The President is not a Likeable or Friendly Person

President Barack Obama is not a likeable person.  How many friends do you have that are arrogant, know-it-all, narcissistic people?  Could you even become friends with a person that exhibits even one of these character traits?  More to the point, friendship is often built on a foundation of trust and integrity.  Given Obama’s track record could you trust him?  He has thrown Senator Dianne Feinstein, Governor Ed Rendell and Mayor Cory Booker under the bus with alacrity over seemingly minor differences. So add another defect to Obama’s likeability index…thin skinned petulance.  He also has a penchant for talking behind peoples’ backs.  Witness his open microphone comment concerning Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and with Russian President Medvedev saying after the election he would have more “flexibility”.  How many “friends” would remain your friend if you discovered similar deviousness?

Integrity is another facet of Obama’s personality profile that bears scrutiny.  Obama has been consistently criticized for a lack of honesty (Google Obama, honesty – millions of hits).  He has demonstrated a tendency to both conflate and conveniently disclose partial information to promote a point of view.  Just two examples of a multitude will be cited here.  “If you like your healthcare plan you will be able to keep your plan” was stated ad nauseam as he attempted to sell ObamaCare.  Interestingly the actual plan (the law, as written) made that announcement invalid in its first eighteen pages.  Recently, during the third debate, Obama insisted that Romney did not want to “save” the auto industry and that Romney saw no role for government assistance in underwriting the industry’s survival.  Obama based the charge on the headline written by The New York Times for the Romney op-ed it published.  Romney had clearly defined the need to save and assist the industry in the op-ed article.  How many friends do you have that play with facts in a similar fashion? 

President Obama presents an egotistical and self-absorbed visage as a matter of course.  His speeches are filled with I’s, me’s, my’s and mine.  He insists that the White House is “my” house; that Air Force One is “my” airplane and Camp David is “my” retreat.  Too often inconsequential pursuits like golf, basketball, bowling and cards appear to get priority over and to the detriment of official business.  He apparently feels a need to excel and best others in these and other games to feed his sizable ego.  According to some reports he even dispenses advice to other politicians on topics spanning “the best way to shake hands” to “writing well”.  Imagine an egoistic friend telling you how to “eat a sandwich” or how to correctly “drop your children off at school” …that friend wouldn’t be a friend very long. 

President Obama is being increasingly described as selfish and unusually self-centered, even cold to acquaintances outside his inner circle.  Business leaders, other politicians and campaign contributors repeatedly indicate that Obama doesn’t identify with them; that he exhibits aloofness, and a disdain when interacting with people.  This refrain is growing and the pummeling is deserved since he is unenthusiastic about individuals of every stripe and other Democrats.  Do you have cold, distant and selfish friends?

President Obama is being described, in addition to the above, and with increasing frequency as unfriendly, demeaning, vindictive, condescending, petty, denigrating, shallow and unfair to name just a few of the many negative adjectives now being used to explain Obama as a person.  This tsunami of negativity is a relatively recent phenomenon.  To a degree these descriptives were in use in the alternative media as early as 2007, but are now receiving play in the mainstream media (MSM) albeit infrequently. 

So what changed…what triggered this sea change?  Initially the change was gradual and somewhat unnoticed.  Obama’s campaign operatives and advertising may have gotten the ball rolling by relentlessly attacking Romney in a very mean spirited way.  Romney was a “felon” (per Stephanie Cutter), he had not paid income taxes in years (per Harry Reid) and shockingly he had murdered a woman by denying her a healthcare plan.  These charges outraged some yet began a debate between responsible observers regarding not only their veracity but the appropriateness of a sitting president using such tactics.  Nevertheless the denigrating tactics had an effect on the public’s perception of Governor Romney resulting in Obama’s RCP polling lead peaking on September 30^th at a differential of 4.1%.  Ultimately President Obama was responsible for the despicable attacks since his campaign team was responsible for formulating and delivering the salvos.

Unfortunately for Barack Obama, he and Mitt Romney faced off on October 3^rd in a debate that unmasked the president.  America saw Obama as a man without new ideas, a man that struggled to effectively argue his case, a man that appeared petty, a man that was angry and impolite.  In sum a much “smaller” person than the one they had been told existed.  In contrast, Mitt Romney did not appear to be the evil person embodied in the advertising and statements made by President Obama and his surrogates.  Romney was articulate, knowledgeable, unflappable, polite, forceful and had a plan.  Romney, in fact, was a likeable person Americans could see as a friend. 

The perception of the Barack Obama, the person, advanced in the first debate was reinforced in the two subsequent face-offs.  Many Americans are now asking how they could have been so uninformed about the personality of the man they elected president.  Americans recoiled from the persona of the man debating and now see the president as not only unlikeable, but as a person they would never accept into their group of friends.  It’s tempting to charge the MSM with journalistic malpractice or the close circle of sycophants who surround the president with fraud for not disclosing the “real” Obama, but many had partaken of the Obama Kool-Aid and were in his thrall.

Suffice it to say that Barack Obama is a flawed person.  His personality failings have hindered his performance in office, and the failings include arrogance, egoism, selfishness, petulance, narcissism, dishonesty, coldness, deviousness and being a know-it-all.  President Obama has few friends, is a loner and you probably would not enjoy having a beer with him.