The Mind Of The President: Two recent devastating profiles–one of President Barack Obama by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic and the other of Obama’s communications chief Ben Rhodes by David Samuels in The New York Times Magazine–have revealed a kaleidoscope of mendacity so sophisticated, creative, consuming, and substantively boundless as to give rise to a sense that something essential has changed in the relationship between truth and falsehood, between the actual policies of an administration and its efforts to sell them.
Grab a coffee. (h/t Peter)
“…as to give rise to a sense that something essential has changed in the relationship between truth and falsehood…”
I’ll tell you what’s changed: a large chunk of the electorate either(a)simply doesn’t care about truth or honesty, or (b) sees the skillful and continual skirting of the truth as something to be admired.
How else can you explain the re-election of Obama and McGuinty and a host of other lying sociopathic turds?
On Fox, night before last, an Obama staffer was adamant that USA constitutional rights applied to foreigners in other countries. The Muslim religion, of the refugees from the ME, MUST be admitted into the USA because of our 1st amendment freedom of religion. That is a bonkers POV. This Global nonsense must be rejected, it is the American citizens that enjoy “THEIR” constitutional rights.. It is a sovereign RIGHT of a sovereign Nation…
Watch for the Globalist attitude that the USA is not Sovereign…Maybe the answer to the Obama policy flubs….
I think this speaks more to the fact that the Dems, and leftists in general, know the media have their back. They are playing from the same playbook and working together to push the same narrative. They are in lockstep as to what ideas to promote and what topics to keep in the shadows.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/06/17/cuban-arent-drudge-breitbart-considered-elite-media-business-insider/
The political right has a loooong road ahead. PC’ness MUST be exposed for the faux morality it is and THAT is why many see Trump as a kind of hero. The GOP, nothing but a bunch of PC sympathizers themselves, should be gutted.
Why quit doing what works? Are you listening GOP establishment, or are you still sulking?
moderate becomes extreme
hate becomes Republican
failure becomes victory
misplaying your dealt hand becomes wisdom
motive becomes dependent upon identity
kleptocracy becomes statesmanship
acts of war become lone wolf gun nuts
don’t blame the few becomes blame the many
incompetence becomes your only option
fair treatment becomes racist
change becomes the status quo
Welcome to the mendocracy. Remember the con job that masqueraded as our last federal election?
After this election, it will be illegal to defy the sovereign. When the state reaches ever higher levels of confiscation, coercion is always required.
Chase out the productive, so only the dependent are left behind. Dependent on whom? Cue to Greece.
From the article:
“Obama believes that history has sides and that America’s adversaries—and some of its putative allies—have situated themselves on the wrong one. What they don’t understand is that history is bending in his direction.”
And what is that direction?
The answer might be as simple as this: Obama, it seems, adheres to an ultra-rationalist vision of the sort we have seen in the editorial page of The New York Times, that same simple-minded pseudo-intellectual drivel that got all of us who have actually seen how the world works to wish that our professors back in college really had gotten off campus once in a while:
The belief that the central arc of human history is the victory of reason over unreason; that in politics the answers are already there, plain as day, and only those blinded by irrationality can’t see them. According to this view, enlightenment is an unstoppable process, and history moves only in one direction—from dark to light, to progress, to multilateralism, to international institutions and accords and working things out, not on the battlefield but in the conference room.
This worldview, of course, is not new; it’s been circulating the halls of academia for hundreds of years, and, like any political religion, constantly trying to gain power.
But by the middle of the 20th century, the infinite hell-vortex of two world wars convinced most normal people that history could go many ways, not all of which were particularly enlightening, and that the West’s ultimate survival required a certain intellectual humility and a heavy investment in learning about the world.”
What goes on in the courtroom is aptly described by Bertrand Russell’s observation that “the finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading.” Special pleading, or rationalising, is what is meant by “pseudo-intellectual drivel”. Rationalising seeks “plausibility” and “justification”, not the “truth”.
Special pleading is what lawyers do in the courtroom. However necessary this line of argument may be in the courtroom, it is poison outside of the court. We no longer live in the age of reason guided by philosophers. We now live in the “Age of Lawyers”. It is no wonder, that modern political institutions, which are infested with lawyers, should find themselves in such a tangled web of contradictions and deceit.
