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Third Class Temperament
Like cult members awaking to find their leader swigging gin and squirreling money into a Swiss bank account, liberals are rubbing their eyes in disbelief at President Obama’s behavior. The figure they worshipped so fervently and for so long is now revealed to be a “sexist” – at least according to National Organization for Women President Terry O’Neill.
Her view is seconded by Senator Sherrod Brown (D., OH). They are upset about the president’s derisive treatment of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., MA), who committed a sin the president does not take kindly – she disagreed with him. For differing about the merits of the TPP trade deal, she got what everyone should already recognize as the Obama treatment – her views were caricatured and her motives were questioned. “The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else.” Senator Brown thought the president’s use of Warren’s first name betokened sexism.
No, Senator Brown, that’s not sexism, that’s all-purpose disrespect. The president has been displaying the same condescension to world leaders, senate majority leaders, house speakers, and everyone else since first taking office. It was always “John” and “Harry” and “Hillary” – never Speaker Boehner, Leader Reid, or Secretary Clinton. It was “Angela” and “David,” not Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Cameron. Can’t wait to see whether, when the Pope visits in September, the president refers to him as “Jorge.” There was one exception to this rule – Obama was at pains to refer to Iran’s Ali Khameini, who has never been elected to anything, as “Supreme Leader.”
It’s hard to think of another figure whose self-esteem is so inversely proportional to his merit.
So welcome to our world, liberals. Now that your eyes are opened, take a look at the completely unjust, snide, and dishonest way Obama talked about Republicans at the Georgetown University panel on poverty a few days ago.
The most fairmindness Obama could muster was to say he believed that Republicans care about the poor. But this acknowledgment was quickly vitiated by his insistence that if Republicans don’t agree with him about increasing the tax on hedge fund managers, they are insincere. If the tax rate on “carried interest” were raised, the president declared, “I” could fund universal preschool.”
Um, no. The left-leaning Center for American Progress estimates that raising taxes on hedge fund managers could bring in $21 billion over 10 years, or a little over $2 billion per year. According to the National Institute for Early Education Research, universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds would clock in at $70 billion per year (not counting what we spend on existing pre-k programs). Now, I don’t give a fig about hedge fund managers, but here’s a thought: How much would increasing their taxes really raise? Probably nothing. As John Carney of CNBC showed, they could take their income a different way and avoid the tax.
And really, considering what a great job the government is doing in education, why would anyone believe that universal pre-k would be successful? National Review’s Jim Geraghty notes that Baltimore’s schools spend more per pupil than suburban Fairfax County, Virginia’s, with much worse results.
It’s possible that some of those hedge fund millionaires and billionaires might contribute money to school choice scholarship funds and other reforms as Ted Forstmann, Jim Barksdale, Eli Broad, Michael Dell, David Packard, the Walton family, Donald Fisher, and many others have done.
Mr. Obama flays the rich the way a compass points north, often bizarrely unaware of how he’s embarrassing himself. Regarding the bifurcation of society, he lamented that “those who are doing better and better — more skilled, more educated, luckier, having greater advantages — are withdrawing from sort of the commons — kids start going to private schools; kids start working out at private clubs instead of the public parks.” This from a graduate of the Ponahou School who sends his daughters to Sidwell Friends.
During the discussion, Mr. Obama disparaged John Boehner’s and Mitch McConnell’s interest in helping the poor. So it’s worth recalling that one of Obama’s first acts as president was to seek to defund the District of Columbia’s Opportunity Scholarship fund. When the Democrats controlled Congress, he succeeded. But someone who cared waited for a chance, and when Republicans gained control of the House and the Congress was in a tense budget showdown with the White House, John Boehner personally saw to it that the program was revived.
So who is judging whom when it comes to the poor?
Published in General
I honestly can’t decide whether Barack (see what I did there?) is actually unable to conceive that someone who disagrees with him on policy is arguing in good faith, or whether this condescension is part of the “personalize, demonize” process he learned in Chicago. Guess I’m going to have to read Rules for Radicals to understand this President (and, though God forbid, the next one.)
You are very generous to say that he has a third class temperament. From the time of the Sarah Palin/lipstick on a pig comment, it was very clear he had no class. Honestly, you could even go back further to the “likeable enough” comment to Hillary to see what kind of person he was.
Sadly, many on the Left have not seen until lately what a shabby excuse for a public figure he is because they share a similar temperament.
I don’t think Obama has any temperment. He is quick to criticize others when the facts aren’t known, and his constant bullying of those who disagree tells me he cannot handle criticism of himself or his positions.
