January 27, 2013

"Can you tell us a little bit about how you've gone about intellectually preparing for your second term as president?"

The New Republic promotes its "redesign" in email that says I "signed up to get an early look at." (I did?) I'm sent to this interview with Obama, which takes so absurdly long to load that I go off and write other posts before rediscovering the open tab. I see Obama's smiling eyes peeking out over the top of the headline "Barack Obama is Not Pleased." I pause and contemplate 2 things: 1. Do the redesigners not understand the rules of capitalization? and, 2. Did they intend to allude to the famous Queen Victoria quote "We are not amused" — that is, did they intend to imply that Obama uses the royal "we"?

The subtitle is "The president on his enemies, the media, and the future of football," so I guess that's what he's "not pleased" about. I can see not being pleased by one's enemies, but how can he not be pleased by the media? The media fawn over him. What more can he want? And the future of football... I guess TNR threw that in to signal that there's going to be some fun somewhere on this page that took so long to load.

I scroll down past 6 paragraphs of introductory text to get to the actual interview, and that's the first question: "Can you tell us a little bit about how you've gone about intellectually preparing for your second term as president?" See what I mean about fawning? My first bite of the "redesign" is thoroughly cloying. It seems to be cloying even to Obama. He says:
I'm not sure it's an intellectual exercise as much as it is reminding myself of why I ran for president and tapping into what I consider to be the innate common sense of the American people.
I wish I could read what went through his head when he heard that question, before he said, in so many words, that's a stupid question. I think it was something like: These elite media guys are so in love with their idea of me as an intellectual. 

That first question was asked by Chris Hughes. It took 2 fawning elite media guys to interview Obama. The other one is Franklin Foer, and his first question is: "How do you speak to gun owners in a way that doesn't make them feel as if you're impinging upon their liberty?" Later, FF comes up with:
Sticking with the culture of violence, but on a much less dramatic scale: I'm wondering if you, as a fan, take less pleasure in watching football, knowing the impact that the game takes on its players.
Wait. We were talking about the "culture of violence" when we talked about gun rights and we're continuing to talk about "the culture of violence" when we talk about football?! Noted.

By the way, credit to FF for extracting from Obama that he shoots guns "all the time," "up at Camp David," where "we do skeet shooting." I never hear about Obama going to Camp David. Where are the photos of Obama skeet shooting at Camp David?

There's some mystery within that pronoun "we."

60 comments:

Texan99 said...

"How do you speak to gun owners in a way that doesn't make them feel as if you're impinging upon their liberty?"

Hmm, that's a tough one, all right. How about, "Gun owners, I have no intention of confiscating your guns or otherwise impinging on your Second Amendment rights." Then, if they believed him, they might even have the requisite feeling that he wasn't impinging upon their liberty. But who knows if he could grasp such a delicate rhetorical task?

ricpic said...

He knows who the oppressors are and he's going to ramp up the punishment. So much for intellect.

chickelit said...

Where are the photos of Obama skeet shooting at Camp David?

His handlers are saving those for the 2014 midterms when they'll need them to connect him with the innate common sense of the American people.

Automatic_Wing said...

Forget skeet shooting. I want to see the pictures of Obama duck hunting with John Kerry.

J Lee said...

I can see not being pleased by one's enemies, but how can he not be pleased by the media? The media fawn over him. What more can he want?

Fox News, talk radio and an unregulated political spectrum on the Internet exist. With Obama's sensitivity to criticism, he is not pleased

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Obama doesn't seem like the type who can handle a chainsaw.

kentuckyliz said...

Of course he uses the royal wee. I feel pissed on.

FleetUSA said...

The media fawning drives me to BARF.

Just too much

FleetUSA said...

The media fawning drives me to BARF.

Just too much

FleetUSA said...

The media fawning drives me to BARF.

Just too much

Bob Ellison said...

I think this is on-topic, so here goes:

On Fox News Sunday this morning, the panel closed with a discussion of "what it means" that Obama chose to do a 60 Minutes interview with Hillary Clinton. Chris Wallace said he has never done an interview with another person except Michelle Obama. The panel wondered, what does it mean?

This is not the sort of discussion we normally do regarding Presidents. We didn't ask "what does it mean" when George W. Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln, or when Bill Clinton wagged his finger at the cameras about Monica Lewinsky. We knew what it meant; we wondered instead how it might help or hurt the guys.

