August 28, 2008
Barack Obama — "He's a Vulcan, no doubt about it. Now the question arises, do we want a Vulcan for president? Are we ready for a Vulcan president?"
Lawgiver says it in the comments to this post, commenting on this amazing NYT article (that I've now linked to 3 times this morning).
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47 comments:
Lawgiver asks: "Are we ready for a Vulcan president?"
Bissage answers: Hell, yeah!!!
Sure, he could teach the troops the Vulcan death pinch.
That "article" is such a puff piece on Obama that you can smell Jodi Kantor's wet pussy over the internet.
Or maybe . . . Ann?
One.
Obamadroids
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the One, MM.
Maybe he's just mind-melded with his audience.
(That would explain the fainting spells a few months back...)
That "article" is such a puff piece on Obama that you can smell Jodi Kantor's wet pussy over the internet.
You're right. I thought something smelled fishy.
But seriously folks...
Ruth Anne Adams said...
"There is a skill set called 'leadership' and Captain Kirk had it [plus all the alien babes]."
So very true! And by the way, have I ever told about the many times I get mistaken for John Tiberius McKirk? It's uncanny. {The nickels I could've collected by now...].
Now. How can we get Rush to go on Bloggingheads with Althouse?
Kantor, likely another person who has never had to behave cooly and rationally in a stressful situation such as Obama, takes the notion that a detached view makes him a perfect decision-maker.
Not really. I have seen business and military leaders and some of the metter ones had a truly fearful, but controlled temper and were quite emotional about some things.
But were very collected and focused and strong for others who too faced gut-wrenching fear of combat and kept it together, stress of a company that would suceed or go bankrupt on a single strategy being decided on..
The list of Presidents regarded as top decision-makers who had vitriolic tempers and passionate emotions - from Bill Clinton back to George Washington - is a lot longer than the list of placid, controlled ones who were good leaders and decision-makers.
That list has only Bush I, Taft, Coolidge, and Cleveland as "unperturbables" who were sucessful Presidents.
Contrast with the ones who got a lot done because NO ONE wanted to have go to the Oval Office as summoned when The Old Man was on the warpath and looking for accountability.
The other list?
George Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, TDR, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton - all had vitriolic tempers.
Original Mike, I meant "One" in the context of The Way to Eden.
I reach, Brother!
Just don't start singing.
Signed,
Herbert MadisonMan
You're no Herbert, Man.
Whew. A very Obama heavy day today, Althouse. Any "cruelly neutral" thoughts on this Time interview with McCain?
Straight talk?
Herbert!
Trevor, I read that earlier, and my first reaction was this. Last week, I castigated Time for an issue that amounted to handjob journalism - it was an abomination, a repudiation of serious journalism, more servile than Obama's own paid advertising. Would Time give equal time to McCain in its next issue, I wondered?
I doubted it, but it turns out that there's something even less resembling balanced reporting than simply not running a feature on McCain this week. What if you ran an issue that spends as much time being critical of McCain as last week's issue was fawning over Obama? Now we have two weeks of handjob journalism in support of Obama.
Time sacrificed its credibility for the entirety of this election season last issue. I don't believe their account of that interview. Simple as that: I think that they're distorting or misrepresenting, and after their work last week on behalf of Obama, they shouldn't be trusted unless they have and post unedited video of the interview. And the FEC should treat the last two issues of Time as uncharged full-page adverts donated to Obama by Time.
Ah, that damn liberal media. I should have predicted.
Wait, what? I thought the Vulcans were Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Dick Armitage, Cheney, Rumsfeld and all them?
Obama somehow penetrated this neo-con inner circle? Awesome. And now we await his Jedi Mind Trick.
"Sure, he could teach the troops the Vulcan death pinch."
Well, only after the UN signs off on it.
"Time sacrificed its credibility for the entirety of this election season last issue."
What is this Time credibility you speak of?
"Whew. A very Obama heavy day today, Althouse. "
Whew. Right in the middle of the Democratic National Convention. Who could have seen that coming?
Cedarford, you've been lead astray by your right wing media stars. Vitriol is the key to right wing media success. But it has never been the key to great leadership in business or government.
Even so, you will be happy to learn of BHO's near fist fight with a fellow D on the IL Senate floor--even hothead McCain would tip his hat to that sort of colleague confrontation.
