Getting sick of Obama’s voice and empty promises
There’s an interesting phenomenon coming from the left: more people seem to have become unable to listen to Obama’s voice because they’ve found his promises to be empty. Matt Taibbi notes at Rolling Stone that he’s become so disillusioned with Obama’s broken promises to help labor that, “I just don’t believe this guy anymore, and it’s become almost painful to listen to him.”
Taibbi’s reaction ties in quite nicely with the poll results I mentioned yesterday when I wrote, “The percentage of respondents who give Obama a very poor rating on ‘being honest and straightforward’ took a leap sometime between spring and fall of 2009 and has not significantly declined since.” Again, this is a bipartisan issue; there are only so many times a president can backtrack and have people retain faith in his veracity.
Those of us who were sick of Obama from the start heard that note of falseness in his voice almost right away. Yes, for the most part we also didn’t agree with much of what he was proposing. But that really wasn’t the heart of the problem, at least not for me. I felt his duplicity before I felt the extremity of his views, back when he was posing as a moderate bring-us-all-together type. His behavior just didn’t match his calm nice-guy demeanor.
For me, the turning point on Obama came early: it was a combination of learning what Obama did to Alice Palmer back when he first got his start in politics (it was clear from this behavior that he was not a nice guy), and then seeing him change his mind on campaign financing and pretending his position was consistent, as well as blaming the big bad Republicans for his flip-flop. This further informed us all (all who were paying attention, that is) of Obama’s duplicitous ways.
The Palmer incident had occurred in 1995-1996, and was described in a lengthy article in the Chicago Tribune in April of 2007, so anyone unfamiliar with it can’t say they weren’t warned. And Obama’s campaign finance shenanigans occurred in June of 2008, plenty early in the game. At the time I wrote:
But Obama’s been running as the business-as-unusual candidate, not just another hypocritical, lying pol who, as Obama’s former mentor the Rev. Wright said, “does what politicians do.” And yet as soon as Obama saw that the money flowing his way was far beyond what he could get if he adhered to his agreement, he reneged.
It’s not just that he reneged, either”“it’s how he reneged. Who’s to blame, according to Obama? Why, John McCain and the nasty Republicans, that’s who. James Joyner writes that this charge of Obama’s does take “a bit of gall.” I’d say it takes substantially more than a bit, as well as a heavy dose of the whining, blaming, audacity in which the holier-than-thou Obama tends to specialize…
Obama is no doubt betting that few people will know, remember, or care what a hypocrite he looks like at the moment, because now he’s got the money (and the control of it, unlike the RNC funds McCain will have some access to) to mount an unmatchable media blitz of ads from now till November. It just might work; he’s wasting no time…
Trust is an interesting phenomenon. For whatever reason, Obama’s supporters believed in him despite evidence that they should not. But some people did not believe in him during the 2008 campaign, and those people were not all Republicans or conservatives by any means. I knew many Democrats—mostly Hillary supporters, it turns out—who had a very uneasy feeling about him and his veracity, from watching the way she was treated. But I know other Democrats who thought Obama was practically the Second Coming. Some of them are now disillusioned, and like Taibbi have grown tired of the sound of his voice. But some still think he’s a straight-shooting and well-meaning man up against terrible odds.
What makes the difference? Who are the true believers and who the ones who will lapse? I don’t know. Some of the former may just be so doctrinaire they’re following the program, but most of my friends are not that kind of political animal. Some of it may have to do with how much attention people are paying. Some of it may be related to how credulous an individual might be, or how naive. And some may reflect just how difficult it can be to change one’s mind, even in the face of strong evidence.
[ADDENDUM: Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds notes that the press has become slightly less deferential to Obama lately. He links to this WaPo piece on Obama’s recent statement about having passed “the biggest middle-class tax cut in history,” a claim that earned Obama a four-Pinocchio rating from the WaPo for duplicity.]
