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Friday, October 09, 2009
The Obama Burkha
Is that you in there, Mr. President? Very pretty, if I may say so.
Is that you in there, Mr. President? Very pretty, if I may say so.
SYMBOLS (NSFW). Just playing devil's advocate here, but I was intrigued by a post from the Green Room Ghetto a while back, which seemed to make sense at the time. Since my first reading, though, I've been tempted by recent events to go back and give it a second look because what appears to be antiseptic logic doesn't quite add up. The initial premise was -- and remains -- persuasive:
In the absence of a discernable [sic]
trajectory of purpose, a person’s actions may seem random,
unpredictable, and inexplicable. Why did he do that? Why not this?
What’s he going to do next? We haven’t a clue.
But sometimes, in a great flash, you finally see the pattern; and all previous actions make sense. You can not only explain what he’s done in the past, you can predict what he’ll do in the future. This is, of course, why finding the appropriate pattern is so important: knowing what’s to come.
Of course, more than one pattern can be constructed to “explain” a person’s actions; it’s tempting just to grab at the first pattern you invent… then start shoehorning every previous action into the pattern you’ve picked, willy nilly, no matter how badly it fits. After a while, the pattern begins to determine which facts you can see — and which become invisible to you. We see this pattern of “pattern-worship” among true believers in any ideology.
So to avoid that trap, it’s best to make numerous specific predictions and use them to test, and when necessary, correct our pattern-hypothesis. The predictions must be:
* Specific: This rather than that.
* Testable: This and that lie within our power to check, both in theory and in practice.
* Dispositive: If that happens instead of this, then our pattern-hypothesis is wrong.
So let’s test our newfound prediction regimen by observing our president, Barack H. Obama, at work — and trying to find a pattern-hypothesis that explains his actions to date and predicts what he’ll do next.
But sometimes, in a great flash, you finally see the pattern; and all previous actions make sense. You can not only explain what he’s done in the past, you can predict what he’ll do in the future. This is, of course, why finding the appropriate pattern is so important: knowing what’s to come.
Of course, more than one pattern can be constructed to “explain” a person’s actions; it’s tempting just to grab at the first pattern you invent… then start shoehorning every previous action into the pattern you’ve picked, willy nilly, no matter how badly it fits. After a while, the pattern begins to determine which facts you can see — and which become invisible to you. We see this pattern of “pattern-worship” among true believers in any ideology.
So to avoid that trap, it’s best to make numerous specific predictions and use them to test, and when necessary, correct our pattern-hypothesis. The predictions must be:
* Specific: This rather than that.
* Testable: This and that lie within our power to check, both in theory and in practice.
* Dispositive: If that happens instead of this, then our pattern-hypothesis is wrong.
So let’s test our newfound prediction regimen by observing our president, Barack H. Obama, at work — and trying to find a pattern-hypothesis that explains his actions to date and predicts what he’ll do next.
Fine. I'm game. The writer, Dafydd AB Hugh, proposes theories to explain what we've seen Obama do thus far. After listing a number of perplexing Obama policies and actions, he starts setting out his hypotheses. His first, an apparent straw man, is that:
Hypothetical
Pattern 1 — Obama is secretly a radical Moslem, and he wants to destroy
America from within to pave the way for a sharia-state.
Now it’s true that this pattern-hypothesis could explain some of the facts:
* His actions on the economy are designed to destroy it, so an Islamic revolution can arise from the ashes.
* He kow-tows to Iran because he’s secretly working for them. Same with al-Qaeda and the other Sunni terrorist groups.
* He sabotages the Afghanistan war because he’s on the Taliban’s side.
* He hates Israel because Islam considers Jews the original heretics.
But for the other facts, we discover ourselves banging square pegs into round holes:
* He pushes ObamaCare because he wants lots of Christians to die, so that the 1% of the country that are Moslem will eventually outnumber them… in about three hundred years.
* He doesn’t want to drill for oil in the United States because he wants to send more money to support Moslem countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran… all but the last of which oppose and fight against jihadism.
* He opposes missile defense against possible Russian missiles because if we have it, we might sell it to Israel, and then they can defend against a Iranian attack. Oh, please.
