Obama - National Embarrassment. F'ING CLUELESS

[Soul Crusher]

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For Obama, it's back to a new reality [“What about the compliments?” the president told reporters]
Politico ^


For Obama, it's back to a new reality By: Carol E. Lee November 14, 2010 04:10 PM EST

The trip began with policy successes and a glowing reception, welcome respite for a president fresh off of a stinging political defeat. But the terrain got thornier as Barack Obama made his way across Asia.

Dancing with schoolchildren in Mumbai and reconnecting with a piece of his childhood in Jakarta gave way to a setback on a free trade deal in Seoul and tense confrontations from his counterparts aboutAmerican leadership on the global economy. By the time he headed to his last stop – a gathering of world leaders in Japan – Obama was on the defensive and frustrated with how he was being portrayed.

“What about the compliments?” the president told reporters when asked what criticisms he heard during his conversations with other heads of state.
Unfortunately for Obama, it doesn’t get easier from here. The worst of his nine days in Asia is better than the new reality in Washington he faces when he returns home Sunday afternoon.

He has to figure out what to do about tax cut issues the Democratic-controlled Congress punted before the midterm elections, and how to find agreement in a divided Congress on how to fund the government through next September. He meets Thursday for the first time with newly-emboldened Republican congressional leaders, whom he’ll host for dinner at the White House.


(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...


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[Soul Crusher]

  http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/print_709088.html
Above all others
By Ralph R. Reiland

Monday, November 15, 2010

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Inflated self-esteem can be decidedly counterproductive.

American students, for example, took first place in self-judged mathematical ability in a comparative study of eight countries, but last place in actual mathematical competency.

Korean students, in contrast, ranked themselves last in self-judged mathematical skills and took first place in actual mathematical performance.

The idea that self-esteem produces better performance, reversing the direction of better performance boosting self-esteem, is clearly a concept that's been oversold. But we feel good -- whether it's self-evaluations of leadership skills, looks, personality or math ability, it's not unusual for 25 percent of American students to self-judge themselves to be in the top 1 percent.

The downside can be a declining nation that's overstocked with egotistical and incompetent narcissists.

That might be the problem at the White House.

U.S. Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark., made public President Obama's answer to conservative Democrats, worried about the unpopularity of ObamaCare in their districts, when they asked in a White House meeting why 2010 might resemble the negative backlash that greeted Bill Clinton's flawed 1994 attempt at health care reform: "Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me." That's what Sonny said to Cher, 1965.

The actual "big difference" turned out to be Obama losing even more seats than Clinton. "The Democratic Party under Barack Obama in 2010 suffered the greatest defeat for a newly elected president in a midterm since the Republican Party under Warren Gamaliel Harding in 1922," reports James W. Ceaser, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

Patrick Gaspard, former community organizer, ex-lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union and now director of Obama's Office of Political Affairs, is quoted in a 2008 New Yorker article describing what Obama said to him during his job interview: "I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."

In his biography of Obama, "The Bridge," David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, quotes White House senior adviser and longtime Obama friend Valerie Jarrett: "I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary. He knows exactly how smart he is. ... He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability -- the extraordinary, uncanny ability -- to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them, and I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually. ... So what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy. ... He's been bored to death his whole life. He's just too talented to do what ordinary people do."

Talk about a "yes man" -- or a devotee woman. The boss is so "extraordinary," so above the "ordinary" man, that he's been long-term bored to death -- untaxed, unhappy, uncanny and unchallenged.

And now unappreciated -- simultaneously called "pathetic" and "tone-deaf," respectively, by the left in The Progressive and the right in The Washington Times.

Turns out that Jarrett's wrong -- there's nothing "extraordinary" about Obama's talent in reading people or understanding economics.

Ralph R. Reiland can be reached at rrreiland@aol.com or .
 

[Soul Crusher]

This man is completely nuts. 

[Soul Crusher]

Obama Whines: American Journalists 'Never Say Thank You'
Newsbusters ^


Obama Whines: American Journalists 'Never Say Thank You'

By Lachlan Markay Created 11/15/2010 - 7:16pm

By Lachlan Markay | November 15, 2010 | 19:16

President Barack Obama is peeved with the American press. They never say "thank you," he whined to journalists in Japan on Monday.

According to the pool report from the press conference, one reporter said "Thank you, Mr. President." Someone said the reporter was Australian.

"I knew it must have been an Australian because my folks never say thank you," Obama said.

At that, the entire American pool said in unison -- admittedly with a bit of sarcasm -- "Thank you, Mr. President."