Way back when I made a lucky prediction: I told someone that George HW Bush would lose his reelection bid. That was right after the first Iraq war when he had 70% approval.
My reasoning? It is very hard to run on nothing, get elected and then get re-elected. After four years of doing stuff, you are bound to surprise everyone in a negative way. Perot gave me the final dose of luck.
I was surprised to read yesterday a set of comments on a liberal blog about Obama. A very large percentage of them were mad at Obama for not being leftist enough. Leftists are so clueless, they don’t even see the competing political forces in Obama’s way, so they blame him.
By the end of next year, there won’t be a single person in America who won’t be disappointed in Obama. He ran on nothing. Then he did a bunch of stuff. By definition, those things can’t match what everyone was expecting, since everyone was expecting something different.
Wretchard over at the Belmont club once mentioned that leftists have to be uniquely arrogant. They have to hide their true intentions until their power is solidified, and then suddenly reveal it to everyone and expect that people will accept it. Obama is probably a narcissist without the political philosophy. Add the philosophy to him, and you get incredible narcissism, squared.
I was suspicious when my sister told me in the summer of ’07 that she liked him because he was cute.
I had a “don’t like” sign pop up from my heart when I started to watch him- but couldn’t. I had gone to the church site before they scrubbed it. It was not too hard to keep ahead of the press.
Still, dutiful Democrat that I was, i tried to march onto his website and read the alleged plan and listen to some speeches top to bottom and I was frankly appalled at the hollowness, the emptiness.
Hillary supporter that I was, I believed it when i heard a story you no longer hear and hardly heard then: In Iowa, the press knew about John Edwards (how could they not know?) but they kept it under their Press Hats so Edwards would split off Hillary’s votes. It has the ring of truth – but in this age, who knows?
Adding to that was the song they played for him when he took the stage to thank Iowa – and I knew we were in for a big Icarus party.
Now we are in the middle of it. Please pass a cold ginger ale and an umbrella. People like us do not deserve to have his wax wings fall on our heads. Go debaters, tonight!
If it takes pain for people to resist hypnotism because they are too gullible to resist it in other ways, then so shall it be.
My suspicions started when I saw formerly rational people treating him as the coming of a savior. Cults of personality always bother me. I am immediately suspicious of anyone who cultivates a cult following. That’s one reason I could never vote for Barak Obama or Ron Paul.
Are people become unhypnotized? I think so and concomitant with that would be a feeling of betrayal and outrage at being duped.
Obama’s supporters were, in the campaign speech events, duped into equating pacing statements (You are here tonight) with suggestions (I should be President).
But it should be noted, as Ymarsaker implies, that Obama’s supporters wanted to by hypnotized and would dearly love to remain hypnotized and are quite angry that Obama has so failed as to make them undergo the event of re-assessing their critical factors.
Lefty heads will pop when Obama asks to extend the tax break for corporate jets tonight.
The once credulous – now disabused may cut back on the hyperbole that was Obama’s messianism, intellectualism, and stimulism (personal, not fiscal), if only to fend off charges of insanity. The Obama (organizer) administration, with nothing to show for its tenure but assorted misprisions, hasn’t much of a stump to run on. It is left then to run against something, against the “nigger” spewing, spittle spraying, Nazi inclining, Tea Party/Republican haters.
The true believers, those with a dog in the fight — teachers, municipal/state employees, workers (unions), the poor (spongers), minorities (entitled), scaremongers, and the ‘compassionate’, will take up the fight and ratchet up the hyperbole as evidenced recently by J. Hoffa Jr. (organizer). The radicalization of the desperate will spare no invective or tactic. Expect agents provocateurs, guerilla theater, and variations on the theme ‘no justice no peace’.
The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
– Saul Alinsky (organizer)
The MSM is carefully distancing itself so as to retrieve its effectiveness for next year when it lays its head in Obama’s lap again -“See, we criticized him, but he is still better than the evil opposition and almost as good as we told you in 2008”.
