Althouse: "In ’08, they saw me coming, but I was a guy named Barack Hussein Obama coming up against the Clinton machine, so no way!"

November 19, 2016

"In ’08, they saw me coming, but I was a guy named Barack Hussein Obama coming up against the Clinton machine, so no way!"

"So they weren’t focussed on me, and I established a connection. Then came the stuff: Ayers and Reverend Wright and all the rest. What I’m suggesting is that the lens through which people understand politics and politicians is extraordinarily powerful. And Trump understands the new ecosystem, in which facts and truth don’t matter. You attract attention, rouse emotions, and then move on. You can surf those emotions. I’ve said it before, but if I watched Fox I wouldn’t vote for me!"

That's Barack Obama, talking to David Remnick in "OBAMA RECKONS WITH A TRUMP PRESIDENCY/Inside a stunned White House, the President considers his legacy and America’s future."

And I just want to say: It takes one to know one.

65 comments:

rhhardin said...: Political correctness is the fact that matters; Trump beats it.; 11/19/16, 4:50 PM
Darrell said...: Dustbin of history, Barack. Pack your bags.; 11/19/16, 4:51 PM
YoungHegelian said...: I've got my own personal theories. Ones that I keep tucked under my tinfoil hat in the closet. My latest -- Obama was the first left wing postmodernist president & Trump is the first right wing postmodernist president.; 11/19/16, 4:53 PM
Jupiter said...: "Then came the stuff: Ayers and Reverend Wright and all the rest"

Yeah, all those falsehoods and baseless accusations that this poor guy has had to put up with for eight long years.; 11/19/16, 4:55 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Jeez, the New Yorker piece was practically longer than War and Peace.

Yes, Mr. Remnick, we understand you are not happy with the Presidential election. Sorry, Dude, get over it.; 11/19/16, 4:58 PM
YoungHegelian said...: Another, less convoluted answer: both Obama & Trump ran against Hillary, who a huge chunk of the electorate always saw as fatally flawed. For mystical reasons that need further investigation, those same negatives were dismissed by a large part of the nomenklatura as irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Maybe the arc of history does bend toward justice, after all. Just asymptotically.; 11/19/16, 4:58 PM
Darrell said...: Barack has said that Trump questioning his birth certificate was the worst experience of his life. Guess the death of the grandparents that raised him and his mother was just a blip compared to that. Crapweasel!; 11/19/16, 4:59 PM
Jim at said...: You know, for a guy who claims he never watches FOX News, he sure seems to know a lot about it.; 11/19/16, 5:00 PM
Bill Peschel said...: "Trump understands the new ecosystem, in which facts and truth don’t matter."

Yeah, and the Swift Boat vets were wrong about Kerry, too (actually they were 80% right, but where they were right, it was damming).

This is all you can say when the truth finds you out: Act like a five-year-old caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing!"

"Why's your hand in the cookie jar?"

(Takes it out) "It's not!"

"Yes it was. I saw it."

"No-uh!"

And so on.; 11/19/16, 5:01 PM
Fabi said...: I, me, mine, I, me, mine, I, me, mine.; 11/19/16, 5:04 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Fabi,

I prefer the song by Uncle Lennie & the Bolshies "Who - Whom".

It's shorter & more to the point.; 11/19/16, 5:07 PM
SukieTawdry said...: Ayers and Wright? These are the two examples he uses to illustrate his thesis that the lens through which we view politics blocks out facts and truth?? There were any number of us, Mr. Obama, who knew the truth and facts about those two men and your relationships with them. You and your media cohort were the ones who wanted us to look exclusively through the clouded lens.; 11/19/16, 5:13 PM
Jupiter said...: So, did Remnick ask a follow up? Is Barky going to enjoy getting back together with Ayers and Wright, now that he doesn't have to worry about being President any omre? Have they forgiven him for throwing them under the bus? I'm pretty sure Ayers didn't mind a bit, but Wright has his own shuck-and-jive to operate. It can't help the congregation figures much to have Barky-Hussein poor-mouthing you on national TV.; 11/19/16, 5:13 PM
SukieTawdry said...: Ayers and Wright? These are the two examples he uses to illustrate his thesis that the lens through which we view politics blocks out facts and truth?? There were any number of us, Mr. Obama, who knew the truth and facts about those two men and your relationships with them. You and your media cohort were the ones who wanted us to look exclusively through the clouded lens.; 11/19/16, 5:14 PM
traditionalguy said...: One way or another, the Clinton's spell over the country is broken. Obama could understand it well enough to use it while he fought for his Iranian Muslims to Rule Allah's World. Trump has flat destroyed it.; 11/19/16, 5:18 PM
readering said...: Obama's an interesting guy to listen to. I can see how Trump was somewhat intimidated finally meeting and talking one on one.; 11/19/16, 5:22 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: His dare Trump call out and criticize a news organization by name, no decent President would do that and it represents a fundamental threat to a free press and American ideals.