Now it’s true that this pattern-hypothesis could explain some of the facts:
* His actions on the economy are designed to destroy it, so an Islamic revolution can arise from the ashes.
* He kow-tows to Iran because he’s secretly working for them. Same with al-Qaeda and the other Sunni terrorist groups.
* He sabotages the Afghanistan war because he’s on the Taliban’s side.
* He hates Israel because Islam considers Jews the original heretics.
But for the other facts, we discover ourselves banging square pegs into round holes:
* He pushes ObamaCare because he wants lots of Christians to die, so that the 1% of the country that are Moslem will eventually outnumber them… in about three hundred years.
* He doesn’t want to drill for oil in the United States because he wants to send more money to support Moslem countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran… all but the last of which oppose and fight against jihadism.
* He opposes missile defense against possible Russian missiles because if we have it, we might sell it to Israel, and then they can defend against a Iranian attack. Oh, please.
Well, when you put it like that, maybe this premise is less likely than sheer intuition might suggest. What's next?
Hypothetical
Pattern 2 — Obama has always hated individualism, believing in the
greatest good for the greatest number; he has always hated federalism,
because states used that to justify segregation; he wants all power
vested in the highest level of national government and all governance
from the top down (with him at the top).
Well, this pattern might explain the economic and health-care policies, but how does it explain diminishing American power vis-a-vis the international political and military environment?
Another failed hypothesis-pattern...
Well, this pattern might explain the economic and health-care policies, but how does it explain diminishing American power vis-a-vis the international political and military environment?
Another failed hypothesis-pattern...
With a second straw man out of the way, he gets down to brass tacks:
Hypothetical
Pattern 2.5 — Obama has always hated individualism, believing in the
greatest good for the greatest number; he has always hated federalism,
because states used that to justify segregation; and he has always
hated nationalism, because he believes that’s what causes all the wars
in the world. He wants all power vested in the highest level of
international government and all governance from the top down (with him
at the top).
This pattern-hypothesis seems to fit all the facts pretty well:
* Obama’s stimulus backloads spending because he’s using the money as both carrot and stick to control state and local governments and private companies and individuals.
* He’s raising taxes because he wants to wrench the United States onto the EurAsian economic model, thus to diminish the control individuals and private corporations have over the fruits of their own labor (they might spend it selfishly, while the national government and international law will take from those who have too much and spread it around to those who need it.
* He wants banks and other corporations to remain in debt to the government because that gives him an additional lever of control over them.
* He’s trying to bring American health care “up to” the standard of the rest of the world (centralization, nationalization, single-payer). And he’s staying “hands off” at the moment not because he doesn’t care what’s in the bill, but because he expects to be the final arbiter of the final version of the bill, the last link in the great chain of power.
* He sabotages Afghanistan, kills missile defense, and favors diplomacy over defense at every turn because he wants to handcuff America’s “unilateral” military power. That way, all use of force could instead be approved and directed by an international agency — either the United Nations or an actual world government that succeeds it.
* He appeases our enemies because that’s how you bring them into the International Coalition of Everyone; he’s dismissive of our allies because they have rejected Obamunism and won’t support him as the natural leader of the entire Earth.
* And of course he opposes any policy leading to energy independence for the United States because his radical internationalism demands that we become even more energy dependent on foreign nations...
This pattern-hypothesis seems to fit all the facts pretty well:
* Obama’s stimulus backloads spending because he’s using the money as both carrot and stick to control state and local governments and private companies and individuals.
* He’s raising taxes because he wants to wrench the United States onto the EurAsian economic model, thus to diminish the control individuals and private corporations have over the fruits of their own labor (they might spend it selfishly, while the national government and international law will take from those who have too much and spread it around to those who need it.
* He wants banks and other corporations to remain in debt to the government because that gives him an additional lever of control over them.
* He’s trying to bring American health care “up to” the standard of the rest of the world (centralization, nationalization, single-payer). And he’s staying “hands off” at the moment not because he doesn’t care what’s in the bill, but because he expects to be the final arbiter of the final version of the bill, the last link in the great chain of power.