I am one of those tea party grandma’s and I swear if I had been at that Labor Day speech, I would have been on the platform yelling “bring it on, Jr, you want a piece of me?” (Good for a laugh, no?)
Neoneocon,
Regarding how difficult it is to change one’s mind: I have long maintained that the three most difficult words to say for anyone are “I was wrong.” We do mental, moral and emotional cartwheels to avoid admitting that.
Regarding Hillary supporters who doubted Obama I say shame on them. To support Hillary because one has bad feelings about Obama and then to disregard those feelings and vote for Obama because he’s the party nominee evinces either the height of hypocrisy or a lack of serious conviction. At least those who still support Obama are consistent if misguided.
If the Left (and the Media) ever truly loses faith in Obama it won’t come with the realization that they were wrong to paint conservatives as racists for ever disagreeing with Obama but that they were wrong to do the same to Bill & Hillary Clinton. That way they don’t have to admit error so much as a little too much zealousness in a righteous cause.
Sometimes the trick is just walking a fine enough line so that on the one hand you can sleep at night and on the other your head doesn’t explode from cognitive dissonance. Not sure they have any other possible path to walk at this point.
I couldn’t stand Obama after hearing him speak for the first time at the 2004 democrat convention. He was a full of s*** collectivist with grandiose visions of himself on that night and nothings changed except our country is paying a dear price for electing him.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/the_cult_of_obama.html
Some Obamites may become unhypnotized but others, most likely the majority, will degenerate into violence, and it will be violence against women and children.
This meme is saturating through the mediasphere. You can find the new meme appearing first as an Orwellian projection. In this case, it was the zombie game of killing in a blood bath Bachman and Palin. That the targets were women is a reminder to liberal woman to not defect. It is a pure sign that the left has only fear and violence left to it.
T: some of those Hillary-supporters did not vote for Obama.
Curtis,
And IMO the more they revert to these base attacks on people who are more and more seen as normal (if not laudable) individuals, the more they weaken their own cause.
I sense that this is already happening with George W. Bush. People still remember the vicious attacks on him. In contrast, he has conducted himself with decorum both in and out of office and many of his most reviled policies have been continued by Obama. This normalizes the once-reviled policies and dilutes the justification for the past attacks. The rabid Bushitler hating trolls who have simply switched targets look increasingly puerile by comparison (Here they go again!).
An Independent may not want a Republican at the helm, but compared to a Democrat supported by foaming-at-the-mouth reprobates a Repub may not seem to be such a bad choice.
And the difference between Baraq and Hillary is what, exactly? Only gender and colour, as best I can tell.
To the base: You wanted Hillarycare? You got Obamacare. You wanted deviousness achieving objectives in a white female, but you got it in a black male. You wanted redistribution, open borders, diversity, a crippled military and a dying bourgeoisie; you got it. Got it all. What’s the beef?
Neoneocon,
That must certainly be true; there are always exceptions to the general rule. My comment above was not directed at them.
T: actually, what I meant was, some of my friends who fit into that category did not vote for Obama. They wrote in Hillary’s name instead.
Don Carlos: their beef was they did not like the way Obama and his supporters treated Hillary. They perceived condescension, hypocrisy, and misogyny. That made them not trust Obama on what they saw as women’s issues, and not trust him in general.
Don Carlos,
I’m not a Hillary supporter (never was), and I don’t think your comparison is quite fair. E.g., I bet you’d never see Hillary bowing to a Saudi sheik or the mayor of Miami.
Neo,
Thanks. I did assume that you were referencing personal experience.
Actually there was another instance when the press backed away from one of Obama’s scapegoating efforts. Recall that Obama tried to smear the US Chamber of Commerce for some reason before the midterm. The press reported it and then avoided it; possibly due to the total absence of any proof. Obama and team quickly retreated from the claim after it apparently backfired.
