Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
‘The Bride at Every Wedding, the Corpse at Every Funeral’
As Troy Senik noted earlier, the music world lost Blues great B.B. King yesterday. Fans around the world shared thousands of photos of the legend and videos of his performances. Then our president did something he always seems to do when a great man or woman passes on: he tweeted a photo of himself.
“There’s going to be one killer blues session in heaven tonight.” —President Obama on the passing of #BBKing pic.twitter.com/GD2yY6vymV
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 15, 2015
Twitter addicts like myself have noticed this odd narcissism time and again. Here’s Obama commemorating the death of Maya Angelou.
“Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.” —Maya Angelou pic.twitter.com/oR11k7rwxk
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 28, 2014
Nelson Mandela’s death.
Rest in peace, Nelson Mandela. pic.twitter.com/4qlqsXLp6e
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 5, 2013
The anniversary of JFK’s death.
President Obama on President Kennedy and the American spirit —> http://t.co/04oGQiABZJ #JFK, pic.twitter.com/1irDH153L1
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 22, 2013
Rosa Parks.
In a single moment 58 years ago today, Rosa Parks helped change this country. pic.twitter.com/C502SKfJnj
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 1, 2013
Neil Armstrong.
And it’s not only funerals and memorials. Here’s his tweet for Stephen Colbert’s last show.
After nine years, the best source of “truthiness” is coming to an end. Congratulations @StephenAtHome. pic.twitter.com/JXAj5ATaxz
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 18, 2014
David Letterman’s retirement.
There are more than 10 reasons #DavidLetterman will be missed. pic.twitter.com/UoLVRZduF7
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 3, 2014
His Chief of Staff’s birthday.
Happy birthday to President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough! pic.twitter.com/HEAshPTzXy
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 3, 2013
Biden’s birthday.
A very happy birthday to the @VP. pic.twitter.com/rS2606MgKy
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 20, 2014
Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter Alice famously said her father “always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.” Just imagine if she lived to see President Selfie Stick in action.
Published in Politics
Shameless self-promotion photo ops . . .
Hey, that V.P. Biden pic is a two-fer. Well done Mr. President.
(Almost too much competance for one frame)
Zelig!
It would be wonderful if he could have a career in modeling when his term is done.
That’s what everyone seeks out in a leader – unyielding self-adoration, and getting prickly whenever criticized.
No one puts Baby Barry in a corner.
Regarding this post’s title: I’d gladly give him away, and one can only wish.
Leonard was, and shall always be my friend.
Disturbing and more than a bit pitiful. I suppose that a defender of the President would suggest that Obama didn’t post these himself and it was done by a White House flunky. But if Obama weren’t an egotist, he would have put a stop to it long ago.
Question for a psychiatrist: How easily can someone as self-absorbed as is our President be manipulated?
That’s a question one might ask of Valerie Jarrett, were she honest. But then she wouldn’t be in a position to have the answer.
But don’t get your hopes up regarding manipulating a narcissist by, say, flattery. They’re skilled at detecting false praise; it’s a part of their skill set. Healthy minds will never be good at it. There really isn’t anything one can do with such a person, other than to keep them at arms’ length. Nuclear arms’ length, preferably.
DocJay, you out there? Chime in.
Since the President isn’t the President until the Oath of Office is recited, I suspect that on Inauguration Day 2017, @WhiteHouse will post scads of tweets, such as “@BarackObama having his last breakfast at @WhiteHouse”, “@BarackObama getting into the limousine for the ride to #Inauguration2017″, “@BarackObama motorcade to #Inauguration2017″, “@BarackObama arriving at Capitol for #Inauguration2017″, “@BarackObama observing the Oath of Office for new President”
It reminds me of the old Real Men of Genius radio ad for Mr. Real Loud Cell Phone Talker Guy: “Nothing screams ‘I’m important’ more than a man who screams ‘I’m important’ into a cell phone.”
These are probably edited by a staffer. Obama’s full version of the BB King tribute was:
But that exceeded the character limit.
Generally, the narcissist does the manipulating and using.
Oh, so true. The thing to remember with personality disorders (and I”m not diagnosing him…just to be clear), they are exquisitely sensitive to others reactions, perceptions and behaviors. It’s their interpretive system that is off. That’s why it’s hard to manipulate a narcissist.
The ego is so fragile and brittle that they are sensitive to slights that aren’t there, see through the tiniest false flattery, and can spot a true believer pretty quickly. The true believer doesn’t manipulate them, because he or she actually thinks the narcissist is God’s gift to us.
I find cancer patients and dying people far less exhausting to work with.
We truly are fortunate to have a president who has met so many famous people.
