The Stiftung gets at a point we've been mulling for a while now, which is the "Warlord-lite"ism of the Hopester, natch:
For all of that, Obama is Warlord-lite once again. Agitprop spinners and gullible U.S.-we-canners aside, the defense industry quite rightfully breathes a sigh of relief — as their stocks soar on the news.As Superjesus Black Reagan pronounces to his poodle-skirted fan club that he sees a "glimmer of hope" and sends human paraquat Larry Summers out to explain that we are aallllllmost at the bottom, MosSecDef Gates pitches increases as decreases for spending on so-called Defense. The Bailout remains stage magic at best as Obama's thirtysomething forensics team seeks to prove the power of words, mere words to inspire "confidence," a word that should give any observer pause, even when not immediately followed by game. Still struggling to recapitalize and reinvigorate "legacy" (read: failed, bankrupt in all but name) institutions by monetizing fictitious assets in the mobius-strip logic of late Late Capitalism, they're clearly out of their depth, none more so than the President himself, who would in a more realistic world have been hired by his predecessor to be the American Ambassador to America, a glorious reified symbol with a knockout wife and excellent table manners.
[...]
The alleged Gates “cutbacks” are merely a piece with the Potemkin nature of Obama’s budget and TARP/financial rescue plan. Essentially to anyone not still drunk from the Inaugural buzz, the Obama Administration’s claim to fame so far is ‘hey we’re slightly less whacked than those other guys’. Change yes, but less than meets the eye. The ‘vital’ Obama federal budget delivered less than a month ago is blown into vapor by their sudden admission (DOH! - as everyone outside the Administration knew) that the economy in fact wouldn’t grow and begin recovery this June as they claimed. Much less reachg 3.3. GDP next year.
Youth, teen-girl appeal, Ivy-League background, hawkishness, and a hopelessly mediocre intellect, Obama really is the second coming of Kennedy assassiné. What did Joe Biden call him: nice, young, clean, and articulate? Seen at the time as regrettably racist condescension, it seems in hindsight a perfect and prophetic estimation of a candidate-in-permanence who's plainly not up to the task.
28 comments:
If you're gonna jump for that one you'd better get a running start.
Not up to the task, or performing another task entirely? That's the perennial question. Call no man a failure until we've established precisely where he's aiming.
Are you gonna split hairs?
whatsherdoucheface over on the NYTimes blog had a post up a while back about women having vivid, moist dreams about Obama.
Fucking Germans. Nothing changes.
Fucking Nazis.
But...but what about our progressive hope for change in the most progressive era ever in the history of, uh, history? God-Emperor Obama is changing the face of politics as we know it with his hope for change and and and ANYBODY BUT BUSH! ANYBODY BUT BUSH! ANYBUSHYBUTDWODKCOIULF!!!1!!!
Bush the republican dumbfuck.
Now, Obama, the democratic dumbfuck.
And over at Perrin's, we have the more plausible theory of the new administration being actually more competent at dispensing mayhem and destruction.
Some of you lot, though, I feel, don't really care which is true. But don't you know that if you don't know why they're so awful, your discontent matters not at all?
And let's not even get into that our dear host was arguing, some months ago, that McCain was the better candidate precisely because he was the less competent candidate.
Jesus hell, how the fuck can anyone remember what I wrote some months ago? I can't even remember what I wrote some hours ago. Meanwhile, I think you've gone off the rails in thinking this all has anything to do with wishing Obama was ruhlly a good president who would restore America's place in the world or whateverthefuck. I'm just saying dude is a lightweight by any measurement. He's Gee-dub in complete sentences. Whatevs.
"dude is a lightweight by any measurement."
Read: I hereby declare.
Like I said, first a running start.
"Chopper 11 is reporting a 2 mile gaper delay westbound near the scene of an earlier multiple anon blawg pileup."
'Barack Obama won last night's debate by speaking clearly, fluently, and like an adult about things that were palpably untrue.... Obama terrifies me: an intelligent, thoughtful, well-prepared, capably extemporaneous man...'
And I don't cite you to make you appear foolish, IOZ. In fact, all you mentioned then now appears downright prophetic.
Now let me be clear: I don't know what you're talking about as far as wishing Obama this or that. What I meant to say was that folks now rushing toward the "he can't fix anything; what an idiot!" position were, at least as far as this website, complaining that he would be all too strong a preserver of the status quo. And sure, you can change your mind. You contain multitudes and all that. But as far as all the Anonymice about? I don't think they much care, so long as they complain.
I love criticism of the administration as much as the next guy. By all means, heap the scorn and distrust. But this seems like a rushed point. Why is he dumb all of a sudden? He's been passing along the same platitudes for a long damn time, and you've already explored how this economy is essentially beyond fixing. Why, exactly, is he a dimwit when it's just as likely that he's a liar? The folks who elected him are getting what they want; doesn't look incompetent to me.