*Obama never shuts the fuck up about Fox News, the one Media outlet that doesn't work for him & the Left 100% of the time.*

All week I had to read about the horror if Fake News taking over..saw CNN Friday and they were advertising some long interview they just did with John Stewart...and after that was a clip from Samantha Bee. Yeah.; 11/19/16, 5:27 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: I appreciated the passage in which Mr Obama tells Remnick (according to Remnick) that had Hillary won, he could leave DC as free as a bird but that now he feels obliged to make himself available to 'elected officials' there for support, consolation, counsel, whatever. We've been warned.; 11/19/16, 5:36 PM
Sebastian said...: @MP: "I appreciated the passage in which Mr Obama tells Remnick (according to Remnick) that had Hillary won, he could leave DC as free as a bird but that now he feels obliged to make himself available to 'elected officials' there for support, consolation, counsel, whatever. We've been warned." He is really an incorrigible bullshitter, isn't he? Free as a bird, yeah, right. But now, as a public service, he'll keep an eye on the Trump interregnum. At a cost to the money men, of course, from whom he'll seek the appropriate rents.; 11/19/16, 5:47 PM
CWJ said...: OMG, where to start?

I'll just mention 2. Obama still thinks he was in control of his assendency and not an attractive figurehead. He's as clueless as his teleprompter. Althouse engages in false equivalency.; 11/19/16, 5:48 PM
Jupiter said...: readering said...
"Obama's an interesting guy to listen to. I can see how Trump was somewhat intimidated finally meeting and talking one on one."

Yeah, and I can see you've been listening to the little birds on the wallpaper in your bedroom again. What else do they tell you, readering?; 11/19/16, 5:48 PM
CWJ said...: IOW,

It takes one who thinks he's one, to think he know's one.; 11/19/16, 5:53 PM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Free as a bird, yeah, right.

"Guilty as sin," he forgot to add.; 11/19/16, 5:58 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: What a posturing prevaricating putz. Be gone from the stage before you embarrass yourself further.; 11/19/16, 5:59 PM
CWJ said...: Bad Lieutenant beat me.

But the choice of phrase was a coincidence. Absolutely!; 11/19/16, 6:06 PM
Real American said...: Facts and truth don't matter? Like if we like our health plan, we can keep it?; 11/19/16, 6:10 PM
MayBee said...: SukieTawdry said...

Exactly!
Is it so hard to remember that Obama actually left the Chicago Annenberg Challenge off his resume- his only executive experience!- because it was Ayers who gave him the job?All the "their kids go to school together" and "just a guy in his neighborhood" lies to try to hide the fact they'd worked on this fund together?
And when Ryan Lizza reported Obama actually *had* started his political career in the AYers' living room, he was kicked off the campaign plane for a while?

Is it so hard to remember his biggest political patron was a slumlord who was under FBI investigation (and eventually convicted)? And that Tony Rezko, slumlord, helped Obama buy property for a larger yard?

Geeze. Obama had a smooth path coming into the office because people fell in love. But it wasn't because he had a clean past or because he was honest about it.; 11/19/16, 6:11 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: If you like your facts, you can keep your facts.; 11/19/16, 6:20 PM
Original Mike said...: "Barack has said that Trump questioning his birth certificate was the worst experience of his life."

How can this possibly be true?; 11/19/16, 6:22 PM
Hagar said...: Winston Churchill wrote: “They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus from Switzerland into Russia“.

And I would like to know a lot more about Barack Obama's life before he was elected to public office, including little details like how Tom Ayers (CEO and chairman of Commonwealth Edison) came to pay young Barack's tuition at Columbia University.; 11/19/16, 6:30 PM
Paul Snively said...: Obama proves once more that no matter how cynical you are about politics, you aren't cynical enough. Clinton just underscored the point in the red blood of the Benghazi dead.

