Barack Obama, the adolescent president by AURaptor

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Barack Obama, the adolescent president

POSTED BY: AURAPTOR
UPDATED: Thursday, May 15, 2014 20:37
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Tuesday, May 13, 2014 4:12 PM

America loves a winner!

Recently, Barack Obama — a Demosthenes determined to elevate our politics from coarseness to elegance; a Pericles sent to ameliorate our rhetorical impoverishment — spoke at the University of Michigan. He came to that very friendly venue — in 2012, he received 67?percent of the vote in Ann Arbor’s county — after visiting a local sandwich shop, where a muse must have whispered in the presidential ear. Rep.?Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had recently released his budget, so Obama expressed his disapproval by calling it, for the benefit of his academic audience, a “meanwich” and a “stinkburger.”

Try to imagine Franklin Roosevelt or Dwight Eisenhower or John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan talking like that. It is unimaginable that those grown-ups would resort to japes that fourth-graders would not consider sufficiently clever for use on a playground.

When Theodore Roosevelt was president, one of his good friends — he had been best man at TR’s 1886 wedding — was the British diplomat Cecil Spring Rice . So, when visitors to Washington wanted to learn about TR, they asked Rice about him, and Springie, as TR called him, would say: “You must always remember that the president is about 6.” Today’s president is older than that. But he talks like an arrested-development adolescent.

Anyone who has tried to engage a member of that age cohort in an argument probably recognizes the four basic teenage tropes, which also are the only arrows in Obama’s overrated rhetorical quiver. He employed them all last week when he went to the White House briefing room to exclaim, as he is wont to do, about the excellence of the Affordable Care Act.

First came the invocation of a straw man. Celebrating the ACA’s enrollment numbers, Obama, referring to Republicans, charged: “They said nobody would sign up.” Of course, no one said this. Obama often is what political philosopher Kenneth Minogue said of an adversary — “a pyromaniac in a field of straw men.”

Adolescents also try to truncate arguments by saying that nothing remains of any arguments against their arguments. Regarding the ACA, Obama said the debate is “settled” and “over.” Progressives also say the debate about catastrophic consequences of man-made climate change is “over,” so everyone should pipe down. And they say the debates about the efficacy of universal preschool, and the cost-benefit balance of a minimum-wage increase, are over. Declaring an argument over is so much more restful than engaging with evidence.

A third rhetorical move by argumentative adolescents is to declare that there is nothing to argue about because everything is going along swimmingly. Seven times Obama asserted that the ACA is “working.” That is, however, uninformative because it is ambiguous. The ethanol program is “working” in the sense that it is being implemented as its misguided architects intended. Nevertheless, the program is a substantial net subtraction from the nation’s well-being. The same can be said of sugar import quotas, or agriculture subsidies generally, or many hundreds of other government programs that are, unfortunately, “working.”

Finally, the real discussion-stopper for the righteous — and there is no righteousness like an adolescent’s — is an assertion that has always been an Obama specialty. It is that there cannot be honorable and intelligent disagreement with him. So last week, less than two minutes after saying that the argument about the ACA “isn’t about me,” Obama said some important opposition to the ACA is about him, citing “states that have chosen not to expand Medicaid for no other reason than political spite.”

This, he said, must be spiteful because expanding Medicaid involves “zero cost to these states.” Well. The federal government does pay the full cost of expansion — for three years. After that, however, states will pay up to 10 percent of the expansion’s costs, which itself will be a large sum. And the 10 percent figure has not been graven on stone by the finger of God. It can be enlarged whenever Congress wants, as surely it will, to enable more federal spending by imposing more burdens on the states. Yet Obama, who aspired to tutor Washington about civility, is incapable of crediting opponents with other than base motives.

