Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.
Demosthenes
Is Santorum Right? Is Obama a “Snob”?
I realize that the familiar reader will note that I have been judgmental of Barack Obama. For example, I had come to an independent judgment in 2008 that Obama is narcissistic; it was not based on reading or hearing someone speculating on the topic. It had to do with the arrogance of someone with no administrative experience and with a paper-thin resume of accomplishments thinking that he was up for the challenge of the most difficult job in the world, being President of the United States. There was this grandiose “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” rhetoric. Obama had already published two autobiographies by his mid-40’s. There were the infamous San Francisco comments when he dismissed clueless mid-western xenophobic voters whom clung to their guns and Bibles and weren’t smart enough to vote in their own interests for his better middle-class policies.Jackie Fuchs, who met Obama in his freshman year at Harvard Law and handed him his greatest compliment, a comparison to female rocker Joan Jett, had this to say:
One of our classmates once famously noted that you could judge just how pretentious someone's remarks in class were by how high they ranked on the "Obamanometer," a term that lasted far longer than our time at law school. Obama didn't just share in class - he pontificated. He knew better than everyone else in the room, including the teachers.Then there was an incident described in a Dec.2007 Politico post (my edits):
Then there was Sandra Burt, who lost her job on her 65th birthday. She cannot afford her $2,900 monthly prescription drug costs (she tried skipping doses, but ended up in the hospital). Her husband cashed in his life insurance and sold his treasured truck. They live in a 30-year-old double-wide trailer where the thermostat is set at 64 degrees.Need more reminders since then? In one of his autobiographies, Obama suggested that his Caucasian maternal grandmother, who had raised him, was racist because she expressed a concern about an aggressive panhandler near her bus stop. Remember when McCain sought to delay (because of TARP legislation) the first Presidential debate, dealing with his strong suit of military affairs and foreign policy (a military retiree with nearly 25 years of related Congressional policy experience), and Obama accused McCain of trying to duck debating him? How about his accepting the Nobel Peace Prize when anyone with an ounce of personal integrity would reject an unearned honor? Remember what former Arkansas Congressman Marion Berry said about a 2010 conversation he had with President Obama, recalling the historic 1994 mid-term election giving the GOP their first House majority since the 1950’s? “The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ What about Obama taking credit for saving us from another Great Depression or saving the auto industry with his crony bankruptcy settlements (somebody better tell Ford, which did not take a government bailout). Or how about Obama’s condescending lectures during the debt ceiling negotiations, without submitting a constructive plan of his own? Or daring to jawbone SCOTUS over their recent Citizens United decision at his State of the Union address, an unprecedented incident (well, after all, Obama knew better than SCOTUS because as a lecturer he had taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago….) Do I need to bring up the sham health care summit where he repeatedly interrupted the Republican members presenting their point of view? Or how about the fact that Obama, instead of presenting his own stimulus, health care and financial reform legislation, mostly cheered Democratic sausage making from the sidelines? The incessant Bush bashing, “8 years of failed policies”, his international apology tour?
Obama listened intently at the center of a U-shaped table, but amid the heart-wrenching stories that moved even members of the media, he betrayed little emotion. “No, listen, it is outrageous,” said Obama, his voice monotone. “We are going to change this.” For all the charisma that Obama can show day-to-day, bringing crowds to their feet with optimistic rhetoric or lingering on the rope line to hear voters’ stories, he can also appear equally detached. His response to Burt was a snapshot of his stump speech. Obama [talked], looking down at the table as often as he did at her. “Can you fix it?” Burt asked. “If I got the American people understanding that it needs to be fixed.” When somebody handed napkins to Obama for Burt, he dropped the pile in her hands from across the table. He later mentioned the success of his book allowed him to buy a big house.
Burt had become an insert in his speech. [Later] Burt said. “[Obama] does take the time to listen to you.” Asked by a reporter whether any of the candidates had actually tried to help her, Burt did not hesitate: “No one has helped me.”
I had written related prior posts (e.g., here and here), The following excerpts are from an article on recognizing a narcissist:
- “individuals high in narcissism displayed amplified responses to social comparison information, experiencing greater positive affect from downward comparisons and greater hostile affect from upward comparisons.” (Consider, for instance, his condescending remark to Hillary Clinton during the 2008 when she suggested Obama was likeable that Hillary was likeable enough, and his above comparison between Bill Clinton’s vs. his own mid-term election outcomes)
- “Iin order to avoid shame, which the narcissist feels must be avoided at all costs, he externalizes blame for negative events. As he feels someone must be guilty, he almost always attributes blame to others.” (Say, for example, Bush bashing, job losses during the 3 months following the 2008 election when Bush was a lame duck and had no leverage except a veto, GOP obstructionists, and international apology tours.)
- “A narcissist is someone who is overtly or subtly arrogant, exhibitionistic, vain, manipulative, and greedy for admiration.” (e.g., Obama’s unprecedented, frequent visits to various popular entertainment television shows, his own media channel at the White House, a voluminous number of public addresses and statements, his bashing of SCOTUS, etc.)
- “Their lack of empathy colors everything they do. They may say, "How are you?" when you meet, but they are working from memory. They are not interested in how you are.” (the Burt incident is classic.)
