Splicetoday

Politics & Media
Aug 17, 2012, 03:56AM

Obama’s No Reluctant President

The man’s as vain and arrogant as all his predecessors.

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Alex Pareene is usually satisfyingly cynical, but I guess everyone has weak moments.  In a recent post refuting the absurd notion that Obama might run for a non-consecutive second term if he loses, Pareene insists that Obama would never do this because he doesn't really like campaigning and also "hates politics and being a partisan Democrat." Pareene concludes by musing, "I’ve come to feel that if Obama loses he’ll be quietly grateful."

As noted previously in this space, I like Obama. I'm pleased with at least some of his policies, and he seems personally a-okay. I'd like him to get a second term, despite the fact that I live a half-block away from his house in Chicago, which means that I’m periodically but thoroughly inconvenienced by his security detail.

But like him or not, the idea that he will be grateful if he loses is sentimental, self-deluding hogwash. This is a man who, in 2000, entered a primary against Rep. Bobby Rush, an unbeatable incumbent Democrat, because he thought that much of himself. Obama was so maniacally ambitious that he couldn't wait for a better opportunity for national office to open up. This is a politician who thought he was ready to be President before completing a single term in the U.S. Senate. This is a president who thinks he has the wisdom to decide who should and shouldn’t be assassinated around the globe with basically no oversight from anyone else.

Think of the most arrogant, self-impressed, ambitious asshole you personally know. That person, whoever he or she may be, is not nearly as arrogant, self-impressed, and ambitious as the asshole currently in office. Unless, of course, you personally know Mitt Romney, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, or any of those other people who’ve deluded themselves into believing that they are the last, best hope of the free world.

Pareene's probably more or less correct that Obama prefers to see himself as a compromiser rather than a political partisan. But that doesn't mean he doesn't want to be in office. On the contrary, it just means that his particular brand of arrogance is pragmatic rationalism. He thinks he's uniquely qualified to right America's wrongs through wonkish cogitation and even-handed problem solving. To the extent he doesn't like being a partisan Democrat, that's exactly the extent to which he thinks he's a more qualified and a more necessary president. Foaming ideologues to the right of him, foaming ideologues to the left of him, into the valley of ratiocination rode the savior machine.

Many of the right's fever dreams about Obama are simply crazy partisan gibberish, occasionally leavened with racism. He's not a radical Black Kenya socialist; he was born in this country; and he doesn't hate white people. But when the right says that Obama is insanely ambitious, and even when they say he likes the adulation and attention that comes with campaigning, I think they've got a point. I'm sure Obama wouldn't campaign for a non-consecutive second term, but that's more because he'd know that there was no chance of winning (even less than in that race against Bobby Rush) than because he'd think he didn't deserve it.

Obama wanted to be president for years before gaining that office, and he still wants to be president. It's a personality disorder shared by every person who has ever entered the White House, whether Republican, Democrat, Federalist or Whig. Partisans are happy enough to attribute pathological arrogance to the other guy (or gal), but, like Pareene, they tend to hedge when it comes to their own horse. And who can blame them? No one wants to admit that they're voting for a megalomaniac, though, by the nature of things, they pretty much always are. 

Discussion
  • The political discourse at this site is pretty low. Noah, comment on policies if you think you have something to say. But statements like this: But when the right says that Obama is insanely ambitious, and even when they say he likes the adulation and attention that comes with campaigning, I think they've got a point" simply can't be made without knowing someone personally. Period. As a whole, do politicians have high opinions of themselves? I guess they must or they wouldn't have gone into that line of work. And I suppose those who rise to the top probably have a higher opinion of themselves. But that's a generalization. To personally call the president an arrogant asshole without knowing him proves one thing: You are an arrogant asshole.

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  • I mean, I am going to vote for him. I like him a lot better than Romney. I'm sure he's personally very likable and charming, as you'd have to be if you got elected president. But...yeah, he's incredibly arrogant and ambitious.//At least he's not actually a psychopath like JFK, LBJ, and Nixon, though. So there's that.

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  • I don't care if you vote for him or not, especially since you are not in a swing state. The source of my anger is that you are making a personal judgement about somebody you don't know. How the f..k do you know that he's arrogant? You haven't thought this through to a statement that you have the basis of making (ie, you can't make a statement about the personality of somebody you don't know). Perhaps the thought should be something like: "The system we have in country with a single person invested with a tremendous amount of power and a campaign system in which only those with a steel will and belief in themselves can win the presidency means that we end up with people who are extraordinarily sure of themselves and probably more or less immune to criticism." There are two things about that statement: It is possible to make it without knowing the people involved personally and it keeps you from calling the president of the US, and again someone you don't know, an asshole. That's extraordinarily immature.

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  • Well, I think it's immature to whine about epithets directed at a public figure who's admitted that he's an assassin. So whatever.

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  • I guess I'm just an arrogant asshole. Do me a favor: Respond to the substance of my critique or don't respond at all. You're the one who decided to post. And while the assassination question admittedly is complex, it would have been nice if somebody had taken out Bin Laden before, not after, 911.

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  • Bin Laden's one thing; various other folks are something else. And there's no reason to do this sort of thing at all without Constitutional Congressional oversight, in my view.//And it's somewhat hard to respond to substance when you're whole argument is based on a disagreement over tone. Arguing about tone strikes me as pretty definitionally unsubstantive. But I guess we can continue to do so if you'd like.