If we had any idea of who Obama really was, this would all be moot.
Here we are getting ready to elect a cipher as POTUS, and all we're really concerned with is how *composed* he is.
In the olden days, there was a term for it. Obama can hold his mud.
However, we find that we need to select proxies for his emotions - Michelle for his sensitive side, Biden for his angry side, his grandparents for his middle class white side, Jeremiah Wright for his angry black side.
Good lord, he can't even express a true personality outside of emotionally tepid. True he is an accomplished orator, however so subdued in impromptu situations that his chief crutch is "uhhh".
Face it, with Obama you're electing just as much of a manufactured image as we did when W got elected.
Who you callin' Herbert, Palladian?
Trevor, are you suggesting that last week's Time magazine was not unpaid advertising for Obama? A full-cover portrait unblemished by the text usually found on Time's covers, along with roughly a quarter of the entire page count of the magazine dedicated to photographs of and fawning prose about Obama? Even the letters section was skewed towards Obama. You can't just dismiss that with a snide remark about it being predictable that conservatives will complain about media bias. Do you defend Time's decision to dedicate the lion's share of an issue to an Obama hagiography, and apparently follow it the week after with a piece on McCain that runs from lukewarm to snidely critical?
Just how tightly do you have to have on your partisan blinkers to not see the blatant media bias that has pervaded this campaign? Even the fucking Washington Post sees what you apparently do not, Trevor!
Calm down, Simon. I didn't see that issue. But obviously Time feels that Obama coverage sells issues. I'd have to see it to respond to your characterization of it as a "handjob."
As for the lack of McCain coverage, is it the press's fault that he's all but cut himself off from them since bringing on Steve Schmidt? He's in a bubble and only granting interviews to local press in the last couple months. The rare national press conferences he does are short and on Friday afternoons. The piece I linked is the first one-on-one interview I've seen from him in weeks. And boy does he not want to answer for himself. Is it the press's fault that he's running such an odd and mean-spirited campaign and then refuses to defend it?
Look, the press used to have a great relationship with McCain, and now he doesn't. The cynical piece is mostly comprised of his non-responses to their questions. How could they write anything else? He's lost his charm with them. Maybe he should invite them all to another BBQ.
As for your "even the fucking Washington Post" link: Howell doesn't address the fact that those extra pieces haven't always reflected positively on Obama.
McCain is the one who is making this election a referendum on Obama.
Former Law Student is correct, Obama does look like Tuvok.
But I have to dissagree with Palladian, it is very logical for a Vulcan to disguise himself as a Democrat. What better way to take control of us than to use our emotions against us? Emotions are our weakness and Obama/Spock/Yuvok has done his homework, the incessant crying at the DNC prove my point. Additionally, it's well known Vulcan women control their mates. Every seven years Vulcan males enter a state of pon farr and if they do not have sex with someone with whom they are empathically bonded they become irrational and violent. Michelle is the key. Finally, one of the greatest lines Spock ever uttered is, "The needs of the many outwiegh the needs of the few." You can't get much more liberal than that.
Ruth Anne said,
I'd like John Tiberius McKirk on the bridge, please.
Did you do that just to agitate me? It's JAMES Tiberius Kirk!
Thank you, Lawgiver. It's JAMES T KIRK, people. Could you imagine McCoy calling the captain, "Jack"?
From the article: "There is little about him that feels spontaneous or unpolished..."
Unless he goes off the teleprompter. Hence, no townhall meetings.
(Did someone already point that out? Sorry.)
Methinks it was a McMorphing of James T. Kirk and John McCain.
Lawgiver said...
"Finally, one of the greatest lines Spock ever uttered is, 'The needs of the many outwiegh the needs of the few.'"
I'm a little embarrassed to admit, as someone who isn't a fan of Star Trek but does occaisionally watch and enjoy it, I weep during that scene -- and during its response in the third movie, where Spock asks Kirk why they came back for him, sacrificing everything, and Kirk replied that the needs of the one had outweighed the needs of the many. Those two movies really represent the best that the franchise ever offered, and I find it very affecting.
Trevor Jackson said...
"The piece I linked is the first one-on-one interview I've seen from him in weeks. And boy does he not want to answer for himself ... The cynical piece is mostly comprised of his non-responses to their questions. How could they write anything else?"