Now he has focused on the Tea Party for some reason. Recall Hitler saying that if the Jews did not exist we would have to create them. Or as Eric Hoffer noted: a mass movement cannot exist without hate. Now it’s the Tea Party that has stabbed America in the back. Let’s see so far he has scapegoated: corporate jet owners, the rich, tea partiers, the US Chamber of Commerce, George Bush , bad luck, and “they”. Can anyone think of any other entities trying to ruin Barack?
I never bought into the lofty speech – just didn’t “get” how this was evidence of his intelligence and ability to the lead the country. However, I have gone from initially being underwhelmed to flat out mistrust, anxiety, and disbelief.
Unlike most politicians (e.g. Bill Clinton), Obama doesn’t just finesse, or spin away inconvenient facts or details, he brazenly lies. Obama doesn’t engage in back-room deals, he uses Chicago-style political thuggery. He doesn’t even try to work with others to implement his plans, he just goes outside the system (Congress) and implements his policies via the EPA, DOJ, etc.
And all the while he acts like he’s doing us a favor, that being president is a burden that we little people could never understand. That any complaints from Congress, Governors, and citizens are both petty and not worthy of his time.
THAT’s the message I get every time he speaks. I wonder if Tabbi has finally started hearing the same message.
and (O/T) speaking of bowing to the mayor of Miami, the real import of that moment just struck me (up until now I was just struck by its absurdity).
This woman (the mayor) was an American citizen by birth of Chinese heritage, yet Obama exercised a Chinese custom in an attempt to look worldly and sophisticated.
What he revealed was not just ignorance (bowing to an American mayor) but also how shallow his perception of the world is. You bow to anyone who LOOKS Chinese??!!. This is like saying all black people eat watermelon, all Mexicans are lazy, all Irish are drunkards, all Polish are stupid, all Republicans are evil reactionary corporatists, all rich people are rich because they exploit others and all doctors amputate limbs just to make money.
Could it be that Hillary supporters saw condescension, hypocrisy and misogyny because that’s what Obama thinks of women?
Does anyone here remember just what the circumstances were when Obama referred to something as “just words”?
Right there, he defined all that comes out of his mouth:
“noise”.
–
“Unlike most politicians (e.g. Bill Clinton), Obama doesn’t just finesse, or spin away inconvenient facts or details, he brazenly lies.”
That is the most frustrating thing about BHO’s rise to power. His lies and contradictions are so blatant and the MSM ignores his obvious duplicity. If BHO was an aboriginal American his name would be Lies With Two Tongues.
Does anyone remember the incredible arrogance of my favorite Obama quote, circa February 2009?
“I like being President. And it turns out I’m pretty good at it.”
This, after being President all of one month, having accomplished nothing and been challenged by nothing.
You can still find the blogs that linked to it at the time… but the newspapers seem to have thrown that one down the memory hole. Pity.
I never had to hear a word, from the moment i saw who his family was, his associates, and the connections to bigger things around the world over two generations…
i knew what would come next… just as now articles like this are stepping forward
Avoiding Armageddon with China
shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/09/06/avoiding_armageddon_with_china
but thats just one of many things
though we tend to not pay attention to a lot of things, but just a few and mostly self absorbed stuff… just look at the subjects vs other things in the world…
right now, i would wonder…
After his speech does worse than nothing towards what his goals are, what is Obama willing to do to remain leader?
its a valid question given that i have watched everyone slowly over years catch up to where i was before he was even elected. so now rather than assume the normal, what would or could change things? would bold negative action of an extreme kind reverse the fellowships ire on the extreme side?
ok.. even worse…
what options are available that have been used before and such use being only limited by discretion since then?
what options are available that can cause ‘noise’ of the kind that then facilitates?
what will happen when welfare payments cant happen, or they cant go up? what will happen when the knockout game becomes more and more common? (anyone notice that the failure to allow even a small moderate group for one scapegoat group… now has some of them being driven into the arms of more extreme elements?)
what will external countries do or not do?
the magic of the magician is that it happens while you are watching and not looking elsewhere…
Wait, I found an instance:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/215bpfvr.asp
Paul in Houston,
I remember the “just words” speech because that was when I saw Obama for the empty shell that he is.
