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 30th 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 3rd 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.