So we got Trump, who is loud and boisterous and obnoxious, but seems like the kind of billionaire real-estate mogul you could have a beer with (presumably while checking out the babes, unless you're a babe yourself, in which case he'll compare notes with other guys checking you out later).

We've given up on "the dignity of the office" because no one's buying that horseshit anymore. What is it supposed to mean when we're literally perpetually at war, our politicians double down on Too Big(ger) To Fail, no one feels economically secure, and half of the electorate feels like the only thing the Federal government cares about is forcing them to go to the bathroom with people of the opposite sex?

The electorate will take the office of the president seriously again when it is occupied by someone whose dignity is not a self-serving sham. Trump may or may not prove to be that person (pace Tom Hanks, I hope he does). But if he doesn't, bet on continued populist bomb-thrower elections until the nation's course is righted.; 11/19/16, 6:34 PM
Hagar said...: Tony Rezko I think was interference from the regular City Hall organization. They do that in Chicago, in case one of their's later get ideas about independence and cutting loose.; 11/19/16, 6:34 PM
MayBee said...: Hagar-
Yes! Another thing I one is allowed to ask or allude to.; 11/19/16, 6:34 PM
MayBee said...: Remnick is the guy who wrote The Bridge and whitewashed Obamas biography for him early in the preaidency. So of course he is going to whitewash it on the way out of office, too; 11/19/16, 6:41 PM
Unknown said...: No patience whatsoever for these hagiographic New Yorker thumbsuckers about Obama. Thank goodness he's on his way out. But I expect to see Michelle running for something soon. Sadly.; 11/19/16, 6:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Young Hegelian @4:53 PM, 4:58 PM, 5:07 PM:

Keep 'em comin', bro. Yer on a roll.; 11/19/16, 6:45 PM
FullMoon said...: Obama will get a nice diamond stud earring in one ear within a year. Tasteful,flawless, but not overly flashy.; 11/19/16, 6:47 PM
Anonymous said...: Also Paul Snively: The electorate will take the office of the president seriously again when it is occupied by someone whose dignity is not a self-serving sham. Trump may or may not prove to be that person (pace Tom Hanks, I hope he does). But if he doesn't, bet on continued populist bomb-thrower elections until the nation's course is righted.

You should comment more than you do, Paul.; 11/19/16, 6:47 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: In what circumstances did Barack Obama meet Bill Ayers?

During the years 1982-1985, both men were living in New York City. Obama lived there from 1981 to 1985, and Ayers from 1978 to 1988.

A few weeks after Obama moved to New York in order to study political science at Columbia University, the New York newspapers began publishing articles about the robbery of a Brinks armored car that occurred on October 20, 1981. The robbers included Kathy Boudin, who had been a member of the Weather Underground organization along with Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn. Ayers and Dohrn had dropped out of the Weather Underground and surrendered to the police in November 1980, but Boudin remained active and eventually was arrested while committing the robbery in October 1981.

One of the robbers arrested with Boudin was an African-American radical who called himself Sekou Odinga and who was a Moslem. Odinga’s real name was Nathaniel Burns, but he had adopted that African name in the late 1960s, when he met Odinga Odinga, the Vice President of Kenya and a Moslem, while the latter was visiting California during a state visit. At that time Burns belonged to the Black Panthers, and the Kenyan official met with some Black Panther members, including Burns. Burns was so impressed with this meeting that he began calling himself Sekou Odinga and eventually converted to Islam.

Odinga Odinga, the Vice President of Kenya, was also related to Barack Obama, Sr., the legal father of Barack Obama, Jr. Odinga Odinga’s son Rail Odinga calls himself the cousin of Barack Obama, Jr., so Odinga Odinga apparently was a half-brother or cousin of Barack Obama, Sr. Much of the Obama family in Kenya is Christian, however.

I doubt that Obama — studying in NYC in 1982 — knew any Odingas living in Kenya or knew the Odinga who participated in the Brinks robbery, but by that time he might have recognized the Odinga name as a name that somehow was related to the Obama family and to the political leadership in Kenya. Therefore if Barack Obama read any articles in the New York newspapers about the Brinks robbery, his attention probably focused on Sekou Odinga, who had been arrested and was being prosecuted for his participation in that robbery. I think that many elements in Sekou Odinga’s history and persona might have fascinated Obama.