* He sabotages Afghanistan, kills missile defense, and favors diplomacy over defense at every turn because he wants to handcuff America’s “unilateral” military power. That way, all use of force could instead be approved and directed by an international agency — either the United Nations or an actual world government that succeeds it.
* He appeases our enemies because that’s how you bring them into the International Coalition of Everyone; he’s dismissive of our allies because they have rejected Obamunism and won’t support him as the natural leader of the entire Earth.
* And of course he opposes any policy leading to energy independence for the United States because his radical internationalism demands that we become even more energy dependent on foreign nations...
He goes on to make some specific predictions that meet his testability criteria, and I urge you to read them on your own. Because, while I think he may be onto something with his third hypothesis, I'm having second thoughts about his quick dismissal of Hypothesis 1.
A couple of current posts from the HotAir penthouse are somewhat alarming in this context There's the sudden change of mind about the Taliban:
They’re looking for any way they can to
avoid giving McChrystal the troops he says he needs to secure the
country, so they’ve come up with a way out. If the people we’ve been
fighting for eight years aren’t the enemy, then the country no longer
needs to be secured from them, does it?...
[R]ather than eat crap by forthrightly admitting he’s prepared to abandon huge swaths of the country to Islamist fascists rather than invest another 40,000 troops, [Obama's] going to create an artificial distinction between the Taliban and Al Qaeda to let him save face by claiming he’s focused on “the real enemy.” Much like how he was focused during the campaign on “the good war” in Afghanistan rather than “the bad war” in Iraq. I wonder how long it’ll be before he decides that not everyone who’s in Al Qaeda is an enemy either — or, better yet, that AQ’s been “substantially defeated” or something, which has been the unstated thrust of all those WH-leaked pieces in the press lately about how weak Bin Laden’s gang has become. Why, I’ll bet in a year or so we’ll be told that they’re so weak that we can start pulling out of Afghanistan altogether. Things sure have improved over there since Bush was president, huh?
[R]ather than eat crap by forthrightly admitting he’s prepared to abandon huge swaths of the country to Islamist fascists rather than invest another 40,000 troops, [Obama's] going to create an artificial distinction between the Taliban and Al Qaeda to let him save face by claiming he’s focused on “the real enemy.” Much like how he was focused during the campaign on “the good war” in Afghanistan rather than “the bad war” in Iraq. I wonder how long it’ll be before he decides that not everyone who’s in Al Qaeda is an enemy either — or, better yet, that AQ’s been “substantially defeated” or something, which has been the unstated thrust of all those WH-leaked pieces in the press lately about how weak Bin Laden’s gang has become. Why, I’ll bet in a year or so we’ll be told that they’re so weak that we can start pulling out of Afghanistan altogether. Things sure have improved over there since Bush was president, huh?
Trust the Taliban? Okay. How do you feel about that in light of this?
Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize on
a nomination submitted ten whole days into his term of office in part
due to his effort in “easing American conflicts with Muslim
nations.” Helming that effort is Dalia Mogahed, Obama’s advisor
on Muslim affairs, who gave British television viewers a taste of how
Obama won the Nobel. She explained that the oppressive shari’a
law that results in stonings, mainly for women, is actually “gender
justice”, which might be news to women’s-rights groups around the
world...
Gender justice? Under shari’a, a woman’s testimony in court only counts for half of that of a man. If a woman is raped, she needs four male witnesses to prove her case. If she makes the accusation and doesn’t find four witnesses, the victim gets charged with fornication or adultery and faces death...
Instead of defending the rights of women and secular application of law, which is the basis of our law, the advisor of the President of the United States fails to answer a demand for the imposition of an extreme religious code on free people. Mogahed also never rebutted the notion that women should not hold public office...
Gender justice? Under shari’a, a woman’s testimony in court only counts for half of that of a man. If a woman is raped, she needs four male witnesses to prove her case. If she makes the accusation and doesn’t find four witnesses, the victim gets charged with fornication or adultery and faces death...
Instead of defending the rights of women and secular application of law, which is the basis of our law, the advisor of the President of the United States fails to answer a demand for the imposition of an extreme religious code on free people. Mogahed also never rebutted the notion that women should not hold public office...