PM Gillard could be heard chiming in, "There are a few cheeky Australians here."

At first glance, Obama's comment reeks of arrogance. He seems to think that press access is a privilege, not a right, and that he is under no obligation to even speak to reporters.

But remember, Obama's media approach has been notable in that he has often circumvented traditional reporters in favor of new media and social networks. In doing so, he has been able to avoid tough questions, while still getting his message out - often to more people than would see, for instance, a cable news broadcast.

Either explanation speaks volumes about Obama's attitude towards the press. Sure, journalists voted overwhelmingly for Obama over John McCain (a fact Obama himself has acknowledged). If that were not enough to secure the president's good will, the media seemed to do everything in their power to make sure Obama's path to the White House was clear, burying his connection to leftist radicals, and hyping racism accusations against his political opponents.

And yet, despite the hurdles American journalists have jumped over to get Obama in office, he still doesn't like them, and apparently thinks they owe him, not the other way around. Go figure.



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What a bitch. 

[Soul Crusher]

At NATO summit, Obama's ride is talk of the town


Some heads of state are zipping around Lisbon, host city of the NATO summit, in no-emission electric vehicles. Security dictates that Obama travel in the no-efficiency 'Beast,' a vehicle that fascinates the local press.

 A car from the motorcade of U.S. President Barack Obama moves past Indian Parliament building in New Delhi November 8.

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       By Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer / November 19, 2010







 
Whoops, President Obama must have missed the memo on this one.

 
Obama in Europe: Back among friends or another 'shellacking' ahead?

While the Portuguese prime minister and the Portuguese president of the European Union’s executive commission are tooling around the NATO summit here in no-emission electric vehicles, Mr. Obama is fouling the Lisbon skies with his no-efficiency "Beast," the eight-ton,
diesel-fueled behemoth of a limousine the president carts around the world with him.

IN PICTURES: Tiny Cars

Obama is expected to discuss climate change and a common US-Europe approach to it when he takes part in a US-European Union (EU) summit after the NATO meeting on Saturday. But in the meantime, the Portuguese capital is being treated to a jarring dichotomy: the polluting "leader of the free world," on one hand, lumbering across town in the Beast with a phalanx of black Secret Service vehicles and Portuguese police motorcycles in tow; and the Europeans zipping around in smart electric vehicles, on the other.

Oh, and to drive the point home, journalists attending the summit are being ferried to events in electric buses, as well.

RELATED: Obama arrives at NATO summit with revised strategy in Afghanistan: Stay past 2014

A “note to the media” left at every journalist’s work station in the summit press center says the use of electric vehicles is meant to raise awareness of Portugal’s “world pioneering leadership in electric mobility.” Portugal claims to derive 45 percent of its electricity consumption from “clean” energies. Its “Mobi.E” electric mobility network – with 100 charging stations in 25 municipalities around the country, set to rise to 1,300 charging points by mid-2011 – is considered a world leader.

But the Portuguese press is more interested in the Beast. Pages in Lisbon newspapers have been dedicated to cutaway renderings of “Cadillac One,” with charts and boxes offering every detail of the vehicle that the Secret Service divulges: the Kevlar tires, the special foam in the gas tank to immediately extinguish any fire from a direct hit, the supply of presidential blood.

Another point of fascination is the unparalleled security detail to accompany Obama as he moves from bilateral meetings with Portuguese leaders to the summit venue to the Lisbon Marriott Hotel, where he may or may not sleep. (Another overnight option, to keep everyone guessing, is the residence of the US ambassador to Portugal).

While Obama’s motorcade is accompanied by the 35 Portuguese police motorcycles, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev – who arrives for a three-hour visit Saturday to participate in a NATO-Russia Council meeting – will get no such treatment.

On the bright side for Mr. Medvedev, he – unlike Obama – will be able to claim that his modest transport is more in line with the NATO meeting’s green theme.

RELATED: Obama arrives at NATO summit with revised strategy in Afghanistan: Stay past 2014

IN PICTURES: Tiny Cars


http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/1119/At-NATO-summit-Obama-s-ride-is-talk-of-the-town



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ha ha ha ha 

[Soul Crusher]

But in the meantime, the Portuguese capital is being treated to a jarring dichotomy: the polluting "leader of the free world," on one hand, lumbering across town in the Beast with a phalanx of black Secret Service vehicles and Portuguese police motorcycles in tow; and the Europeans zipping around in smart electric vehicles, on the other.


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What the hell is this dipshit going to do after he is out of office and actually has to live someone like a regular person?