The grand jury that examined the Brinks robbery met in May 1982, and New York newspapers reported that Bernardine Dohrn refused to testify. (The robbers had rented their getaway car using personal identification stolen from customers of a store called Broadway Baby, which was managed by Dohrn.) Eventually Dohrn was sentenced to a prison term for contempt of court because of her refusal to testify. Articles about Dohrn’s refusal to testify and about her subsequent imprisonment were published in New York newspapers during the middle of 1982.

I speculate that Obama decided to try to write a research paper about Sekou Odinga for a class at Columbia and therefore contacted Ayers to request Ayers’ help in obtaining information about Odinga, by interviewing Ayers, Dohrn, Boudin or Odinga.

No matter how they did become acquainted, it is apparent that they were acquainted by the summer of 1985, because Obama’s autobiography (ghost written by Ayers) describes an incident along the Hudson River in New York City during that summer, and one of Ayers’ own books describes a similar incident.

For those reasons, I think that Obama and Ayers became acquainted in New York City sometimes during the years 1982 to 1985.; 11/19/16, 7:36 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: The December 6, 2008, issue of The New York Times printed an op-ed article by Bill Ayers containing the following sentence:

The dishonesty of the narrative about Mr. Obama during the campaign went a step further with its assumption that if you can place two people in the same room at the same time, or if you can show that they held a conversation, shared a cup of coffee, took the bus downtown together or had any of a thousand other associations, then you have demonstrated that they share ideas, policies, outlook, influences and, especially, responsibility for each other’s behavior.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/opinion/06ayers.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

I speculate that this sentence describes the first meeting between Ayers and Obama. They met in a room, had a conversation, shared a cup of coffee and then took a bus downtown together. Ayers complains that Obama should not be blamed for Ayers’ opinions and past just because Obama did these few ordinary activities and thus casually associated himself with Ayers.

I think that Obama met Ayers while they both were living in Manhattan, a period that began in the late summer of 1981, when Obama arrived, and sometime in 1985, when Obama left. Ayers had lived in Manhattan before Obama arrived, and Ayers continued to live in Manhattan after Obama left.

Obama left Manhattan in 1985 because he accepted an offer to work as a community organizer in Chicago. He struggled with this decision, but he made up his mind when he went to look at the place in the Hudson River where the current flows in both directions. Because Ayers mentions this place in his own book, I think that Obama’s visit to the river and his subsequent decision to accept the job offer were done in consultation with Ayers. Therefore, Obama and Ayers had known each other before Obama moved from Manhattan to Chicago in 1985.

Ayers lived under a false identity (he called himself Anthony Lee) until December 1980, when he turned himself into the government and emerged from his underground life. Therefore, we can assume that Obama did not become acquainted with Ayers before that time. Even Ayers would have to grant that the public would have a legitimate concern about Ayers’ and Obama’s association if it had begun while Ayers still was living with a false identity and hiding from legal prosecution.

In December 1980, Obama himself was living in Los Angeles. He did not move to Manhattan until the late summer of 1981, so he must have met Ayers afterwards.; 11/19/16, 7:48 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: While Obama had lived in Los Angeles, he had become friendly with a group of Pakistanis who were fellow students at Occidental College. One of the Pakistanis was Obama’s roommate. After Obama finished his first two college years at Occidental, he traveled around the world and then began attending Columbia University in Manhattan. During his trip he visited his mother in Indonesia and visited families of his Pakistani friends, who lived in Pakistan and India. As far as we know, he did not visit Kenya on this trip.

After Obama arrived in Manhattan, he ended up living with a Pakistani named Sohale Siddiqi whom he had met through his Pakistani friends at Occidental. It seems that Obama and Siddiqi lived together through the winter of 1981-82 and then split up. Siddiqi was consuming a lot of illegal drugs and was spending a lot of time in bars. Obama himself had consumed illegal drugs while he had lived in Los Angeles, but he wanted to stop consuming them and stop wasting his time with Siddiqi and start studying seriously, so Obama moved out of the apartment they had shared. Afterwards Obama lived at 339 E. 94th. Street.

I speculate that Obama became very interested in religion and in Kenya at about the time he moved away from Siddiqi. Obama recently had traveled around the world and had visited the Moslem countries Indonesia and Pakistan and the Hindu country India. Obama probably regretted that he had not visited Kenya during that trip. Obama was trying to reform his personal behavior and trying to avoid bad influences like Siddiqi, and so religion would be a natural interest at such a time.