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  • It's more than tone, though your tone indeed was extremely nasty. It's discussing personal attributes of somebody you don't know. That to me is more than tone. On the assassination question: Bin Laden isn't "one thing." Before 911, he was one of many idiots who had made such threats against the U.S. The difficult question is this: In the past, we went to war against other nations and the wars were declared. Now, we are at war with stateless groups and there is no definitive declaration. The executive has a very difficult time sorting through that, and one of the possible outcomes is to get the Bin Ladens before their 911s. Also, people in groups that have committed acts of war against us--the taliban and al queda, to name two--are fair game just as a german or japanese soldier was in WWII. So your blanket statement that Obama "admitted that he's an assassin" is baseless and superficial.

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  • Targeting people for extrajudicial killing makes you an assassin. That's not baseless or superficial; it's using the English language accurately.//We're not Constitutionally "at war" with anyone, unless Congress held a vote in the last couple of seconds.

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  • Killing people with whom you are at war with is not assassination. A Marine shooting an Iraqi soldier did not assassinate him. The people who I know of who Obama has targeted are people who have hurt or tried to hurt U.S. citizens and property. Your second sentence is validation of my point: The definition of war has changed and we have to adjust to the change or suffer the consequences. I don't think Bin Laden was interested in waiting for Congress to meet to debate his threats. That brings us full circle: We have to elect sensible people who will wield the massive power they have (Obama) carefully and not abuse it (Bush/Cheney). You see, you have to pick your "arrogant, self-impressed, and ambitious as the asshole(s)" carefully.

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  • Glad I'm not involved in this one.

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  • Obama is better than Bush/Cheney. But he should also be in prison along with them, since refusing to prosecute torture is a federal crime according to international law and treaties we've signed.//The idea that Obama is somehow uniquely humble/thoughtful/worthy and that therefore his abrogation of his Constitutional duty doesn't matter is exactly the reason that pointing out that he is in fact arrogant and ambitious is a worthwhile thing to do.

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  • You have a penchant for making grandiose statements that are a bit ridiculous. 1. Your degree in constitutional law is from which university? 2. There is no leader in the history of the world or currently who under an absolutist statement like that doesn't belong in prison. So throw them all in. And when you are in charge you will be guilty too. 3. Nobody I know is saying that he is "uniquely humble/thoughtful/worthy." This string started with your post suggesting without knowing him that he is an arrogant asshole. That was dumb. Now you are saying that he is abrogating his Constitutional duty to not prosecute people. Last time I checked, bringing charges in that sense was the job of the attorney general. So is holder an arrogant asshole too?

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  • 4.And prosecutors, by the way, have leeway in bringing charges. If they suspect a crime but mitigating factors are present--cost to prosecute, the chances of a conviction, etc.--they are not required to. So saying that Holder/Obama not bringing charges is an abrogation of their Constitutional duty is ignorant. I usually am more polite than this, but the manner in which you refer to the president was uncalled for.

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  • They didn't bring charges because they didn't want the hassle, and didn't want to set a precedent where Presidents would be charged after they got out of office...in other words, self interest. I'd suggest Glenn Greenwald's book With Liberty and Justice for Some, which has a number of smoking gun quotes.//The decision not to prosecute was the President's, which is part of why it's an abrogation of his constitutional duty. He interfered with the independence of the Attorney General's office. Again, Greenwald has pretty damning details.//It's depressing that you feel that a lack of politeness in ref. to the president is more of a breach of etiquette than serious Constitutional violations. I guess that's a fairly typical attitude, though.// And I think most Presidents should go right from office directly to jail. Most of them in modern times (Reagan, Bush/Cheney certainly, probably Clinton and HW Bush too) violate the Constitution egregiously, and are responsible for unnecessary and illegal killings. The fact that they all do it makes it worse, not better, and jail time more important -- though apparently impossible under our current corrupt regime.

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  • Congratulations. You finally are participating in a real conversation. What pissed me off about your attitude previously was that Obama is the only thing between us and a hard right wing regime in this country, and to call him an arrogant asshole for that is beyond the pale. On this issue, as I said before it's very complicated. I like Greenwald but haven't read that book. On one hand, you can't have presidents running around killing whoever they please. On the other, the old notion of war is over. For instance, between the technical start of wwII and any battles of note, there was a huge gap commonly referred to as the "sits-kreig." That doesn't happen any more. Again, you are losing it when you blithely say that he is abrogating his constitutional authority because you I assume are not a constitutional lawyer. And, of course,slavery was fine in the constitution, so even if we assume you are right it doesn't end the discussion. // I suggest you do a serious post on this--you obviously are a bright person--than the nonsense that started this thread. If this is the heart of your dissatisfaction with the president, right about that. What you wrote yesterday accomplished nothing.

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  • The idea that you need to be a technocratic expert in order to have an opinion about assassinating people depresses the hell out of me.// I've written about Obama's failures re torture, transparency, etc. before. http://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/helping-the-tigers-harm-us

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  • Who said you couldn't have an opinion. I read your piece when I have time. We actually aren't too far apart on this, sans definition. I was very disappointed that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Yoo weren't indicted. HEre's the reason: Obama came into office with the economy in free fall. He also wanted to do health care, and knew that it was razor thin with a democratic congress and that he was going to lose seats at the midterm. He had to choose to go forward or to blow his political capital relitigated the Iraq war and the means there were used. On top of all that, Obama happens to be a slightly left centralist, not a true liberal or progressive. All of that led to the decision. As I say, it is nuanced and it is possible to argue it. That's the real world. You can deal with it or call people arrogant assholes or assassins or whatever without dealing with the real world landscape. Your choice. I just want to put more thought into it than your original post that I commented on. If that sounds patronizing, so be it.

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