The speech was written to use irony; trhe phrase “just words” followed after several major quotes (e.g., Martin Luther King, “I have a dream,” just words). The intent of the speechwriters was clearly to emphasize that these were NOT just words, but Obama read them off the teleprompter and when he said “just words” it seemed like he was reaffirming that these important quotes were, indeed, only words.
I realized then that he didn’t even understand what he was reading, that his oratorical skills were bogus (good only when highly practiced, not consistent even then and not a matter of true conviction).
Damn, I was already suspicious of the One and his embarrassingly thin resume as soon as he came out of the Dem Convention over Her Inevitableness, as I used to call Hilary Clinton. I went looking in the old archives at the Brief, for my first mention of The Won from 2008, and couldn’t find it, but I did find this nice rant from June of last year. It’s a magnificant rant, and if I can be permitted to go the length of an Artfldgr post, I should like to present it in full.
“I see by the headlines this morning that the President gave a prime-time speech on TV last night . . . gee, like that hasn’t happened lately? Or what seems like every week since a year ago January. Vacation, speech, vacation speech, party at the WH, speech, vacation, trip to someplace or other, speech, vacation . . . It’s a grueling schedule, people — I for one, can barely keep up with it. Nor can I listen to the sound of that sonorous, empty-content equivalent of political cotton-candy for another minute; so thanks — I’ll just do a quick scan of the transcript . . . oh, like cotton candy, it shrivels down to a couple of teaspoons of sugar syrup, once all the hot air has been excised.
Looks like it went over like the proverbial lead balloon; kind of the cherry on the top of the bitter sundae of disappointment with our president among those who were stumbling in a golden haze of worship and adoration a bare eighteen months ago; yes, I am have been detecting the stirrings of disaffection and careful distancing of themselves from the shadow of the Glorious One — especially among the punditocracy, who were so quick to go down on their knees so many months ago. Talk about wailing and lamentations — I might have to get some earplugs soon, if creatures like Maureen Dowd, Peggy Noonan and Jon Stewart get any shriller. Over at my digs on Open Salon, the murmurings among the up-to-know obedient faithful are still as a gentle surf: they are bewildered, not quite openly rebellious yet. (And too damn many of them are still using the t******er slur . . . oh, Carrie Fisher? You are dead to me now. Never shall I spend money on one of your books or movies again.) Where was I — oh, enjoying a quiet romp through the meadows of schadenfreude, and biting back my impulse to snarl at the poor bewildered lefty darlings to grow a pair, or a spine, and ask them — well, what did you expect, you idiots?
Yes, what did you expect, supporting and voting into the highest office in the land, a charming and well-spoken cipher, with a resume of real accomplishment thinner than Callista Flockhart’s thighs, a jet-propelled affirmative action fast-burner shooting up the ladder so fast that all negative fall-out was left far, far behind, who never held a meaningful job in an industry, a small business, or in the military, a man with a lot of rather embarrassing friends and connections, a hollow man from the bowels of the Chicago political machine — than which there is none in the land possibly more corrupt or unaccountable – with no real and perceptible managerial talent, who can’t speak off-the-cuff and off-the-teleprompter in any coherent fashion . . . yes, what did you $#&$king well expect? I won’t even go into the list of the One’s other incompetencies, it’s too &$@king depressing.