Therefore, I speculate that Obama became interested in questions about the role of religion in Kenya and in particular about that role among the family of Barack Obama, Sr. And so Barack Obama as a student at Columbia might have done some research on such subjects, perhaps for a class or perhaps merely for his own personal interest. In Kenya there was some conflict between the Christian and Moslem religions.

As a political science major, Obama probably read New York newspapers, and if he did so, then he probably read some articles about the robbery of a Brinks armored car that had happened on October 20, 1981. The robbers included Kathy Boudin, who still remained in the Weather Underground, and an African-American radical who called himself Sekou Odinga and who was a Moslem.

And so, I speculate, Obama’s confluence of thoughts about Islam, Christianity, Kenya and radical politics during the years 1982-1984 prompted him to contact Ayers to request information about Sekou Odinga.; 11/19/16, 7:52 PM
M Jordan said...: In Obama's mind he went through the grinder just as Trump did ... the press pile on over Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers. Poor guy, what he doesn't remember quite as well is that the media wasn't piling on, they were protecting him from a few right wing sites and Rush Limbaugh.

He is truly a colossally self-deluded man.; 11/19/16, 7:53 PM
Unknown said...: "And Trump understands the new ecosystem, ... You attract attention, rouse emotions, and then move on..."

Maybe Trump understands this better than anyone. I've never watched The Apprentice (or Survivor, Big Brother, or any of the like) and I obviously don't appreciate the appeal, and so I've never thought about it. But a lot of people have disparaged Mr Trump as "a reality show star", and maybe they don't understand it either. Maybe the president-elect was a successful TV star because he gets the media ecosystem so well, and maybe that's why he won the election.; 11/19/16, 7:56 PM
mccullough said...: ISIS caught Obama completely by surprise. Trump's election caught Obama completely by surprise. The failure of millions of young people to buy health insurance caught Obama completely by surprise. Shovel ready jobs weren't shovel ready caught Obama completely by surprise.

Obama is an arrogant guy who has much to be humble about.; 11/19/16, 7:59 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: A certain Steve Diamond has written about the acquaintanceship of Obama and Ayers in a blog called King Harvest. Basic information about Diamond:

http://law.scu.edu/faculty/profile/diamond-stephen

(The blog has disappeared, so I can’t review it or link to it.) Because of Diamond's early blog articles about Obama and Ayers, he received information from some people who had noticed something.

One of Diamond’s blog articles was titled “Barack Obama’s Visit to the Other Ayers House”, which passed on information Diamond had received from a man named Allen Hulton. The latter was the mailman who delivered mail to the home of Tom and Mary Ayers, the parents of Bill Ayers. Diamond wrote:

[quote]

Barack Obama visited the house of Tom and Mary Ayers, parents of former Weather Underground activist turned education professor Bill Ayers, in the mid-1980s to thank the Ayers’ for their support of his education, according to Allen Hulton, the letter carrier who delivered mail to the Ayers’ Glen Ellyn home at that time. Glen Ellyn is a suburb of Chicago, southwest of the city.

At the time of their encounter, Hulton recalls, Obama “looked about 19 years old” but was probably in his early 20s. Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983 and moved to Chicago in 1985 at age 24 or 25 …

“Mrs. Ayers told me that her family had been helping out a brilliant young black man,” Hulton said and whom he believes she said was from Kenya. Hulton said that over the period of six to ten years that he delivered mail to the Ayers home he had numerous conversations with Mrs. Ayers, one conversation with Thomas Ayers and several brief encounters with Bernardine Dohrn who he said lived at the home for several months at one point in time. He never met or saw Bill Ayers at the home.

Hulton explained that he knew Tim Ayers, the son of Tom and brother of Bill, when they were both students at Glenbard High School, which draws students from the towns of Glen Ellyn and Lombard, Illinois. Over time the Ayers’ parents became aware of the connection to their son Tim and that led to a friendlier relationship between Hulton and Tom and Mary Ayers.

“They tipped me generously at Christmas-time,” Hulton recalled.

One day Hulton found himself on the sidewalk outside the Ayers home at 199 N. Montclair Avenue near the corner of Revere Road just after he had delivered the mail. The house was “very nice and attractive and more expensive than some in Glen Ellyn because it was closer to downtown, but it did not stand out among the houses on that block.” He said the largest and most expensive homes were actually on Revere, around the corner from the Ayers’ home.