I think it wouldn’t be hard to manipulate a narcissist like the president, except that he is well protected by his handlers. One of the few times he was nearly reduced to a quivering blob was during the first presidential debate of 2012. Romney never let up on the president’s repeated failures, rebutting every Obama counter (which became weaker and weaker during the performance) with a small shiv to his ego. The president and his media guardians weren’t prepared for this, but in the next two debates, the moderators were prepared to cut off or derail Romney’s arguments before he ever got the chance to land any blows.
The blogger Anonymous Conservative has a whole series of posts and a self-published e-book about how to deal with narcissists. Here’s a series of posts where he gives an overview of the narcissist’s psychology in action. And here’s an analysis of the first and second presidential debates.
I don’t know how psychologically valid Anonymous Conservative’s analysis is, but it is interesting reading. He often conflates narcissists with liberals, which I find funny.
It’s as if these people’s worth is measured by what they meant to Barack Obama.
There is not a bride at every wedding anymore. There can be two grooms instead. Get with the times, this micro aggression must stop.
Obama is a complete master of the empty gesture. As an adolescent he read and was moved by James Baldwin’s essays along with the peace marches of the civil rights movement, 1955-65. All his adult life he has been trying to insert himself into that decade, retrospectively. He covets the moral glamor of that era (Shelby Steele has written on this). He appoints agency heads, judges and advisors who also want it to be 1965.
How sad for all of us; we have a nattering president who unloads faulty analogies about Christianity on occasions when we require uplift; a first lady who gripes about imagined racial slights when the nation needs racial healing. Obama could begin to change America if he would address the awful statistics of young black men in trouble with the law. Michelle could do so much good if she used her prestige as first lady to encourage young black women not to get pregnant outside of marriage. But no, they would have to let go the cry, ‘racism!’
We might have to face the fact that Obama was elected so that our nation could have a really good cry on that inauguration day back in 2009. As a kid I was always amazed when my little league teammates cried when we lost championships—all these tougher-than-nails athletes! There is a big gooey jelly donut in the heart of this nation. We Americans like to think of ourselves as hardnosed, practical people, but, more and more, as the Obama admin comes in for a landing, I’ve come to think of the country as wallowing in romanticism and sentiment; we will look back on this ‘O time’ as one of swooning romanticism…
Psychiatrists used to have an axiom: if you get a severe narcissist, get rid of her; a moderate one, treat her; a mild one, marry her.
Not sure where “elect him president, twice” fits in.
When will the topic get back to talking about me?
I wish I could see the selfie (Dorian Gray) in the attic.
Where are the pics when he saved Solyndra?
How about a pic of Barry reading the headline “IRS Targeting conservatives” and he asks his staff why he hadn’t been briefed earlier.
Or Obama claiming that “If I had a son… Michelle would beat the snot out of him worse than that nigga in Cleveland.”
Dietlbomb, thanks all over the place for that reference. There was a thread recently on who we’d like on Ricochet – I’d like the Anonymous Conservative to join, if he’s not already here.
Spot on, Romney’s first debate performance is a good primer on how to deal with (I won’t yet say “manipulate”) a narcissist/sociopath. I took Richard Fulmer #8 to mean doing it with flattery; PsychLynne #13 and I agree that’s just not in the cards.
I’ll now study what Anonymous Conservative has to offer. The small fraction of sociopaths cause an outsized measure of trouble, and feeding them to snakes isn’t legal.
I thought I burned that one. He must have backups.
After starting that series of posts, I find myself in your debt. What I’ve read so far jibes perfectly with my few inadequate successes, all by happenstance. It is so very difficult to analyze the problem of sociopathy, because one is always involved. How does it happen? My best guess was it had to be a congenital dysfunction, but no – it can be learned, like everything is learned by Hebbian synapse evolution. “Fire together, wire together.” And the technique to disarm it – obvious, now that I’ve been shown. The few times it worked for me, I had done what the Colonel did.
I’m just getting started, and at the elation phase of new knowledge. That never lasts, so name your fee.
Glad you liked Anonymous Conservative’s stuff. It would be nice if some psychologists could read those posts to see if they jibe with their professional experience.
I agree that flattery won’t take you too far with a narcissist. That’s one reason they are so dangerous. They are very attuned to that sort of self-serving manipulative behavior, because that’s their modus operandi. It also illustrates a difference between narcissists and sociopaths: narcissists have a defective empathy model that is obsessed with earning others’ approval; sociopaths have no concept of empathy and only care about other people’s actions.
AC’s most basic bit of advice for dealing with narcissists is to remove them from your life completely. Unfortunately, we can’t do that with the president.
Of course it is the President’s PR aides who are doing this, but that does not make it any less disturbing. Since that first two-toned poster by Shepard Fairey, Obama’s people have been forging a Stalin/Mao/Kimesque cult of personality centered around his “cool” demeanor and his slim athletic profile in a suit.