Tuesday, November 9, 2010

It's Not Me.... It's You... You're Too Stupid

Sometimes relationships hit bumpy spots. One side or the other gets a little wee wee’d up and soon you find yourself having to issue some form of apology to calm things down. Fortunately, I am the master of the seemingly-real apology! Let me run this by you and see what you make of it:

I figure I'll start by showing that I understand what the real problem is, that I know why she's upset:

I understand you’re upset Honey Bunny, and I know why. You thought we’d have more money by now, but that didn’t happen and now you’re cranky. . .
What? You don't like that? Ok, I'll change it to this:
“Yesterday's vote confirmed what I've heard from folks all across America. People are frustrated, they're deeply frustrated with the pace of our economic recovery. . . .”

“I think first and foremost, it was a referendum on the economy. And the party in power was held responsible for an economy that is still underperforming and where a lot of folks are still hurting. . . . .”
Now I want to make it clear that I sympathize with her concerns, even if it isn't my fault:
Look, I’m frustrated too, but this was not my fault. The whole money thing is beyond anyone’s control. . .
What? Again? Fine, I'll go with the altenative:
“I do get discouraged, I mean, there are times where I thought the economy would [have] gotten better by now. As president… you’re held responsible for everything. But you don't always have control of everything. Especially an economy this big— there are limited tools to encourage— the kind of job growth that we need.”
Now I think I should probably mention the other things she's upset about:
And as for the other things, well. . . look, I did the right things, even though I knew you wouldn’t get that. I even knew you might be unhappy about it, but I did it all for you. Still, wow, did you take this a lot worse than I expected. . .
Oh come on, that was gold! Fine. I'll change it:
“At the time, we knew that it probably wasn’t great politics. I made the decision to go ahead and do it and it proved as costly politically, as we expected. Probably actually a little more costly than we expected, politically.”
You people are too picky. You know, I only did what she wanted... and I should tell her that!
Heck, I only did what you said you liked before. . .
Alright, alright:
“We thought that if we shaped a bill that wasn’t that different from bills that had previously been introduced by Republicans, including a Republican Governor in Massachusetts who’s now running for president, we would be able to find some common ground there. And we just couldn’t.”
And it's not like I didn't take heat from my friends for trying to be nice about this. She should know that:
My friends said you were an idiot and you wouldn’t understand, but I stood up for you. I told them you just have a different way of thinking. . . and that’s ok, we can’t all be perfect. . .
Yeah, yeah... I know. "Try and say it nicer." blah blah blah. Here:
“I will say that when it comes to some of-- my supporters— part of it, I think, is-- the belief that if I just communicated things better, that I’d be able to persuade-- that half of the country that voted for John McCain that we were right and they were wrong.”
“One of the things that I think is important for people to remember is that-- you know, this country-- doesn’t just agree with the New York Times editorial page. And, I can make some really good arguments-- defending the Democratic position. And there are going to be some people who just don’t agree with me. And that’s okay."
Ok, time to get to the point, I do share some of the blame:
Still, I freely admit that I am partly to blame here. I thought all I had to do was do the right things and you’d get it. I didn’t realize I had to dumb it down for you. . .
What?! Man you people are high maintenance! Oh, ok. I'll rephrase it to soften the blow:
“I think that, over the course of two years we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that we stopped paying attention to the fact that, yeah, leadership isn’t just legislation, that it’s a matter of persuading people and giving them confidence and bringing them together, and setting a tone. We haven’t always been successful at that, and I take personal responsibility for that. And it’s something that I have to examine carefully as I go forward.”
Happy now? Let's finish strong with a couple of classics, first the old shared blame -- "we both said things we regret":
“Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified. Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don't exempt myself.”
Nice! Notice how it sounds like I'm admitting fault, but I never actually say those words! Then we finish with a promise for the future, the old "we can work this out, if you just start listening to the facts."
“We’re going to have a negotiation. I am open to-- you know, finding a way in which, you know, they can meet their principles and I can meet mine. But in order to do that, I think we do have to answer the question of how we pay for it…. Hopefully, we can agree on a set of facts that leads to a compromise.”
Fantastic! Guaranteed relationship saver! I worked all night on that baby. Hmm... I’m sensing resistance. Well, if you don't like this, then you aren’t going to like what Obama just said.

