The Obama Purchase

Selwyn Duke * American Thinker

Many years ago I knew a couple who adopted the habit of being gratuitously defensive about one another. If you made even the slightest comment questioning one of them in the other's presence, that party would say something such as "Watch it!" The admonition, however, would lack a certain conviction.

Not long after they were divorced.

Their earlier behavior then made sense: They couldn't accept that their marriage was in trouble. And each spouse would react defensively to even obliquely negative feedback about the other not because he knew it was false, but because he feared it was true. It validated feelings each was having about the other but desperately wanted to keep repressed.

I'm reminded of this when considering the intellectual contortions of liberals who defend Barack Obama. No, it's not perfectly analogous: liberals are driven more by political ambitions and ego than by a desire to make their "marriage" work. But the denial is similar.

A good example is a Vanity Fair piece by Todd S. Purdum. Titled "The Lonely Guy: He's a community organizer who works alone. What was once his greatest strength -- he kept his cool and didn't need feedback -- is now a liability," the subtitle says it all. The article is a somewhat tedious apologia, providing this or that example of how Obama doesn't engage people, of how Daddy Big-Guv thinks he knows best.

In justifying Obama's attitude, Purdum writes:

Self-containment is not simply Obama's political default mode. Self-possession is the core of his being, and a central part of the secret of his success. It is Obama's unwavering discipline to keep his cool when others are losing theirs....

But this quality, perhaps Obama's greatest strength in gaining office, is his greatest weakness in conducting it.

Nonsense. First, keeping your cool (at least publicly) isn't unusual for aspirants to higher office. The few thought lacking in this area, such as Bob Dole and John McCain, found it a liability come election time.

Read more at American Thinker:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/11/the_obama_purchase.html#ixzz2kLteHjXg

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