They've lost their credibility to claim that this is what actually happened. I don't believe that what is in that piece is in any way representative of what actually happened in the interview. I think that Time has made it absolutely clear last week that they intend to do everything short of outright fabrication to help Obama, and so if they make factual claims - and the contents of that interview is a factual claim - they need to have evidence to support it.
Journalists have nothing if they don't have the trust of their readers. And Time has recklessly thrown that trust away. It will be a very long time before they can get it back. What they've done poisons everything that they do hereafter (cf. Ann's post here).
Trevor said..."I didn't see that issue. But obviously Time feels that Obama coverage sells issues."
It's still on shelves here.
"As for the lack of McCain coverage, is it the press's fault that he's all but cut himself off from them since bringing on Steve Schmidt? He's in a bubble and only granting interviews to local press in the last couple months."
As I understand it - not from the McCain camp, but from journalists - press access to McCain is far less than it once was, but it's at least as open as access to Obama.
"As for your 'even the fucking Washington Post' link: Howell doesn't address the fact that those extra pieces haven't always reflected positively on Obama."
I dispute that that's a "fact." I can remember precisely one WaPo piece on Obama, and that was when he ratted on public funding, for which he was criticized by virtually everyone who wasn't deeply in Obama's thrall. There were only two intellectually honest responses to that story - and only one available to people who support public funding: to condemn him.
"McCain is the one who is making this election a referendum on Obama."
What else is he supposed to do when the only time the media will pay any attention to him is when he's talking about Obama.
Obama isn't a Vulcan.
He's a tribble.
Ruth Anne,
Subtlety flies silently over Lawgiver's head like a barred owl in search of a squirrel dinner.
Spock was only half Vulcan.
Obama is more like an Eloi, if I may mix SF stories.
Simon,
Spock asks Kirk why they came back for him, sacrificing everything, and Kirk replied that the needs of the one had outweighed the needs of the many.
Excellent point! But Kirk was always looked at as an anachronism anyway. An alpha male in that nanny state called The Federation. While others talked, he acted, he got the job done. Hopefully McCain will do the same.
Simon said, "I dispute that [Obama receives more negative coverage than McCain is] a "fact."
Since the primaries ended, on-air evaluations of Barack Obama have been 72% negative (vs. 28% positive). That’s worse than John McCain’s coverage, which has been 57% negative (vs. 43% positive) during the same time period.
"It's still on shelves here."
Well, maybe I'll go pick up a copy then. Until then, I really couldn't say whether Time has gone out of its way to praise Obama at McCain's expense. When McCain ran in 2000 and was becoming a national figure, did he get his introductory laudatory profile then? Who knows?
But if this current Time piece on McCain is a distortion as you allege, why haven't we heard from his campaign then? Did he not respond in that way to those questions? Are those not his words? Why haven't they pushed back?
Look, I agree that the press does a really crappy job. We can go back and forth about Time magazine. I might just as easily point out that McCain gets the networks to regularly air his attack "ads" that are nothing more than video press releases since he doesn't actual buy airtime for them.
Re: Lawgiver
Former Law Student is correct, Obama does look like Tuvok.
No, no, he looks like Harvey Dent. No, not from the movie, from the cartoon. Doesn't he? Haha.
Re: Trevor:
When McCain ran in 2000 and was becoming a national figure, did he get his introductory laudatory profile then? Who knows?
He did. Or at least, he got a lot of puff-piece coverage in 2000. That was (and remains) one of the reasons I distrust him intensely -- his candidacy then seemed like a construction of the media, of the cynical manipulation of images and words. And it's one of the reasons I distrust Obama now, only Obama is like McCain X 1000.
I'm surprised no one's mentioned it, but Obama owes his current situation to a Vulcan, just not one who's been mentioned here.
Oh, wait, crap. Not a vulcan but a borg.
I don't get the stridency, Simon.
Of course Time's in the tank for Obama. They've been left since, what, Henry Luce died?
Are you seriously suggesting that this--this is their one step over the line? Or do they just know their (dwindling) audience?
Live Long and Prosper? Sounds good to me.
And isn't dramatic, talky Biden a perfect Kirk?
Shatner went with a wig instead of Biden's choice of plugs. Shatner also has integrity. IN TEG RIT EEE! Now form the away party, include the new ensign in the red shirt. Prepare to gnaw the scenery, er, beam down...
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