It has been evident for sometime Obama has no respect from his enemies and his allies don’t trust him. He and his cronies however are masters of spin. And in Canada we get Obama lite – Truedope .
I’m applauding like mad here by myself. Jamie!
Perfect explanation, and in only two short sentences!
Lying Presidents are nothing new. The only distinguishing factor of the current occupant is that it is the only thing he is really good at. Enjoy your legacy !
Mr. Obama’s refusal to speak of “radical Islam” also betrays his failure to understand the sources of Islamic State’s legitimacy and thus its allure to young Muslim men. The threat is religious and ideological.
Islamic State sees itself as the vanguard of a religious movement rooted in a literalist interpretation of Islamic scriptures that it considers binding on all Muslims everywhere. A small but significant fraction of Muslims agree with that interpretation, which is why Western law enforcement agencies must pay more attention to what goes on inside mosques than in Christian Science reading rooms.
Mr. Obama’s refusal to speak of “radical Islam” leads to other analytical failures, such as his description of the Orlando terrorist as “homegrown.” The Islamic State threat is less a matter of geography than of belief, which is why it doesn’t matter whether Islamic State directly ordered or coordinated Sunday’s attack so long as it inspired it. This, too, is a reminder of the centrality of religion to Islamic State’s effectiveness.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-and-radical-islam-1465947150
Probably the best article I have ever read on SDA.
As long as the freebies continue
… a literalist interpretation of Islamic scripture… Interpretation is not allowed; the Koran is holy writ, the word og allah as revealed to Mohammad via Michael (or someosuch fairy tale).
Malicious mendacity.
A Saudi imam, 2 hijackers and a lingering 9/11 mystery:
WASHINGTON — Inside an opulent palace in Riyadh late one evening in February 2004, two American investigators interrogated a man they believed might hold answers to one of the lingering mysteries of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: What role, if any, did officials in Saudi Arabia’s government play in the plot?
The man under questioning, Fahad al-Thumairy, had been a Saudi consular official based in Los Angeles and the imam of a mosque visited by two of the hijackers. The investigators, staff members of the national 9/11 commission who had waited all day at the United States Embassy before being summoned to the late-night interview, believed that tying him to the plot could be a step toward proving Saudi government complicity in the attacks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-sept11-classified-28-pages.html?_r=0
Nuanced opacity!
I see the administration is still pushing the idea that constitutional rights apply to foreigners… one wonders how those states that are filled with democrats would respond to me as a Canadian demanding the right to bear arms on a trip down south, as per the Second Amendment
In the hierarchy of Obama’s passions in descending order of most loved those are: Obama, Obama, Obama, Family?, Obama’s worldview, Obama worship, Obama’s delightful deceit taqqiya?, putting America down, …….
1. When the electorate is no longer concerned about the truth and willingly accepts lies you end up with government like we have in Canada and the US. Nothing will change as long as these conditions persist. Hillary wins.
2. Obama’s handlers in SA make sure he stays on message
” The mind of a President”
Stopped reading right there. Obama’s mind was burnt out by years of drug use, especially in the formative teen years. There’s a reason his school records are sealed. Obama has handlers. Those are the people whose motives need examination.
Look at it from 0bama’s (or any other progressive’s) point of view.
He has to lie to get the American people to eat a crap sandwich. He tells them they are eating a nice salami and swiss cheese on rye.
And when the inevitable happens after they eat the crap sandwich he has to lie again to tell them that its really helping them and not hurting them as they observe. And many of his followers are stupid enough to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes and instead fall for The Messiah’s lame rhetoric.
” The mind of a President”
Stopped reading right there. Obama’s mind was burnt out by years of drug use, especially in the formative teen years. There’s a reason his school records are sealed. Obama has handlers. Those are the people whose motives need examination.
You and abtrapper sum it up briefly. The electorate today is only interested in the utopian free lunch promises, even if they are nothing but deceptive lies.
Grab a coffee was right.
Obama did promise at the beginning of his presidency that he would fundamentally change the United States. He has, he is tearing it apart, and if David Hazony is right about the next six months then Obama will throw Israel to the wolves.
Jamie, I go with the words terminally stupid, because that is what I consider people who support a liar and fraud.
It’s called “the end justifies the means”. Should be worried more about the fact that the media and the public-at-large go along with it.