About one thing Obama was right, if contradictory. He said Americans want politicians to talk about other subjects — but that Democrats should campaign by celebrating the wondrousness of the ACA. This would be candid because it is what progressivism is — a top-down, continent-wide tissue of taxes, mandates and other coercions. Is the debate about it over? Not quite.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-barack-obama-the-
adolescent-president/2014/04/23/a835f872-ca3e-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html?wprss=rss_george-will

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Tuesday, May 13, 2014 5:53 PM

JONGSSTRAW

Ah, George Will, D.C. liberals' most beloved token conservative cocktail party guest. Has only taken him five years to build up the courage to wade into the water up to his ankles. Fuck him and his Brooks Bros. bow tie collection.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2014 6:08 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw: Has only taken him five years to build up the courage to wade into the water up to his ankles. Fuck him and his Brooks Bros. bow tie collection.

Seriously. I knew Barry was thin skinned when he got all fussy when anyone remarked ( in a very light hearted manner ) about his ears.

Quote:
In her October 21, 2008, New York Times column, Maureen Dowd wrote that potential Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is "intriguingly imperfect," citing as one example the fact that "[h]is ears stick out." In a December 11 weblog entry, Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet wrote that Obama, following a press conference the previous day in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, "headed toward New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and chided her -- in a kidding way -- for a comment in the 12th of 14 paragraphs in an Oct 21 column. She wrote that Obama's 'ears stick out.' " During the exchange, Obama said: "I just want to put you on notice. I'm very sensitive," adding, "I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears."

http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-s-ears

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Tuesday, May 13, 2014 6:32 PM

JONGSSTRAW

Leftist Maureen Dowd has been more critical of Obama than George Will has been. He's no King Charles...more like his court jester.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2014 6:36 PM

CHRISISALL

I don't APPRECIATE this trashing of my Hero.
Don't you guys have anything better to do?? Obama is NOT to be made fun of or criticized for ANY- ooooo, look! A drone!

What was I saying...?

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Wednesday, May 14, 2014 10:35 AM

JONGSSTRAW

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:

Seriously. I knew Barry was thin skinned when he got all fussy when anyone remarked ( in a very light hearted manner ) about his ears.

I focused on George Will yesterday when the real topic was Obama's high school prom queen presidency. His Administration is like one big sequel movie to 'Heathers' and 'Mean Girls'. Leader of the free world? Har har har dee har har!

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Wednesday, May 14, 2014 10:35 AM

JONGSSTRAW

President Crybaby wants his pacifier

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Wednesday, May 14, 2014 2:13 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
President Crybaby wants his pacifier

Technically speakin', it's all Reagan's fault. He set the stage for every major problem we face today. The Presidents that followed could NEVER haved effed-up the world quite as effectively without his tireless work.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2014 3:03 PM

JONGSSTRAW

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:

Technically speakin', it's all Reagan's fault. He set the stage for every major problem we face today.

Don't keel over from shock, but I actually agree with that ... but probably for different reasons than yours.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2014 3:22 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
... but probably for different reasons than yours.

In part, mine are his de-taxing & de-regulating; he started the trajectory into orbit of the 1% & the concentration of wealth out of the economy and into banks, and showed US companies that they were freer than ever to do as they pleased and make profit from every which direction leading of course to 2008. What's yours?

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Wednesday, May 14, 2014 7:11 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:

Technically speakin', it's all Reagan's fault. He set the stage for every major problem we face today.

Don't keel over from shock, but I actually agree with that ... but probably for different reasons than yours.

The old guy had too much faith in the Democrats ( and fellow Republicans ) that they'd to the right thing, later on down the road.

None did.

Blame Reagan for being an optimist, in a world of elitist, greedy dick heads.

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Thursday, May 15, 2014 8:37 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:

Technically speakin', it's all Reagan's fault. He set the stage for every major problem we face today.

Don't keel over from shock, but I actually agree with that ... but probably for different reasons than yours.

The old guy had too much faith in the Democrats ( and fellow Republicans ) that they'd to the right thing, later on down the road.

None did.

Blame Reagan for being an optimist, in a world of elitist, greedy dick heads.

Finally, something we can honestly blame Reagan for. You found the one item.

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