Of course, none of us should be surprised that Obama would take this approach with us. This is the man who sees us as bitter clingers: "It's not surprising, then, that they get bitter and they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them." He also thought it was “stupid” to arrest a belligerent black man who appeared to be breaking into a residence. He called those of us who disagreed with him “enemies,” his minister damned our country, and his wife was proud of America for the first time only after it promoted her husband beyond his level of competence. Those aren’t coincidences.

One of liberalism’s many problems has been the perception by the public that liberals are arrogant and condescend to us hopelessly stupid and backward people. Indeed, one of the things Bill Clinton was notable for was his ability to relate to the public, something none of the pointy-headed wunderkinds and self-certified geniuses from the 1960s until 1992 could ever do. I guess Obama proves that Clinton was indeed an anomaly.

And as for Obama’s apology or statement that he understands us or whatever. . . forget it, non-apology not accepted.

40 comments:

Joel Farnham said...

Andrew,

One thing I worried about before the election is if Obama could change enough to fool the people like Clinton fooled the people. Looks like my fears were unfounded. Obama still is the most clueless president evah!!

What's next in his arsenal? I know he has a lot of czars and is quick with the edicts a.k.a. executive orders.

AndrewPrice said...

Joel, I wondered if he could change, but it never struck me that he had the personality to change course. Right now, everything he says tells me that does not have the ability to change. If anything, he's getting nastier towards us. Almost everything he's said in the past week has been "the public is too stupid to get me."

Next come executive orders, agencies trying to exceed their authority, and attempts to shift as much to czars as possible. I have no doubt about that. He's going to try to run the government without the Congress.

Joel Farnham said...

Andrew,

The attempt to rule America through Czars and what all is where I suspect Issa should investigate.

AndrewPrice said...

Joel, I think he will. He's talking about investigating things like the EPA, which has been running out of control for the last two years.

If I'm hearing him correctly, then he's talking about giving Congress it's oversight role again.... something that vanished under Pelosi.

Let's hope.

Unknown said...

Ditto. What you said.

Joel Farnham said...

LawHawk,

Are you getting double clicks with your mouse? If you are, I had that same problem. I had to replace my mouse.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, Then we agree. :-)

AndrewPrice said...

Joel, Double clicks? Something techy wrong with the site?

Joel Farnham said...

Andrew,

I am getting two responses from LawHawk. I don't get two from you, and I don't get two from me. Just LawHawk.

A while back, I would get double clicks from my mouse which made it hard to control what I wrote. I think maybe LawHawk has the same problem.

AndrewPrice said...

Ah, ok. Sounds like a mouse issue. Thanks.

Pittsburgh Enigma said...

I love the following line: "As president… you’re held responsible for everything. But you don't always have control of everything. Especially an economy this big— there are limited tools to encourage— the kind of job growth that we need."

So we're supposed to forgive Obama for the bad economy because presidents really don't have that much power to control it, but we're supposed to blame Bush for the bad economy because he had all that presidential power before it magically evaporated when Obama arrived on the scene. UN-BE-LIEVABLE.

AndrewPrice said...

Pitts, Great point! Totally hypocritical! But that's nothing new for the left.

I am really sick of the hypocrisy by the left. Look at Congress for example, they have been sending budgets to the Presidents for years, and then blaming the Presidents for the budgets they themselves sent. I remember Tip O'Neill saying that Reagan's budget was "D.O.A." Then they turned around and blamed him for deficit spending. . . unbelievable.

And this is just shameless. They have been blaming every single bad economic number on Bush personally as if he were out there stealing from people's pockets and putting padlocks on buildings. Yet now that Obama is being blamed for the bad economy, somehow the economy is a random number generator that can't be influenced by Obama's policies? Give me a break!

Ponderosa said...

I don't know what you clingers are going on about.
You must have done something dumb and told him you were taxpayers.

Said I was the 'King of Siam'.

[PBHO looking at me] King...? yeS I AM.

mumbled somthing about being bald (huh???)...

I got a $1B cash AND he apologized. Then he bowed.
Suckers.

AndrewPrice said...

Ponderosa, I never said anything about be a taxpayer -- I know what the government does to those saps.... virtual slaves!

Yeah, bowing to the Indians now. Is there no one this man won't bow to? Other than the will of the American public of course.

T_Rav said...

