Politics, Arrogance and The Smartest Kid in the Room
It isn’t simply President Obama’s left-wing politics that has a lot of Americans turning on him. It’s not just the trillion dollar-plus health care bill. Or the stimulus package that looked more like a Christmas tree loaded with goodies for Democratic constituencies. It’s not only his gazillion dollar budget or the prospect of huge tax increases to pay for cap-and-trade legislation. And it’s not even his decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Or his preference for trying American-hating terrorists in civilian courts, in places like New York City and Detroit. There’s one other thing that has a lot of Americans fed up with this administration. It’s the attitude. The one that informs us that, “We smart and you’re not. We know what’s best. You don’t.”
No, we don’t like the budget-busting politics. But it’s the arrogance that’s making us ill.
I’ve seen this attitude before, when I worked at CBS News, a place crawling with oh-so-smart liberals. If some dummy said “I” when he should have said “me” – or “she” when he meant “her” -- they’d look at the offender as if he committed a crime not only against the English language, but against all of humanity. To them, Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been worse offenses, but not by much. But if you made fun of someone who lived in the Deep South, they’d laugh their sophisticated heads off.
These are the kinds of liberals who think ordinary people who fly the American flag are a little scary, and people who like to bowl a little dopey, and people who eat at Red Lobster more than a little unsophisticated. More than their liberalism, I detested their elitism.
And that’s what we have now, one more Ivy League-educated elitist in the White House who has been told since he was a kid that he’s the smartest one in the room and that he’s so clever that he can do anything he wants. If Barack Obama had gone into entertainment instead of politics, he’d be Jeff Zucker, the Harvard-educated genius at NBC responsible for the network’s late night fiasco.
And if the president had a TV show it would be called Obama Knows Best. Never mind that most Americans don’t want any part of ObamaCare, they’ll learn to embrace it, we’re told. “I . . . know what happens once we get this done,” the president says. “The American people will suddenly learn that this bill does things they like.” Right now, of course, they’re too stupid to realize this.
This is a man who ran for office telling us the old ways of doing business in Washington would die a quick death once he took office. Then he looks the other way when Harry Reid buys off senators with hundreds of millions of tax dollars to make sure they vote the “right way” on health care. But bribery isn’t enough to insure the bill would go through, so our post-political president invites his union pals into the White House and cuts them a special deal too: They don’t pay taxes on their top-of-the-line medical insurance plans for nearly a decade – but everyone else starts paying up right away.
I thought liberals were big on equality, on making sure the powerful don’t get more than the average guy on the street. I guess that doesn’t apply to powerful union bosses who spent millions to help get Obama elected.
But it’s not that Barack Obama is nothing more than an old style Chicago politician, which is exactly what he is. It’s that he pretended to be something else. He told us he was the future. He said he would be different from all those hacks who populated the world of politics -- and by different he meant better; better because he was smarter; smarter because he was a big thinker, a man of ideas. But it was all a charade. The whole time he was just arrogant.
And what about those terrorists that Americans wanted tried in military courts? The poor saps who live between Manhattan and Malibu weren’t smart enough to understand what a bad idea that was. Only Barack Obama understood that “American values” had to be upheld, and the best way to do that was to try these people in a federal courthouse, no matter how much havoc that might cause. But he never bothered to explain to the unwashed masses just what “American values” would be trashed if these “alleged” terrorists were tried in a military court.
President Obama has a vision of what America should be, whether it’s a new way of looking at health care or energy or justice. But it’s not the vision most Americans have. And so, one short year into his historic presidency, the Obama magic that swept him into office is gone. He used it all up. Liberals still love him and conservatives never did, so they don’t matter. But it’s the moderates and independents, the ones who voted for him just over a year ago, who are jumping ship. They don’t like his politics. But more than that, I think, they’re sick of his Obama Knows Best arrogance.
The other day the president told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News that the same frustration that swept Scott Brown, the new U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, into office swept Obama into office a year ago. He’s right about that. A year ago the American people were sick of George W. Bush. Now they’re sick of the elitist who replaced him.
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Whenever we write about our elites, elite liberals or elite liberal intellectuals, we should ALWAYS use quotations marks around the word “elite” or any phrase that includes the word. I’ve spent many years–in college and career environments–working near and sometimes with (unfortunately) such “elites,” and I have learned that they are generally no smarter than my other associates. The “elites” are merely more arrogant and much, much more intolerant. By the way, we should also use quotation marks around the word “intellectuals”; of those I have known who thought of themselves as liberal “intellectuals,” most definitely were not.
Love the comment from DIane from PA, why does he tilt his head up and stick his chin out all the time. Arrogance is all I can come up with at this point in time.
Exactamundo!
And could BHO tilt his chin up any higher?
Sir,
This is a good, strong column. Your mention of President Obama’s capacity for genius will be used someday as a lament by his supporters: He failed because he was too smart. The common people did not understand him.
It was good to see you on O’Reilly’s show, being emphatic about the President’s thin-skin.
I noted that, to the two or three people who occasionally listen to me, back during the Presidential campaign. That, and his propensity for saying he would do everything that needed doing, and more importantly, his goal to fundamentally change America.
Our White House Constitutional lawyer either ignores or does not realize that the Constitution is fundamental to our country, and he does not comprehend the limits of his office.
I have not heard a lot of talk about how President Obama has prejudiced his proposed fair trial for Khalid Sheik Muhammad (sp?). The President said he will be convicted, then sentenced to death. How can that male human (note I did not use the word “man”) get a fair trial when a constitutional lawyer who holds the office of President has foreordained the outcome?
Would a potential juror who had voted for the President be swayed by that statement?
During the campaign the scholar Thomas Sowell wrote that candidate Obama was “dangerous,” due to his foreign policies of the 1930’s and social policies of the 1960’s.