I can only hope that many Dems and even some liberal mainstream media have grown tired of this, and realize Hillary will be more of the same . . .
I do not doubt his lack of class, but does disagreeing with Elizabeth Warren really make one a sexist? If that is the standard, I bet most Americans, and probably most women, are sexists.
Exactly. The ‘ism stuff has long since past rationality of any sort.
Krauthammer said it best; to paraphrase, everyone except Barry must change their opinions, ideas and behavior.
To add some fuel to this fire: What about President Obama’s attacks on Fox News? It reminds me of a high school kid complaining about the one teacher who didn’t give them a good grade. The difference is that often the high school student grows up and realizes that that teacher had some valid points, and they could have learned something from them were they more mature at the time.
Of course what can you expect from a president who got in a trash-talk beef with Michael Jordan….
But if we want to keep playing this game could we say that Terry O’Neill’s comment just proves that N.O.W. is a racists organization?
I think Obama’s remarks were clearly condescending. I think if you look at everything through the prism of gender, you can see it as sexism, but he treats everyone that way, so in full context, it is more complete to say that he is just a jerk.
King Fascocialist Narcissist Civilizational Destroyer. KFNCD.
What I love about this is how richly they all deserve each other: Warren, Brown, and Obama. It’s a contest of who can outdo whom in self-righteousness.
Am I on an island? I still think Hillary will be ditched so Warren can run . . .
I thought I was the only person who thought that.
Barry defunded the DC school because of the teachers’ union. And he has the classic disregard for his own prior actions and statements and talks about how Republicans are bad people for sending their kids to private schools.
Has anyone pulled this clown aside at some point to tell him what he’s doing to himself? Or does Barry just make sure that he doesn’t hire anyone who speaks truth to him.
He’s the guy that nobody wants to work for in a real company. So he winds up with second-raters reporting to him and he doesn’t even know it, because he thinks he’s just awesome.
Whenever I see the word “temperament” in regard to President Obama, I think of Christopher Buckley’s endorsement of him in 2008, praising “his first-class temperament and first-class intellect”. The whirlwind he envisioned has occurred, and no one should be surprised, least of all Mr. Buckley.
But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.
I loved when he snidely said “…and those who watch Fox News….”. I wanted to interrupt with “You mean essentially most people, right? More people watch Fox than every other news program combined!
Not to say Fox is therefore right about all and is immune to criticism, but Obama triesto get all eye-rolly about them – hopes to make a crack trying to wink wink his audience to his side – he should understand that regular people go listen to what makes sense to them.
Hoping the ill-tempered words that Obama fired at Warren will open the left’s eyes to the way he’s treated conservatives is a tad optimistic. Fish will see the water in which they swim long before progressives see anything wrong with Obama’s often voiced assumption that those of us on the right act with ill will. To their minds, he did no more than state the obvious. The science is settled.
BC: I think more people watch FOX than all other cable news shows combined.
And I think of Jay Nordlinger’s response, which is that of all the things he dislikes about Obama, it’s his temperament that he dislikes most.
I would go further with examples of his 3rd class temperament. On the one hand he flaunts the baubles of his office, Air Force One, the motorcades through big cities that inconvenience thousands of people with traffic jams.
But then he’ll put his feet up on the desk in the Oval Office, with his coat and tie off. He’s been intentionally pictured doing it.
Ronald Reagan made it a point to wear a suit to the Oval Office and he never took his coat and tie off while there. From what I can tell, George W Bush followed suit. Probably his dad did too.
And at the beginning of his presidency, the way he treated the Queen of England was so tacky. Remember, when they exchanged modest gifts as a part of her visit to the U.S., he gave her a iPod of his speeches. I don’t believe for a second that that was a faux pax. That would imply that he didn’t know what he was doing.
And like most of Jay’s observations, he’s right on.
I think Hillary would sooner burn down the entire Democrat party than give up this moment.
Remember the story of the frog and the scorpion. Obama is a scorpion. Being condescending and critical of those that disagree is his nature. He cannot control himself. It is who he is.
Now look very careful at Hillary. She is also a scorpion and can only hide behind the facade her staff creates for so long. Her sting is still there. It is who she is.
True. But this one in particular is the lodestar.
Good point. Hillary would have to be forced out of the race by the party itself, and she won’t go quietly. The Dems don’t have the nerve to do it by themselves, but maybe if Hillary was in some sort of legal trouble, then they would have to take drastic action. I seem to remember Nixon wasn’t leaving office until members of his own party sat down with him and spelled things out . . .