is there anything inordinately troubling about his ego, anything different than other presidents? Does this somehow affect his presidency?
I'll take the Obama's confidence over Reagan/Bush's cowboy diplomacy and my way or the highway attitude any day. THAT was actually dangerous to the Republic.
Mark, you are casting pearls before swine.
Hence the title of my blog, Rick.
Again, Dan, This post wasn't about somebody else's arrogance.
"Yeah, but he did it, too" Is not a relevant defense.
"The question, then, is, is there anything inordinately troubling about his ego, anything different than other presidents? "
No, that is not the question here. In fact, there is no question here. There is only an observation. And I have observed arrogance. And so, apparently, has my Liberal doctor Nephew.
Jim, you asked. I answered. And you got away with nothing. The word I was looking for is the word I chose. The word you were looking for is racist. Now, I have a question for you:
In which of all my writings have I ever indicated that my objection to Obama is racially motivated? From your snide little comment, it seems to me that you are the one hung up on his race.
If you comment on the arrogance of Obama but have nothing to say about the arrogance of previous white presidents, one might begin to suspect that your problem with Obama is that he's just a bit too uppity.
It's how it comes across, anyway. fyi.
I don't care how I come across to you, Dan.
It's plain to me that you wouldn't recognize arrogance in Obama if you were paid to find it.
Nor would Jim.
And Dan... The way you come across to me is as a racist.
I'm rubber, you're glue...?
Really?
On a side note the never arrogant Obama is taking questions from the press for the first time in 338 days. His humility is truly an inspiration to us all.
Dan since you can't grasp obvious concepts as well as most: Let me be clear, refusing to answer questions can be viewed as arrogant when your job requires you to answer a lot of questions.
oh yeah didn't he [Obama] call the the tea party movement "teabaggers" ?
Is it arrogant to call people names?
Did Bush ever use sexual slang to describe his opponents?
Edwin...
Let me be clear, refusing to answer questions can be viewed as arrogant when your job requires you to answer a lot of questions.
And you might have more credibility if you had also criticized the WHITE president who came before Obama who had, I believe, one of the worst records for press conferences and being open to the press.
As it is, you are merely repeating false rumors (Obama HAS had conferences since last July, that's a falsehood) about a black president when you did not (I'm willing to bet) have the same criticism for the last white president.
Too uppity for your tastes? Do you hate it that much that a black man is more successful and intelligent and powerful than you that you have to criticize every little word and action, even spreading false rumors to make you feel better about yourself?
Did Bush ever use sexual slang to describe his opponents?
George W Bush...
"There's Adam Clymer, major league a**** from The New York Times."
Cheney replied, "Oh, yeah, big time."
"Go f*** yerself."
~Dick Cheney
Again, if you were an equal opportunity criticizer of those on "your side" as well as Obama, you might have some credibility. As it is, not so much.
Your throwing out charges of racism because thats what you were trained to do when losing and argument.
You've always been a typical liberal, even worse is since Obama got elected you've stopped being interesting.
Edwin, I hate to break it to you, but there are no "training" sessions going on for so-called liberals talking to so-called conservatives on these internets. You don't want to sound racist? Don't make racist-sounding comments.
You want to be consistent? Condemn Bush for being arrogant, along with Obama.
If you single out the black man for nitpicky gossipy nothingness and allegations of him being too uppity, don't be surprised that people see that as either, 1. hypocritical and/or 2. racist and/or 3. just plain stupid.
Your throwing out charges of racism because thats what you were trained to do when losing and argument.
Even if we were losing, that wouldn't be true. We're not losing this one at all. You've demonstrated no out of the ordinary hubris by this man. Which begs the question: why all of a sudden is THIS president arrogant?
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