I perceive though, that many who were only too happy to support him back then are now very, very sorry. I perceive also that many of us be sorrier still, in the very near future, so for those who went all starry-eyed over the One Who Some Of You Were Waiting For, I have a request. Apologize, publicly, abjectly and without reservation, for your part in having landed us with this malevolent fool. Wear sackcloth and ashes, stand in the marketplace for a day — and if you were a prominent pundit, a Hollywood personality or news-reporting professional (or any combination — it gets hard to tell, sometimes) who went all ga-ga for the O-man, then I suggest that a spot of hari-kiri would not be out of place, either. Perhaps you can expiate some of your guilt by driving a tanker truck full of dish detergent down to the Gulf Coast and spending the next few months de-oiling sea birds. I don’t care — just stay out of politics, away from the microphone and out of the voting booth for the near future, since you have demonstrated yourself to be too #$&%king gullible to have any civic responsibility expected of you.
Thank you for your kind indulgence – this was one of my finer rants.
I don’t like listening to most any politician, but I haven’t been able to stomach Obama since he was elected to the Senate, back when the only thing I knew about him was that he was on the news on the ship, calling his wife up as…his “baby mama.”
Gag. Fake and tacky.
Looks like he has lost the Hamptons, oh my!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/its-no-longer-obama-land-in-the-hamptons/2011/09/06/gIQAoJWS6J_blog.html#pagebreak
Whats got into the post lately?????
Obama, like evolution, gives us only information which makes us sick.
Sgt. Mom,
Great post!
Instapundit apologizes-not for his frequent rhetorical question, “How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?”
It’s juvenile, but he wants to try to impress Obama voters [at a level, I think, they can understand] not to do such a thing again in his lifetime.
Up your nose, in your face, you screwed up. No equivocating, no excuses, no getting around it, facts are right there, don’t bloody do it again you morons.
I’d allow for the morons to keep saying they were right and it’s all Bush’s fault as long as they don’t vote like that again.
Does anyone remember the incredible arrogance of my favorite Obama quote, circa February 2009?
“I like being President. And it turns out I’m pretty good at it.”
That was a classic, but my two favorites were from the campaign. The first is his reference to his campaign as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” When no laughed, I knew we were in trouble.
The second was his tagline, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” In an audience of unbeguiled people of normal intelligence this would occasion each person to turn to his fellow with a “WTF?” expression. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for??” We’ve been waiting … for ourselves? Huh? That doesn’t even make sense.
I’ll discreetly elide the fawning masses giving Obama the emesis-inducing “O” salute. That was profoundly creepy.
I would dearly like to see the Left try to unleash violence on America in a massive scale. Many of us have been waiting for a pretext to show them what real mastery of violence and war looks like in the US.
The Left are already doing so on a local scale.
But many still advocate peace and upholding the Constitutional order. They will only be convinced if the Left over steps their side of things, believing that enough people have been cowled by weak Union thugs.
Given that I live near Seattle– which is already known for being stupid about rioting– I’d rather they don’t try to be violent. Too many will have seen that dang commercial for that vampire movie that points out you don’t have to cross a threshold to burn it down.
Occam’s Beard
Occam, it was very appropriate for you to include both the “oceans receding” and “we are the ones” passages for their overweening chutzpah. In addition, the two passages are connected, via Alice Walker. When ∅bama said “We are the ones we have been waiting for,” he was making a literary allusion to a book of essays by Alice Walker titled We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For. A blurb about the book from her website reminds us of The Won.
Compare this to ∅bama’s “oceans receding” speech.
Note that both Alice Walker in her blurb and ∅bama in his “oceans receding” speech make references to the environment and to ending war. Walker makes explicit references to racism, oppression, and women, which ∅bama does not. ∅bama makes explicit references to jobs and medical care, which Walker does not.
The similarities and differences in their wish lists are united by the assumption that not only is the likes of Alice and ∅bama are THE ONES who will bring us heaven on earth, but their acolytes are also THE ONES who will bring us heaven on earth. It is as if ∅bama had read Alice Walker’s essays and said, “Yes. I am THE WON who will do all that. I am THE WON you all have been waiting for.” Her book was published in 2006, two years before ∅bama’s speech, which settles the question: who was copying whom?
Alice Walker married a Caucasian. Obama is the product of an interracial marriage. A more important point in common is that modesty is unbecoming to both of them.