Cuneyt put down the goddamn coffee pot! you've had enough.
*yawns. rolls over, falls back to sleep.*
Jesus hell, how the fuck can anyone remember what I wrote some months ago?
Because we hang on your every word, fucko.
Make me appear foolish. Oh Lord.
Never revise your opinion on The Internet.
Which is why I stated my intent. I wouldn't dare to tell you how you should think. We all change our minds, and ought to.
Oh, quit getting the vapors and flouncing all about. I swear to fuck, were you that sheltered as a "gifted" child, that no one ever told you you were wrong, or pointed out holes in an argument you made? It's a simple and fair point: is Obama a stupid doofus or is he a Machiavellian mastermind? Why, it's almost like you and Perrin just move the goalposts to wherever they're most convenient. Cuneyt 1, Posturing Cynics, 0.
As for revising your opinion, don't make me go and dig up all those old posts where you praise Digby and call her "brilliant". Jesus, your fanboys would all have strokes over that.
Ooooo, IOZ, I just hateyouhateyouhateyou! I hateyouandyourcommentersandyou'remeanandIhateyou!
Cuneyt and little me like each other, yo. Gracious. Fucker needles me all the time.
Also, where do I call Il Obama "stupid doofus"? I call him a mediocrity. While I would call that a downward revision of my opinion of his intellect, you'll hardly find me calling him either a doofus or a Machiavellian mastermind.
Now you will excuse me, but I must return to my smelling salts.
of course the two of you married the first person you dated.
Look IOZ, all any of us really want to do is roll back over and go to sleep - just like in the Clinton Golden Years of Peace and Prosperity. Can't you at least let us do that?
Anon 2:18, I want to accept your praise as much as any egotist should, but I can't let you bash our host and Mr. Perrin without a word. The fact is that they're rather lucid interpreters of current events, even if I may periodically disagree with this or that point.
We've all got little peculiarities. IOZ may tend toward absurdism; Mr. Perrin has his masturbation imagery and an ideological hangover. But regardless of where I may differ, I read each regularly. There's a reason I'm a commenter here.
And oh, 3:44, how little you know...
Cuneyt, lie down and take a breather.
It seems clear to me that Obama is (1) trying as hard as possible to preserve the empire; (2) that he's bound to fail, in that the empire the empire is already running out of money and running aground on multiple unwinnable wars; (3) that anyone as intelligent as Obama's been made out to be wouldn't be trying to sustain an unsustainable system while surrounding himself with idiots and kleptocrats; (4) that the man is a well-spoken, corrupt simpleton; (5) that well-spoken, corrupt simpletons are in many ways more dangerous than clearly blithering ones, because more people will be likely to listen to an idiot when he's using a big vocabulary. None of this is contradictory.
Perhaps I wasn't plain enough.
"Dumb" is declaring, in spite of every other possible metric, that someone else is dumb solely because that person, whose ideological commitments are at counter-purposes with one's own, associates with other persons whose ideological commitments are at counter-purposes with one's own.
You know the brain is the largest erogenous zone.
Scrolling exhausts me so I'm not going back up to find whoever introduced dumb, but I do believe it was a nitpickler constructing a strawman out of a post calling Obama a JFK-esque mediocrity, which isn't at all the same thing as calling him stupid.
Well, Cuneyt, if it makes you feel better, I wasn't praising you so much as just remarking that your point was simple, pertinent and inoffensive. (Politely) saying "Hey, dude, what you said here is pretty much the exact opposite of what you said a few short months ago. What's up with that?" strikes me as something IOZ usually wouldn't even respond to, let alone have his reliable little weiner dog Mr. Fun come running out to nip at your ankles.
And for the record, I don't hate you, IOZ or think you're "mean". I just think you tend towards bouts of pompous fuckwittery, and thus you're fun to mock. All's fair in love and blawg.
lol. metrics.
this is America, where people vote for the person they most trust to lie to them.
metrics. LAWL.
This is a dumb thread.
The pompousness is a feature, not a bug. Duh.
(5) that well-spoken, corrupt simpletons are in many ways more dangerous than clearly blithering ones, because more people will be likely to listen to an idiot when he's using a big vocabulary.I think George W. Bush has blown that theory out of the water; even after spending four years proving himself an idiot and a poor liar people still elected him, and even as he continued to prove to even the densest of people that he was an awful moron, very little materialized in the way of real, concrete opposition.
He's an evil, stupid, destructive man and everybody knows it. Do you think he's going to be punished? Do you even think he's going to have a hard time find speaking gigs?
We've become a monarchy but without political assassinations. Even if the President is an inbred madman who appoints his horse as Secretary of the Interior people will still treat him with the utmost respect, as befits his office.
At least Obama respects us enough to try to hide the awful things he does.
Now you will excuse me, but I must return to my smelling salts.Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
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