The "what does it mean" thing is reserved for real personality cults like the monarch to which the Professor refers. We wonder "what does it mean" when Queen Elizabeth says she has suffered an annus horribilis. While the Soviet Union was still alive, we wondered "what does it mean" when someone in the Politburo sneezed; today, we still ask that question when some young Kim in North Korea farts.

This guy, Obama, is getting very big indeed. If Fox is trying to read him like old-school Sovietologists, he's way ahead.

Shouting Thomas said...

Saturday Night Live... same thing.

Watched the show last night. Hard hitting satire aimed at the powerful is a thing of the past.

SNL, basicially, sucks Obama's cock. The writers can't think of anything to criticize or satirize!

Show also featured some boring black rap band who's only purpose in life seems to be to crow: "We're black so we can say nigger on TV as much as we want! And you honkeys can't!"

It's the 50s again, but this time it's the left that is in love with authority. It's the left that is mindlessly conformist about everything.

Bob Ellison said...

Shouting Thomas, I think it's spelled "honkies". Could be wrong, though.

Comanche Voter said...

Who would have thought that Obama was capable of intellectually preparing for anything? Looks like we've got another bunch of clueless magazine editors--who keep wearing out sets of kneepads.

Shouting Thomas said...

The music on SNL last night was awful. I mean really awful. Not just the lame rap band, but some white kid band, too.

The kids in New York City these days are reduced to pretending to being outrageous and rebellious, while they are, in fact, conformist toadies to authority.

I guess they learned this from the Diversity Studies indoctrination they got in college.

Anonymous said...

the TNR 'About page' says in part:

The New Republic is led by its Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Chris Hughes. A Facebook co-founder and digital campaign strategist for the 2008 Obama Campaign, Hughes purchased The New Republic in March, 2012 to help build a future for substantive journalism in a digital age.

So an Obama digital media propaganda strategist is publishing Obama digital media propaganda.

our unbiased press

I'm shocked that gambling is going on here...

Wince said...

Obama's feet are made of cloy.

chickelit said...

Mitchell the Bat said...
Obama doesn't seem like the type who can handle a chainsaw.

The still photos are already in the can. The videos are a bit challenging though because you know he has to actually hit the clay pigeon. He working on it the though. Be patient.

edutcher said...

When did he intellectually prepare for his first term?

Maguro said...

Forget skeet shooting. I want to see the pictures of Obama duck hunting with John Kerry.

No, with Richard B Cheney.

Texan99 said...

"And I want to be very clear here that Democrats, we've got a lot of warts, and some of the bad habits here in Washington when it comes to lobbyists and money and access really goes to the political system generally. It's not unique to one party. But when it comes to certain positions on issues, when it comes to trying to do what's best for the country, when it comes to really trying to make decisions based on fact as opposed to ideology, when it comes to being willing to compromise, the Democrats, not just here in this White House, but I would say in Congress also, have shown themselves consistently to be willing to do tough things even when it's not convenient, because it's the right thing to do. And we haven't seen that same kind of attitude on the other side."

Is it more amazing that he can say this with a straight face, or that they can report it that way?

SayAahh said...

@edutcher

No, with Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.

AHL said...

Obama does skeet shooting at Camp David. Liberal journalists write about how they enjoy going to shooting ranges while awkwardly posing with guns, but yet most liberals want to majorly control gun usage. I predict that they will go push Feinstein's gun control plan, but say that they are not infringing on the 2nd amendment since people can still go to heavily regulated gun ranges, which will be fairly expensive. If citizens can have access to guns, even if it isn't to individually own guns, the Democrats will argue that the right of the people will be collective, and these shooting ranges will be the "people" and since they can go and pay, that will be lack of infringement. I think this goes back to the previous discussion of the difference between the present and historical usage of people, individuals, and persons.

Known Unknown said...

Most acts sound awful on SNL.

Thomas said...

@Shouting Thomas

What do you know about kids in NYC these days?

Also: Kendrick Lamar is heat.

kentuckyliz said...

Good tie back, AEH.

The People is The Party and The Party is its Dear Leader. Obama is The People.

Oppose Obama, you oppose The People.

Unknown said...

kliz
I get it. The mental preparation does not come from Obama, it comes from us. We're the ones who need reeducation.

DADvocate said...