Andrew, I think this line is rather telling.

"As president… you’re held responsible for everything. But you don't always have control of everything."

As another blogger asked, has Obama been reading Hayek? I realize the point he's trying to make here, but one of the first economic lessons you ought to learn is that even if you're President, you don't always have control of everything, you NEVER have control of everything. In fact, more often you don't have control of ANYTHING. I guess Obama missed that lesson (and all the others).

AndrewPrice said...

T_Rav, You are making a very subtle and interesting point, you are basically saying that Obama seems surprised to discover that things aren't like he thought? In other words, he fully expected to find that he could make the economy grow or shrink by fiat and now he's shocked to find out just how beyond his power that really is?

That's an interesting point, because it does lend credence to him being a Marxist in his thinking, if he really did believe that he had the power to dictate how the economy would work!

I was just looking at his comments more from the perspective of how his apology is a non-apology and how he continues to look down upon us.... but you raise something very, very interesting!

Nice thinking! :-)

Tennessee Jed said...

non-apology not accepted. Vote to repeal Obamacare now. Let's let those senators go on record again about where they stand, particularly the Democrats defending their seat in 2012. No falling into the trap of compromise on extending the existing tax rates indefinitely, or at least until 2013.

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, I couldn't agree more. Now is not the time to let them off the hook in any way. If the Democrats want to pretend to be moderates, then make them vote as moderates -- don't give them easy outs. . . show the people exactly what these guys believe.

Ed said...

Lol! It must be hard to be in a relationship with a lawyer!

Great point by T_Rav! It's like he's saying, "I thought I just had to push a button, and Bush was pushing it wrong, but I was wrong."

T_Rav said...

Thanks for the compliment, Andrew, but I'd be lying if I said it was my own observation. I simply relayed a point made elsewhere, but I do think it's a good one.

I've written before on whether or not Obama is a Marxist (and by "written" I mean "one or two Notes on Facebook). Short version: I don't believe he is, simply because he hasn't shown any inclination to abolish private property. Not that he could get away with it anyway, but I think it's more complex than that. I think he's what they call a Third-Wayer--that is, he has this vague idea of accomplishing a happy unity between Left and Right, joining the best features and rejecting the worst elements of both. A median between capitalism and communism, in other words.

I think his health care ad from the '08 election showed this pretty clearly. Remember he said he wanted a "middle way" that would avoid the massive regulation of a command economy as well as the anarchy and lack of coverage that came with a free-market system. Classic Third Way thinking.

The problem with this is that it tends towards a rejection of the notion of trade-offs: if you can triangulate just right, you won't have to choose between X and Y; you can have both. Not only is it a blithely utopian vision, but it encourages ever more government action in order to reach such a mirage. Ultimately, if you consider socialism to be any system where the government directly or indirectly controls the means of production, then Third Way policy does lead to socialism. All of which is to say: Yes, Obama is a socialist. Just maybe not a Marxist.

StanH said...

Barry is the ultimate narcissist. He truly believes the stars, moon, and the sun rise and set by the crack of his ass. He’s like the flim-flam men from days of yore who have been discovered by the towns people, and even as the tar and feathers are being prepared, he tries to pitch one more con, on what he perceives as the feeble minded town folk. Barry is utterly clueless about reality. He has been programmed by his leftist handlers for one mission, smile and read the teleprompter, you get beyond that, all bets are off.

Apology rejected!

T_Rav said...

Oh, and thanks for the compliment also, Ed! That's a good way of summing it up.

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, It's much, much worse than you can image! ;-)

AndrewPrice said...

T_Rav, It's still a good point no matter who made it, and thanks for bringing it up here.

In truth, I agree entirely that Obama is not a Marxist. I know it's probably heresy to say that, but he hasn't shown any traces of Marxist ideology in his actions. He has shown a dislike for capitalism, but he doesn't seem to know what to replace it with. For example, he has shown a desire to get the government involved in more things, but he hasn't shown any desire to nationalize industries or to impose collectivism. Moreover, he seems to favor using large corporations to impose policy rather than direct government action. The word for that is fascism, which actually fits with your "third way" point as fascism was ideologically intended as a third way between capitalism and socialism/communism.