Or this?
Necessary
Gesture Or Bad Decision? U.S. Cuts Funds To Iran Rights Group
by Andrew F. Tully
WASHINGTON -- The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center specializes in collecting data on human rights abuses that it says the government of Iran has been perpetrating against its own people, ranging from unlawful detentions to torture to assassinations.
In the past five years, the group has received about $3 million from the State Department's U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.
Rene Redman, the group's executive director, reportedly was ready to ask for $2 million more for the next two years, to be used to investigate Tehran's harsh response to protests against the June 12 election, which many say was rigged in favor of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
But this week the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center learned it will get no money for the foreseeable future.
The funding cutoff comes as the United States is negotiating directly with Iran about its nuclear program, which many Western governments believe is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. It's the first such contact between the two countries in three decades.
by Andrew F. Tully
WASHINGTON -- The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center specializes in collecting data on human rights abuses that it says the government of Iran has been perpetrating against its own people, ranging from unlawful detentions to torture to assassinations.
In the past five years, the group has received about $3 million from the State Department's U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.
Rene Redman, the group's executive director, reportedly was ready to ask for $2 million more for the next two years, to be used to investigate Tehran's harsh response to protests against the June 12 election, which many say was rigged in favor of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
But this week the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center learned it will get no money for the foreseeable future.
The funding cutoff comes as the United States is negotiating directly with Iran about its nuclear program, which many Western governments believe is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. It's the first such contact between the two countries in three decades.
Do these developments entirely explain Hypothesis 2.5, which postulates an antiseptic if dim-witted allegiance to statist internationalism? Or do they seem rather to hearken back to Hypothesis 1, an irrational fealty to muslim sharia law?
That's when I revisited the objections to Hypothesis 1. Do they really seem so inexplicable as to deserve the "oh please" they were dismissed with?
* He pushes ObamaCare
because he wants lots of Christians to die, so
that the 1% of the country that are Moslem will eventually outnumber
them… in about three hundred years. OR:
He pushes ObamaCare because he knows it will bankrupt the linchpin
economy of the Christian west. Long life is hardly a primary value in a
culture that celebrates suicide bombers and other martyrs to the
prophet. Moreover, Europe is already demographically doomed, with an
average birth rate of 1.4 children per couple. In the imperial west,
only the U.S. still has a birth rate above 2.1; government control of
health care, including federal funding of abortions, can only serve to
drive this last outpost of christianity closer to the European example.
(And since when is 300 years a ridiculous timespan in muslim ambitions?)
* He doesn’t want to drill for oil in the United States because he wants to send more money to support Moslem countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran… all but the last of which oppose and fight against jihadism. But what if the motivation isn't expressly political or short term? Again, crushing the prosperity and independence of the western industrial economies is hardly inconsistent with the ambition to weaken their long-term capacity for military, economic, and cultural opposition to the rising tide of muslim hegemony around the globe.
* He opposes missile defense against possible Russian missiles because if we have it, we might sell it to Israel, and then they can defend against a [sic] Iranian attack. Oh, please. 'O please' is is right. He's neatly misdirecting our attention to a short-term tactical argument, away from a much more sinister potential long-term strategic objective. If the United States is withdrawing its umbrella of protection from eastern Europe, it's also signalling an unwillingness to protect other vulenrable allies like Taiwan, South Korea, and, uh, Israel. Obama's giving free rein to the barbarians to do what they will, including -- and probably hopefully -- Russian collusion with Iran in the annihilation of the Jews.
* He doesn’t want to drill for oil in the United States because he wants to send more money to support Moslem countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran… all but the last of which oppose and fight against jihadism. But what if the motivation isn't expressly political or short term? Again, crushing the prosperity and independence of the western industrial economies is hardly inconsistent with the ambition to weaken their long-term capacity for military, economic, and cultural opposition to the rising tide of muslim hegemony around the globe.