- “Their sense of self-importance and lack of empathy means that they will often interrupt the conversations of others.” (Obama’s interruptions during the health care summit)
- “Listen for the constant use of "I", "me" and "my" when they talk.” (Do I really need to elaborate here? Consider how often Obama speaks about himself—in the same appearance that he’s talking to Burt, living in a cold flimsy trailer, he mentions living in a mansion purchased with his book royalties; at a different appearance, he talks about the high cost of arugula at Whole Foods, an expensive upscale grocery, in a community without a Whole Foods.)
- “They expect others to do the day-to-day chores as they feel too important to waste their time on common things.” (Think of Obama playing golf—again—during the BP oil spill, or the constant vacations to Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard, while we have the lowest labor participation rate in decades and record long-term unemployment.)
- One way to recognize a narcissist is to trust in your own intuition. As Sam Vaknin put it, "One feels ill at ease in the presence of a narcissist for no apparent reason. No matter how charming, intelligent, thought provoking, outgoing, easy going and social the narcissist is – he fails to secure the sympathy of others, a sympathy he is never ready, willing, or able to reciprocate." (A clear example is the fact that the public has never bought into ObamaCare and its kaleidoscope accounting before, during and after passage. Yet Obama persists to believe it’s a messaging problem and not the policy itself. I have been constantly annoyed by his johnny-come-lately attempts to co-opt issues (e.g., Romney’s business tax cuts, expanding offshore drilling (but only a tiny percentage and none off blue state coasts) His initial salary freezes—were for high ranking political appointees, but not thousands of six-figure salary federal employees. His discussion of special interests only reference GOP supporters, not his own crony labor union and environmentalist supporters. He engages in straw men arguments and constantly implies that his political opponents are stupid and little more than corporate shills, not principled. When GOP amendments are routinely rejected on party-line votes, Obama seems surprised that legislation is filibustered, and when he rammed partisan legislation through the 111th Congress, this political genius didn’t seem to realize that his observation after the 2008 election that “elections have consequences” also applied to mid-terms.. His spending cuts are accounting gimmicks and usually aimed at the 20% of the budget involving defense spending. Yet despite his immense personal popularity, he hasn’t seen an approval rating at 50 since the UBL mission last year.)
I have a very good friend from India whom suggests this characterization of Obama as a narcissist is unfair and politically motivated. I’ve tried to be very explicit why I believe that’s the case. I’m frankly embarrassed by a President whom confuses trite observations with insight, whose response to the historic rebuke of the 2010 election has been to double-down on class warfare rhetoric and continue push money-losing high-speed train boondoggles and morally hazardous bailouts of state/local teachers and public sector professionals (as if money isn’t fungible!) Where is Obama’s adaptation of Bill Clinton’s street smarts in realizing that the era of Big Government has passed?
What about Rick Santorum’s description of Obama as a “snob”? He was, of course, referring to Obama’s pushing of college education vs. say, blue-collar jobs not requiring a college degree. It’s even worse than that: Obama has nationalized the student loan industry putting the taxpayer at risk for uncompleted (or completed) degree programs in art history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, English, classic languages, etc., up to six-figures of loans that will probably never will be paid off.
Personally, I think Santorum was looking for publicity, Calling Obama a “snob” is unnecessary and would probably be seem by moderates and independents as a personal attack. I would prefer to talk about things like Obama picking winners and losers in the education market, the meager returns we’ve seen from taxpayer “investment” in public education. I would point out various studies, summarized in this blog, which call into question any incremental learning over the first couple of years of college.When I was teaching microcomputer application courses at ISU in 1991 (i.e., Lotus 1-2-3/DOS, dBASE, Word Perfect, etc.), I went out of my way in the class to say I was more interested in students being able to adapt current technology to solve problems than whether or not, twenty years later, they could remember keystroke combinations of now obsolete applications.
Employers aren’t necessarily looking for prowess in new skills—because technology will be different 5 years from now. In my judgment, they want self-motivated, hard-working individuals whom can cope with rapid changes in technology, incomplete specifications, dysfunctional project or organizational politics, and can effectively communicate, including salient organizational processes (i.e., grooming your successor in career advancement).
Santorum is right to point out Obama has been selling college education as most individuals’ path to a well-compensated career. But I’ve met, for instance, in the high technology field, successful people whom never earned a college degree, and some of the most famous non-graduates include America’s wealthiest person, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell.
I differ from Obama and Santorum because I see government as more the problem than the solution in education, period. I think, for instance, we can leverage education dollars more effectively by making lectures and learning software available to a larger number of students, including the ability of inner school students to remotely enroll in or audit the classes of first-rate teachers.
I also think both of them are playing winners and losers with manufacturing. Most jobs are located in the service arena. We need to get out of the business of trying to micromanage the economy and deal with the economy as it is.
I don’t think the issue is just with education policy. I think there is a real problem with business talent acquisition. For example, I’ve sometimes been passed over for opportunities based on wish lists of arbitrary skill sets, which I could easily master in minutes or a few hours. (It’s also very difficult to compete against H1B’s living out of suitcases; in fact, I’ve also personally interviewed unsuccessfully at multiple places where every single technical person was Indian or Indian-American—no exaggeration.) But my position is that the private sector has the right to be stupid; any business that engages in suboptimal hiring processes is providing a competitive advantage for the new or other competitor. The government monopoly, however, doesn’t have to convince taxpayers to choose its goods and services: it can tax and spend by fiat and even print its own money.