The other reason I have a hard time seeing him as a Marxist is that I just don't see any ideological rigor on his part. He doesn't seem to be driven by any particular principles or philosophy except helping his friends. And that makes him more like a classic cleptocrat -- who sees the purpose of government being to divide the spoils among his supporters and punish his opponents.

You're right by the way, that this "third way" the Democrats have often talked about mistakenly assumes that if you can make the right choice then there are no trade offs. But that doesn't work.

AndrewPrice said...

Stan, Apology rejected is right! For a week now I've been listening to everything he says looking to see if he has any sense that the public sent him a message... he doesn't get it. He plans to keep right on doing what he's been doing no matter what the public wants.

T_Rav said...

So, Andrew, you're saying Obama is a fascist? Uh-oh, you must be one of those people degrading the tone of political discussion in this country.

AndrewPrice said...

T_Rav, Yeah, that's me -- always trying to lower the tone of the debate.

Actually, when you take the insult out of it, what he is proposing is technically fascism -- socialism run through a series of large-company oligopolies who have a direct connection to and support from the government, rather than pure socialism, which involves government control over and ownership of industry.

But I would add that you can't ignore the spoils issue. That's why I would say that if I had to identify his ideology, I would say that he's an unfocused cleptocrat.

DUQ said...

I think he is a Marxist, whether he knows it or not. I think he grew up around all those Marxists, hearing all that Marxist BS, and he's taken it in even if he doesn't understand that. He may think he's not a Marxist, but his instincts are Marxist.

AndrewPrice said...

DUQ, I don't dispute that his reflexes are anti-capitalist, but I don't see them as being Marxist. For example, he talks about "unfair" profit, but hasn't tried to ban profit -- far from it, he's been hugely profitable for major corporations. He also didn't use his control over GM to take over the company, instead he bailed it out and turned it loose. He bailed out all of his friends -- big business and big unions... but look out small business.

Basically, at every turn, he's handed power to large corporations, rather than the government. That's not a Marxist. It's a cleptocrat or fascist or lite-socialist.

Ed said...

You're welcome T_Rav.

I do think of him as a socialist, but probably not a full on Marxist. I just hear too many ideas come out of his mouth that sounds like they are Marxist. I guess it doesn't matter though because he's bad news no matter what he is.

Tehachapi Tom said...

Andrew
As much as it sounds like an oxymoron intelligent people can also be stupid. In most cases one must offer some level of proof to support outlandish statements. In this case the proof is self evident, his arrogance is so much in the way of any attempt at understanding that he is just plain stupid.For me that is the nicest I can say about him.

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, Probably true that it doesn't matter, we are stuck with him and we just need to stop him from doing whatever it is that he wants to do.

AndrewPrice said...

Tom, Stupid is an excellent word for our self-described genius in Chief! I've seen nothing out of him except arrogance, anger, stupidity, and an unwillingness to reassess the world around him. And all of that blinds him and prevents him from changing course.

Individualist said...

Barack Obama said in his speech

"As president… you’re held responsible for everything...."

Exactly when is Obama going to get off his high horse and quit blaming George Bush.... Geeesh!

AndrewPrice said...

Individualist, Never. Bush is to blame for everything bad and, as President, Obama is prepared to take the "blame" for everything good.

Pathetic, huh?

Individualist said...

Speaking of "Third way" socialism, how much of the banking industries' stock does our government still own.

I have heard talk of possible divestment of GM stock but if it happens I think it will just be given to the Unions.

Is there anything congress (the house) can do about this and do the Republicans have the will. People are seeming to forget about the fact we still have the money.

Individualist said...

Not money .. I mean the stock ownership.

Notawonk said...

this type of post has been on my mind, but because of a family crisis i haven't had the time to get to it in the depth you did. plus, yours is fantastic. mine would have been written while sleep-deprived and filled with naughty words. well done.

AndrewPrice said...

Individualist, Oddly, at this point, they don't own any -- they own warrants to get their hands on stock. So they could own it, they just technically don't at this point.

In truth, that's a really murky area and I can't tell you what the Republicans can do about it? They can clearly pass laws forbidding the government from continuing to hold those, etc. etc. But short of passing a law, I'm not sure how our government is supposed to hold/ handle these kinds of assets. Presumably they are the property of the Treasury, but I just don't know beyond that.

Still, your point is well taken.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Patti! I'm glad you liked it.

Sorry to hear about the family emergency! I hope it all works out!

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