As Hulton was on the sidewalk walking away from the Ayers house a tall and thin young black man was coming up the same sidewalk towards the Ayers house.

Hulton recalls that Obama said hello and introduced himself and stopped to chat with him in front of the Ayers house. “I recall that his ears stuck out a little bit. He was more gaunt then than he appears now. His name was an unusual one and when I saw his photo during the campaign it brought back my memory of the event,” Hulton said.

Mr. Obama explained that he had taken the train out from Chicago to visit the Ayers’ in order to thank them for their help with his “education.” At this time, Mr. Obama had recently graduated from Columbia and would soon enter Harvard Law School. Hulton and Obama “spoke for a few minutes, first chatting about the Ayers family,” Hulton said. Hulton said he did not learn whether the help Obama received from the Ayers’ was financial or in some other form."

[unquote]; 11/19/16, 8:00 PM
Phil 314 said...: Sorry, I saw "New Yorker" and that picture and could go no further.; 11/19/16, 8:04 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: Blogger Steve Diamond continued his description of former mailman Allen Hulton's communication as follows:

[quote]

Hulton agreed that it was an exceptional event to encounter a black man on his route and that Obama may have felt it prudent to introduce himself to the letter carrier before approaching the Ayers house. …

Mr. Hulton recalls that he probably asked what Mr. Obama was studying in school and at one point Mr. Obama said that he intended to become President of the United States. Mr. Hulton said he was “taken aback” by the statement but recalls that he did not think Mr. Obama was “arrogant, but just self assured and a person with a lot of self confidence.” “It was not said with hubris,” Hulton recalled, “but with an air of self-assuredness.”

“I told him there was no reason why he couldn’t become president,” Hulton recalled. Obama was dressed “nicely but casually, a slacks and shirt, not jeans and a t-shirt, but definitely not a coat or tie,” he said. After the brief conversation Hulton continued on his route and did not turn back to see whether the Ayers’ were at home or whether Obama entered their house.

Hulton delivered mail in Glen Ellyn for 39 years with two years off to serve in the U.S. military. He retired in 2001 and is now 66 years old. [Diamond's blog] King Harvest confirmed his employment as a letter carrier with Ray Wasz, Finance Supervisor of the Glen Ellyn Post Office. ….

Mrs. Ayers told Hulton that she and her husband had been in contact with their son Bill and Bernardine while they were underground using “code” to communicate. “They had ‘ways to communicate’ she told me,” Hulton said. Hulton encountered Dohrn three or four times during his time as the Ayers’ letter carrier because he had to confirm that she lived there and secure her signature for certified mail deliveries to her at the Glen Ellyn home. Hulton said Dohrn was never friendly with him but rather “was a sourpuss, she never smiled.”

Hulton had one encounter with [Bill Ayers' father] Tom Ayers who politely asked Hulton about his work. Hulton said he told Ayers that he thought there were problems with the senior management of the Post Office and that he wasn’t always happy about the work habits of some of his fellow workers. “You know, ordinary gripes about work,” Hulton recalls. “I couldn’t believe how he responded. He started to about workers having to struggle to survive and about the the struggle between the common man and those with the means or power in society. It made me think later that he might be a Marxist!”

[unquote]

No more from me about this in this thread.; 11/19/16, 8:08 PM
khesanh0802 said...: I continue to be fascinated by the Lefties conviction that Trump is some kind of dummy. I hope they continue to be convinced of that. There is nothing better than being the enemy who is being underestimated. You've already won the war.; 11/19/16, 8:27 PM
Michael K said...: Mike Sylvester's posts are interesting. The story of how Obama became president will be an interesting story if history is still written 25 years from now.; 11/19/16, 8:52 PM
cacimbo said...: Wonder if the LA Times will release the Khalidi tape once Obama is out of office.; 11/19/16, 9:07 PM
eddie willers said...: Jeez, the New Yorker piece was practically longer than War and Peace.

I thought I was about halfway through and looked over and noticed the scroll bar was still nearly at the top.