Another scholar, Victor Davis Hanson, has written numerous critical columns about Mr. Obama, reaching one conclusion that the President is narcissistic.
Two things. Those on the left revel in attacks on Limbaugh and Hannity. Now, no insult intended to those two gentlemen, but Mr. Sowell and Mr. Hanson have formidable minds. I believe that leftists who know of the writings of the aforementioned are afraid to engage in debate with them. The others are too intellectually lazy or dishonest to research the best
arguments of the opposition. They are afraid to be challenged.
The other point is that being thin-skinned is an element of narcissism.
The other day at the National Prayer Breakfast the President made himself the issue. It goes on and on. Is the White House staff afraid of him or given to worship of him? The President’s ego is weighing him down and becoming a joke. No one on his staff has tried to change this. They know how to campaign, but do not know how to govern.
Mike Misczuk
Port Jervis, NY
Absolutely the “BEST” article written. Can’t wait till you say it on O’Reilly.
Dear Mr. Goldberg,
Thank you for your forwards on Burt’s books. The purr is the universal sound of peace. Purr’s to you.
Now, I have to buy and read yours.
Janelle Humbert
Bernie;
As often is the case, you’re right on target. My only disagreement is with, “It isn’t simply President Obama’s left-wing politics that has a lot of Americans turning on him.” Key work ’simply,’ all of the issues you listed in your article are huge issues to two-thirds of us, who aren’t to kean on “Rules for Radicals” or the piper who pipes them.
Had America known during the campaign what has been revealed after oath, I believe the vote tally would have been reversed, almost exactly. That’s not saying that J.S. McCain would have been the ideal candidate by any means.
If Barack wants to move forward, why is he always looking backwards at Bush? No wonder he’s stumbling all over the place…
Hey Bernie,
The president’s answer to the GOP on CSPAN:
“The fact of the matter is, is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. — $1.3 [trillion.] So when you say that suddenly I’ve got a monthly budget that is higher than the — a monthly deficit that’s higher than the annual deficit left by the Republicans, that’s factually just not true, and you know it’s not true.
And what is true is that we came in already with a $1.3 trillion deficit before I had passed any law. What is true is we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade — had nothing to do with anything that we had done. It had to do with the fact that in 2000 when there was a budget surplus of $200 billion, you had a Republican administration and a Republican Congress, and we had two tax cuts that weren’t paid for.
You had a prescription drug plan — the biggest entitlement plan, by the way, in several decades — that was passed without it being paid for. You had two wars that were done through supplementals. And then you had $3 trillion projected because of the lost revenue of this recession. That’s $8 trillion.
Now, we increased it by a trillion dollars because of the spending that we had to make on the stimulus. I am happy to have any independent fact-checker out there take a look at your presentation versus mine in terms of the accuracy of what I just said.”
Read it and weep!
Wil, why don’t you research something instead of doing as you “elite betters” tell you.
Steve, Why don’t you try to debate the facts I reported? Aren’t you people aware the dire staits Bush left the country in, when he left office. Are you people really that dense? Obama is trying to correct the mess Bush left him. How about supporting him, instead of all the griping. Don’t you people love our country?
Wil, you appear to be among the hard-left minority that are still impressed when BO simply opens his mouth.
You libs are so starry-eyed with admiration for that little wimp you don’t care or recognize that he’s a shameless liar.
Jeff, I can hear you now:
OBAMA MUST FAIL!
(but America will fail!)
WE DON’T CARE!
We had to Destroy America to SAVE America….
OBAMA MUST FAIL!
OBAMA MUST FAIL!
Any Obama failure is a victory for US NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT HURTS THE NATION.
Quit feeding the troll already. Ignore the fool…
All it takes is one idiot troll like Wil to ruin my experience.
Hey Bernie, All you conservatives are on the same page calling Obama “arrogant” but, isn’t that just a code word for “uppity”?
Wil, a freind of mine worked as a page in the Illinois chamber when President Obama was still there. She would go back and forth between Obama’s office and Emil Jones’ office several times a day. Emil Jones would refer to Obama as an “uppit n*****” on a regular basis. By thew way, if you think President Obama isn’t arrogant you are only kidding yourself. Anyone who runs for office has to be a little arrogant. Our President, unfortuantely suffers from narcissism. As a citizen of Illinois, and having watched Rob Blagojevich for 6 years, I can tell you that President Obama is very arrogant and narcistic. That doesn’t make him a bad person. I think you are missing the point of Bernie’s column. If you had read Bernie’s latest book, which you claim is full of hate, you would know that Bernie has said President Obama is a very likeable guy. I think you are trying to hard on ths one. And no, Bush, who I was no fan of, wasn’t as arrogant as Obama. His Vice President on the other hand was an old conservative version of our current President.
That is precisely what Bernie means. And if he had the nerve, he would have added, “and he needs to know his place.”
Wil–
Why can’t you just add your two cents like everyone else and move on? Looking back it seems like you want to put in at least a buck and then some…why not go outside and enjoy life a little?
Nancy, Why do facts upset you people so. BTW, Did you watch our ‘arrogant’ president on CSPAN? He revealed to the world that your side lies and distorts the true facts of our economy!
Wil, Have you ever read one of Bernie’s books? What facts have you used? I watched the President on C-Span, and it was a dog a pony show. He is in panic mode, because he knows his political career is hanging in the balance. Unfortunately, he is using the American people as leverage.
Wil Burns says:
January 30, 2010 at 3:05 pm
[Nancy, Why do facts upset you people so. BTW, Did you watch our ‘arrogant’ president on CSPAN? He revealed to the world that your side lies and distorts the true facts of our economy!]
Wil, please share your examples of the lies and distortions you think Republicans have told. I’m in the mood to expose a little liberal hypocrisy and projection.