I think it was something like: These elite media guys are so in love with their idea of me as an intellectual.

Nawww. His first thought was, "I wonder if Chris brought his knee pads today."

Kensington said...

They need two fawning journalists to conduct the "interview" so that they can switch out every time one of them ejaculates from the excitement of being in Obama's presence.

Known Unknown said...

So an Obama digital media propaganda strategist is publishing Obama digital media propaganda.

our unbiased press


To be fair, it's the equivalent of National Review giving an interview to a Bush or Reagan.

TNR doesn't claim to be an unbiased source.

edutcher said...

kentuckyliz said...

Good tie back, AEH.

The People is The Party and The Party is its Dear Leader. Obama is The People.

Oppose Obama, you oppose The People.


That's what Rudolf Hess said about (Godwin alert).

Kensington said...

Shouting Thomas, are you right about SNL, especially last night!

They did a cold opening with Obama and the ghost of Martin Luther King, Jr., and whilst they made MLK, Jr. look like a clown, Obama gets complete deference.

Nothing funny about him, no! And no possibilities for satire or parody, except maybe he might just be a little too brainy, reasonable and rational.

Gutless and shameless.

Those people are Eunuchs when it comes to Obama.

Cheryl said...

Oh good grief. You don't "do skeet shooting." You shoot skeet.

Like the mom jeans, bike riding and pitching a baseball. I'd really love a picture.

chickelit said...

Like the mom jeans, bike riding and pitching a baseball. I'd really love a picture.

It's really, really hard to hit the clay pigeon when you're leading from behind. It's almost a guaranteed miss.

bagoh20 said...

" I'd really love a picture."

They have drones stationed overhead to make sure he doesn't miss...ever. If he does, nobody walks out.

Shouting Thomas said...

What do you know about kids in NYC these days?

I work there in one of the most fashionable jobs that the kids want.

Shouting Thomas said...

The folks at SNL have Obama's dick so far down their throats that it's coming out the rectums.

YoungHegelian said...

Articles like this are, in a nutshell, why I dumped TNR back in the early 2000's.

Although Marty Peretz taught Al Gore at Harvard and was all hopped up about his candidacy, even then the sycophancy never got this bad. It was an opinion journal after all, not a news journal, and the opinions that got expressed were the opinions of the writers.

Words I thought I'd never hear myself say: I miss Marty Peretz.

virgil xenophon said...

@YoungHegelian/

It's like being the top-gun in the old west or the #1 ranked anything--there's always somebody better/worse. LOTS thought the Clinton era bad. Little did they know..

(Like the old joke goes: "They said, 'cheer-up, it could be worse'--and so I did, and sure enough, it got worse.")

virgil xenophon said...

PS: With the Era of Obama it would seem that "It is always darkest before it goes pitch black" is the operative working assumption..

Kirby Olson said...

Obama said he was treated like a dog. This meant that he was treated like a royal pet?

Bob Boyd said...

"We do skeet shooting."
Read: "We offer skeet shooting"

I wonder if that Japanese love doll maker will offer an Obama model for media types.

Lydia said...

Onion-worthy:
As he sunk into his leather chair and began to answer our questions, he spoke in his characteristic languid pace, often allowing seconds to elapse between words. Although he hardly sounded angry, he voiced an impatience with Republicans and the media (and college football) that he once carefully reserved for private conversations. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.

"sunk into his leather chair" -- Like this or like this?

wildswan said...

Skeet was mentioned only four times on the Whitehouse.gov site - congratulations to skeet shooters in Olympics and such. Golf was there 23,000 times including on the President's schedule. Fishing turns up 16,000 in Let's Move proclamations and statements about evil BP, the Gulf wrecker. Hunting had thousands of mentions including Easter Egg roll but not a schedule mention.
Civility had 334 mentions. Abortion 48,000.

wildswan said...

Skeet was mentioned only four times on the Whitehouse.gov site - congratulations to skeet shooters in Olympics and such. Golf was there 23,000 times including on the President's schedule. Fishing turns up 16,000 in Let's Move proclamations and statements about evil BP, the Gulf wrecker. Hunting had thousands of mentions including Easter Egg roll but not a schedule mention.
Civility had 334 mentions. Abortion 48,000.

Alex said...

That TNR story reads like something from Pravda during the Soviet/Putin regime.

Alex said...

So does Obama think calling out the Republicans publicly is going to help him?