Sheesh....I came back to read the comments.; 11/19/16, 9:08 PM
Valentine Smith said...: Wow, Remnick is so full of shit it's sickening. A scandal-free Obama administration? Depends on your definition I suppose. Weaponized IRS? Nah, a mere faux pas. Running guns to drug cartels? Nah, simply a matter of misfiled bills of lading. The justice dept run amok? Nah, a little confusion about civil rights applying to every citizen is all.

Everything Remnick objects to has been initiated and refined by the left only to be thrown back at them in spades. Four years ago the bragging about the efficacy of social media bored the shit out of everyone. Now Trump schools them, saves a billion dollars and it's supposedly disinformation. Fuck em if they don't get the joke (or the irony). I haven't had so much fun in 8 years.; 11/19/16, 9:22 PM
Dude1394 said...: It could be Scott Adams talking.; 11/19/16, 9:27 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: That was good stuff, Mike Sylwester.
Perhaps after he is out of office a few years, and the intellectual culture in the US changes a bit, some ambitious young journalist might make a name for him or her self actually investigating Obama.
I galls me that Obama still gets away with saying that his father and mother split up when he was two, when in fact his mother and father never lived as man and wife after he was born. She took Barack to Seattle and attended the University of Washington a month after Obama was born, and his father stayed on at UH Manoa. This isn't birther stuff, it's all documented and uncontested.; 11/19/16, 10:16 PM
walter said...: The crease in his
Plus that certain Je ne sais quoi that everyone actually knows.; 11/19/16, 10:25 PM
walter said...: Oh..and a mostly academic "career" with a sealed academic record...; 11/19/16, 10:28 PM
Will said...: I read the whole thing.

Obama is so delusional!

Yep, there is no connection, at all, in Obama's mind between his spending $1 billion to smear a very decent man, calling Romney a cancer-causing felon, and the rise of Donald Trump.; 11/20/16, 7:29 AM
Joe Schmoe said...: Remnick illustrates beautifully why so many people now consume other nascent forms of media. His assumptions are the same ones the mainstream media has been peddling for 30 years. We go to other places for news because people like Remnick have forced us there with one-sided, dishonest reporting.; 11/20/16, 7:30 AM
Joe Schmoe said...: One assumption voiced in the article by Obama was the inevitability of a majority Democrat voting bloc, once minorities become the majority. But wasn't that punctured a bit this election? Hispanics went for Trump in far greater numbers than expected. Trump got more of the black vote than expected, while it seems many black voters stayed home. Even though Democrats seem convinced of the moral certitude of their views, it looks like they'll still have to work a lot harder to get votes.; 11/20/16, 7:43 AM
Jupiter said...: Terry said...
"I galls me that Obama still gets away with saying that his father and mother split up when he was two, when in fact his mother and father never lived as man and wife after he was born. She took Barack to Seattle and attended the University of Washington a month after Obama was born, and his father stayed on at UH Manoa. This isn't birther stuff, it's all documented and uncontested."

That's part of the reason I don't think Obama Sr. was really Jr.'s father. I think Frank Marshall Davis impregnated his friend Stanlet Dunham's daughter, whom he also photographed nude. They got Obama Sr. to agree to be listed as the father on the birth certificate, but he never showed any interest whatsoever in his supposed "son".; 11/20/16, 10:06 AM
Charlie said...: My hope is that now we will get to the truth about Ayers and Wright. When it no longer matters.; 11/20/16, 12:35 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: The story of how Obama became president will be an interesting story if history is still written 25 years from now.

Your thin-skinned insult king seems to think it will be tweeted.; 11/20/16, 2:23 PM
Joe said...: "Then came the stuff: Ayers and Reverend Wright and all the rest.... And Trump understands the new ecosystem, in which facts and truth don’t matter. You attract attention, rouse emotions, and then move on."

Is Obama admitting that all the stuff about "Ayers and Reverend Write and all the rest" were true? That the criticism of him vis-a-vis the actual facts is accurate?; 11/20/16, 5:00 PM
Martin said...: "Facts and truth don't matter."

Thanks for clearing up the last 8 years, Barack.; 11/21/16, 12:32 AM
Charles said...: Obama also attacked small (population) States, the Electoral College (and even the U.S. Senate) this weekend:

"As long as Wyoming gets the same number of Senators as California, there is going to be some tilt towards Republicans when it comes to Congressional races. The fact that a lot of Democratic voters are bunched up in big cities and a lot of Republican voters are spread out across geography gives them an advantage when it comes to Congressional races."; 11/21/16, 4:47 AM