Is Obama Cool Or Just a Jerk?

In the comments of Ken's post below Bill Fleming [Bill got mad that added an extra M in the orignal post] and I are discussing Barack Obama's personality.  The debate seems to be whether Obama is an introvert full of self-confidence (the Flemming position, which he can correct if I have him wrong) or a loner with arrogance out of proportion with his accomplishments (my position). 

Granted, all presidents will have high self-regard, often falling into arrogance. Let's compare
Obama to someone to whom few will have a visceral reaction, George H.W. Bush.  Bush 41 started his own business (albeit with some help of family connections) and built a very successful engery company.  He went on to be a congressmen, the ambassador to the U.N., head of the Republican National Committee, envoy to China (essentially ambassador, but not holding that title) and head of the CIA.  All of this before he ran for president in 1980.  Now THAT is accomplishment to be proud of.

Obama was co-president of Harvard Law Review, but conspicuously  never published a signed piece in the Review, an omission I understand to be quite rare.  At the University of Chicago he was given a senior lecture position without any legal accomplishments to speak of.  While there he also never published a single law review piece and, according to Richard Epstein (admittedly, no fan of Obama) was conspicuous by his unwillingness to debate his views with other faculty members.  Obama was contracted to write a book on race and the law but was unable to write the book.  After getting two extensions (and two advances) Obama wrote Dreams of My Father rather than the book on the law.  Again, there is this remarkable fact that Obama seems incapable of writing about what he is supposed to be expert on.  And now we know, thanks to David Marinass, that large portions of Dreams of My Father were invented or highly exaggerated to the extent that we can call them untrue.  So we can say that Obama could not actually write his own autobiography. 

In the Illinois State Senate, as we know, Obama was "Senator Present" due to his unusually high number of "present" votes.  In the US Senate he authored no important pieces of legislation.  He chaired one sub-committee but failed to ever call a meeting.  Is it surprising the Senate staff members voted him the #2 "show horse" in the United States Senate (right in front of Joe Biden, btw)? 

Despite a career that suggests mediocrity, Obama believes, famously, that he knows more about policy than any of his policy directors, that he is a better speechwriter than his professional speechwriters, and he knows more about politics than his political director.  Just to draw an example, Obama apparently thinks he knows more about economics than, say, Larry Summers, Paul Volker and Christina Romer.  That, my friends, is not confidence.  That is arrogance bordering on pathological.  I will not rehearse (because I did it here) all the people who say that Obama really hates to lose, and what is more, he personally hates people who beat him.  He also has the reputation of taking it as a personal insult if someone disagrees with him and, again, he takes a personal disliking of anyone who has the temerity to actually disagree with The One.  That is not the sign of confidence.  If anything it is a sign of great insecurity. 

As I have said, if you like President Obama's policies and/or dislike Mitt Romney's none of this likely effects your vote.  But, as Bob Woodward is pointing out, this likely makes it hard to be a successful president. Here's one anecdote from Woodward

"There's this divided-man quality to President Obama always. Initially he meets with the congressional leaders, he says you know, 'We're going to be accommodating, we're going to listen, we're going to talk, we're going to compromise," Woodward said.

"But then they -- Republicans ask some questions and challenge him a little bit and he says, 'Look I won. I'm in charge here,' " Woodward continued. "And the Republicans feel totally isolated and ostracized. And this was the beginning of a war."

Obama lacks the bargaining skills necessary to craft legislation, and absent an overwhelming partisan majority for his side, he can't work to form a legislative majority.  One reason he cannot achieve this necessary task is that, as Woodward notes in this story, Obama has a visceral reaction to anyone who contradicts him.  I think this puts him in the arrogant loner camp, not the self-confident introvert.

Comments

[Bill Fleming]

John Schaf, my last name is spelled with one "m." (How's that for arrogance ;^)?

[grudznick]

My friend Mr. Fleming is more introverted than most of us realize.

[Bill Fleming]

Yup. Meyers Briggs = INTJ (...last time I checked, Grudz.)

Just got done re-reading your post Jon, and you know the way Barrack hurt those little Republican guys' feelings is just so, so sad. My liberal heart is just bleeding all over the floor over here.

p.s. Can you point me to some of the books Mr. Romney and his sidekick Gilligan have penned?
Just curious.

[Stan Gibilisco]

Bill, I took the test out of curiosity, and I'm the same type as you: 1NTJ.

Does that make me a liberal?

I never claimed that I knew myself well. In fact, I've admitted at times that politically, I don't know myself at all.

I wonder how well President Obama knows himself?

;-)

[Stan Gibilisco]

Oh, I mean, INTJ. Whatever.

[Jon S]

Mr. FleMing,

Mitt Romney, to my knowledge, has just his campaign book, which puts him one book behind Obama. I am not sure I see the point.

[Bill Fleming]

No problem Jon.

[Bill Fleming]

I think maybe it makes you a writer?

[Bill Fleming]

Last note was to Stan... Sorry.

[Bill Fleming]

http://typelogic.com/intj.html
Here's a link for you Stan.

[Donald Pay]

Is KB nuts or an utter fool?

[Stan Gibilisco]

Thanks, Bill. It's pretty much on target!

[Stan Gibilisco]

KB seems sane and intelligent to me. But what do I know?

[duggersd]

What does it say about a person's personality that when he really blows big time, he blames everyone else besides himself. According to CBS, Team Obama is now blaming John Kerry. Apparently Kerry did not push Obama hard enough. Why? Because Kerry wants to be Secretary of State and Obama does not like people who get in his face. Oh, another personality trait. So far, we have heard the reason is because of the altitude, Romney lied (untrue), and Jim Lehrer. Obama has a thin skin, much like a certain other person we all know and cannot face the truth. So, cool or jerk? That is not a hard one to figure.

[Bill Fleming]

Is that a question for Jon, Don? :-)

KB's like the rest of us — trying to find sanity in an insane world of our own making.

We know better.

It's not "out there" it's "in here."

Even so, we alternatively...no, simultaneously... celebrate — yet abhor — our ambivalence...

...and in the process, probably think too much.

Om.

[Bill Fleming]

DuggerSD on the other hand, doesn't think enough...

[Jon S]

Donald (and all),

I am starting to ramp up my blogging here so pay attention to who is writing what.

[duggersd]

Well, the jerk thing is a no-brainer. I don't need to think about it. However, I do not blame you for being gloomy after seeing the king with no clothes.

[larry kurtz]

fool me once, shame on you: mitt should be fearful of that other shoe's kinetic energy.

[Donald Pay]

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/374112_10151088390751275_956707482_n.jpg

[Ken Blanchard]

Thanks, Stan. I would like to think that I am neither insane nor a fool. I am pretty sure that Donald is not insane.

[lynn]

Obama is a first class jerk, which he showed in one of the first meetings he had with Reps in his office. Instead of trying to work across the aisle, he simply said, "We won." So much for bipartisanship. Not sure about the fool part; he was smart enough to mesmerize enough voters to get elected with his hope and change. Now we will see if the people are fool enough to re-elect him. We know that the gimme set will vote for him, if they care enough to vote. Whether the people who actually think they understand the issues vote for him is the question.