Penny said...

Chris Hughes appeared on "This Week", with Martha Raddatz filling in for George Stephanopolis.

Raddatz gave Hughes the rock star treatment for his interview with President Obama. She went total fan girl, right down to swinging her hair a little too much, not to mention continually saying something like, "Another fascinating thing that came up in your interview..."

And just when I thought I couldn't take another minute of this, Raddatz took a turn. "Oh look, here I am interviewing Leon Panetta". And later, "Here I am interviewing a veteran back in 2005!"

Martha Raddatz, ABC News Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Hurry back, George, or I am flipping over to "Meet the Press".

Lewis Wetzel said...

EMD wrote:
"TNR doesn't claim to be an unbiased source."

But TNR says:

Tailored for smart, curious, socially aware readers, The New Republic covers politics, culture and big ideas from an unbiased and thought-provoking perspective.

http://www.newrepublic.com/page/about-new-republic#

test said...

The House Republican majority is made up mostly of members who are in sharply gerrymandered districts that are very safely Republican

Shocking he's not concerned safely Democratic discticts that leave us with John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi.

The subtitle is "The president on his enemies,

Conservatives consider the enemies of America their enemies, and therefore left considers the enemies of America their allies against conservatives.

RichardS said...

"The media fawn over him. What more can he want?"
This is basic human nature in action. Howevery much praise we get, we often want more, and perhaps even resent disagreements and criticisms the more praise we get--since the more we are praised, the less reasonable the criticism seems.

P.S. Does Obama believe that there is a basic, unchanging human condition? To recognize that disagreemnts about policy, about what a just society is, about how best to create a free society of equal individuals, etc., are inevitable, is to recognize that the ultimate "vision" of the Left is a lie. The world can never be a place of simple harmony, community, and peace.

Anonymous said...

He only shoots skeet when they're in season.

Freeman Hunt said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

These guys all think Obama is just like them, but Chris Hughes' inane question is the essence of narcissism.

Hughes thinks that Obama is just like him and that he is just like Obama. So since Hughes prepares for things "intellectually," he assumes that of course Obama must do the same thing as he would.

What a fool.

Unknown said...

But Obama just plays these guys and then he plays them some more.

jeyi said...

Chris Hughes, who now owns the venerable New Republic outright, was one of the original FaceBook developers which led in due course to him becoming a wealthy fellow indeed.

He was also in charge, during the run-up to the 2008 elections, of all the Social Media projects at the Obama for President campaign's national HQ in Chicago.

I have much to say on Mr. Hughes's likely responsibility for the outrageous DOS attack organized by the Obama for President HQ in Chicago just prior to the 2008 election on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio interview with Stanley Kurtz on the failed Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) educational initiative, of which Obama was the Executive Director, and the role in the CAC of the despicable Bill Ayers. See:

jeyi said...

Sorry! URL (below) stripped out of previous posting!

Chris Hughes, who now owns the venerable New Republic outright, was one of the original FaceBook developers which led in due course to him becoming a wealthy fellow indeed.

He was also in charge, during the run-up to the 2008 elections, of all the Social Media projects at the Obama for President campaign's national HQ in Chicago.

I have much to say on Mr. Hughes's likely responsibility for the outrageous DOS attack organized by the Obama for President HQ in Chicago just prior to the 2008 election on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio interview with Stanley Kurtz on the failed Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) educational initiative, of which Obama was the Executive Director, and the role in the CAC of the despicable Bill Ayers. See:

http://www.sethathirath.com/chris_hughes.pdf

Bob Boyd said...

This month's issue of Tiger Beat... oops... I mean TNR will feature a free poster of Obama that readers can put up on the wall in their room.

Unknown said...

Press is barred from Camp David. I suppose BO could invite them in but I don't see why anyone, even their darling, would do that. If he wanted to be photographed shooting skeet nothing could be easier. If he wanted to shoot in complete privacy, Camp David is the place to do it. If he wanted to lie about shooting skeet Camp David is also the place I guess.

Known Unknown said...

Tailored for smart, curious, socially aware readers, The New Republic covers politics, culture and big ideas from an unbiased and thought-provoking perspective.

Ha ha ha. What a load. Thanks for tracking that down.

ErnieG said...

hillbilly said...

He only shoots skeet when they're in season.


And I'll bet he doesn't clean them himself.