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The AFL-CIO has a video with unemployed Americans telling, well actually, pleading with President Obama and Congress to extend unemployment benefits. As I watched the video, I felt so terribly sad. How did we get here? Why has it come to this? I’m old enough to have seen two serious recessions. I remember the gas lines in the Carter years. Yes, I got rich during the Reagan years but I couldn’t stand him. Nor the Bushes. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when a young articluate African American rose to the Presidency. Now, as I compare my elation with the horror of how he has governed, I am simply despairing. Where do we go from here?
I think it’s important to look for the clues we may have missed the first time in evaluating this man we now have in the White House. What did I miss? Now, I think I know. It’s been dawning on me that Barack Obama is mentally disturbed. He appears to be a classic narcissist. The Weekly Standard and LA Times have started calling him, “The American Narcissus”. And you know what? They’re right. Obama is drowning in hubris. One characteristic of all clinical narcissists is that they lack empathy. Just don’t get it. That sympathy thing escapes them.
And that’s what’s going on. He lacks the very capacity we need right now in a President, the capacity to feel our pain. And do something about it.
So, the next time I pull the lever, it will certainly not be for Barack Obama. It won’t be for that dimwit Sarah Palin either. God help us if those are our only two choices.
12 Comments
Regarding: “I think it’s important to look for the clues we may have missed the first time in evaluating this man we now have in the White House.”
What did you miss?
My final straw with Obama was the telecom immunity betrayal; I knew then that there was no way I could support him for president.
But my concerns actually started back in April 2007, with articles like this:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/1/318352/-Obama-caves-to-Bush
We need to call for Obama’s resignation. I’ve been doing that for weeks now. I notice that Julian Assange just joined the Party. How about all the Firepups?
The Obama we voted for never existed. He was a figment of his own imagination.
Narcissistic personality:
* Glibness/superficial charm
* Grandiose sense of self-worth
* Pathological lying
* Cunning/manipulative
* Lack of remorse or guilt
* Callous/lack of empathy
* Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Hmmmm. I really hope not.
“Narcissistic personality”
It’s clear to me that he’s at least that. No hope will change it.
It wouldn’t be hard to make the case that he’s a sociopath.
To answer the question in your title: he never existed. Sorry, but it’s the truth. Don’t feel bad. You weren’t the only one he conned.
Obama conned me too. I was for John Edwards, got fooled with him, and then Obama is a total Republican operative.
You’re correct of course. I recognized it myself in early 2007. Due to a complicated set of circumstances (including particular volunteer work I’ve done, etc.), I’ve interacted with an unusually large number of diagnosed narcissists over time. Someone else who had extensive experience with narcissists first drew it to my attention with Obama. I really didn’t want to believe it at first (was strongly motivated not to). Then, when the conclusion became inescapable, no-one I told would believe me. Felt like Cassandra from Greek mythology (she had the gift of prophecy, with the accompanying curse that no-one would believe her predictions, leaving her entirely powerless to forestall tragedy). So I went from the despair of watching Bush to the despair of apprehending what would happen under Obama (with no intervening break).
I wasn’t a big Obama supporter ever. Initially I wanted John Edwards, who, despite his personal failings, I still think had some potential to do a good job as POTUS. Unfortunately, what he did was inexcusable, albeit if he had been a Republican, it most likely would have been “ok.”
With Edwards out of the running, I leaned towards Clinton but only by holding my nose. I wasn’t thrilled with either Clinton or Obama, and I believe that both were too corporatist & rightwing for my liking. We’ll never know how Hils would’ve run the show, and I’m no big Clinton fan. That said, I tend to *feel* that the Clintons have *some feelings* for the proles, and I don’t see Hilary as a narcissist.
I now wish I had voted for Cynthia McKinney, rather than Obama. where I was mostly conned was with the zillionaires trotting out Palin to scare us into voting for Obama. By golly, they really did fool me with that one.
That said, I never expected Obama to be the complete, utter, abject, venal, craven, scum-sucking bottom dweller that he is. What a jerk. Frankly, I figured he’d cave on a number of issues, *as the Dems ALWAYS do,* but Obama’s job performance is abyssmally appalling.
Primary him from the left. Let’s get rid of the corporate tool.
If you’re a Democrat, you will vote for Obama in 2012. What choice do you have otherwise? A wasted Green Party vote? I can only believe that there will be no alternatives? For progressives and liberals, it is bad or worse. Nonvotes leave the election wide open for the Republicans.
This scenario is what Obama is counting on. Will the Republicans complain that he signed a bill into law that extended tax cuts for the wealthy. I don’t think so. Will Democrats complain that he did so and vote for the other candidate, a Republican? Don’t think so.
“Nonvotes leave the election wide open for the Republicans.”
Where they will fail, and then the NEXT election comes and we have a chance at a candidate interested in representing us again. Keep your eye on the prize. Obama has failed and shows no interest in learning from the experience. Moving on.
Could a Republican do worse? I mean, at some point, you have to ask, who can talk sense to corporations? At some point, even corporate managers have to recognize that their corporations are killing their revenue source, which is a business plan fail. That building new penthouses in a house of cards while the bottom is collapsing is a fail in progress. It’s a matter of time, even in 11th dimensional chess. The business plan needs to change, whether they’re forced to do it or they choose to do it. Meanwhile, Obama sucks.