* He opposes missile defense against possible Russian missiles because if we have it, we might sell it to Israel, and then they can defend against a [sic] Iranian attack. Oh, please. 'O please' is is right. He's neatly misdirecting our attention to a short-term tactical argument, away from a much more sinister potential long-term strategic objective. If the United States is withdrawing its umbrella of protection from eastern Europe, it's also signalling an unwillingness to protect other vulenrable allies like Taiwan, South Korea, and, uh, Israel. Obama's giving free rein to the barbarians to do what they will, including -- and probably hopefully -- Russian collusion with Iran in the annihilation of the Jews.
Remember, I'm only playing devil's advocate here. But while I'm at it, I have four more points that argue more strongly for Hypothesis 1 than Hypothesis 2.5.
First, Obama is not behaving as if he really cares whether the American people approve his policies or not. His conduct as president thus far fits the template of vandal better than despot. He's delegated his supposedly transformational, reform minded agenda to two of the most inept politicians in American history, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. He's let them write the legislation in all their reckless vengeful abandon, pursue every wild liberal idiocy the Democrat Party ever conceived, sell out to every well-paying campaign-contributing special interest, and defy a host of polls showing that Americans in general don't approve of the contemplated massive increase in the size and power of an obviously arrogant, out-of-touch, and runaway federal government.
If Obama were merely a canny leftist politician, he would be handing down marching orders to Pelosi and Reid. Instead, he is fey, vague, and detached. He doesn't actually care what the legislative outcome is. His purpose seems to be chaos, crippling levels of spending (however achieved), and the same kind of consequent deterioration in the American economy he has already catalyzed in foreign affairs with his Apology Tour. To date, his experience with health care is close enough to Clinton's that he should be, if he really cared about reelection, moving toward the center. Word is, he's not. Behind closed doors he's still pushing for the "public option," hyping the insane ambitions of morons like Pelosi. But he doesn't do it in public. Why? Because his intention is chaos, a state near civil war within the United States. He knows Pelosi and Reid are imbeciles, and he's happy about it.
Second, the controversies surrounding his appointed advisers and "czars" do not betray any consistent cultural bias except chaos. Van Jones was an avowed Marxist. Kevin Jennings, the "safe schools czar," is an avowed homosexual with creepy ties to NAMBLA. And Dalia Mogahed is an outrageous proponent of Sharia, which would see to it that homosexuality is a death penalty offense and feminsim as the Democratic Party knows it would die a violent "honor"able death (or epidemic of honor killings). What's the purpose here? The purpose of staffing the White House with polar opposites whose only point of commonality is that Democrats will defend them all to the last gasp and ordinary Americans will find them all equally offensive? The answer is simple. Destruction of the common belief in the virtue of American institutions that claim to care about "the people." If we can be made to doubt that, we can be destroyed entirely.
Third. Who are Barack and Michelle Obama? She's not that much of a mystery. She clearly hates her country of birth, except insofar as it celebrates and kowtows to her. She's not proud of the U.S., not grateful for her taxpayer-funded power elite education at Princeton and Harvard, not even cognizant of the need for (at least a show of) modesty in her current lifestyle given the privations of a deep recession in the country as a whole. She parades her sudden celebrity and affluence like a braindead sitcom star.
But Barack Obama is a mystery. We elected him president without knowing much of anything about him. We'd know more about a junior-grade marketing manager hired at the firm we work for. We'd know his SATs and GPA. We'd know his college major and courses. We'd be able to make calls to confirm or refute the truth of his claimed work history. We could have long talks with his references. Except that in Barack Obama's case, we can't do or know any of these things. He won't allow it. Raw data aside, every intimate of Barack Obama is ultimately dismissed as a mere acquaintance, a chance meeting, a cordial misfire that has no real meaning in the arc of his life. Right. In the course of becoming the most famous man on earth, he's been transformed into a fucking phantom without mentors, friends, or confidants. He's either a god beyond the need for human contact or a cipher who uses and ultimately dispenses with everyone who helps him along the way.
What do we know about the president of the United States? Not enough to dismiss the wildest implications and possibilities of this post. And that's a fact. It's impossible to disprove the possibility that he's a muslim Manchurian candidate. That's the biggest scandal of all. Nobody can tell me definitively that this scary devil's advocacy position is absolutely wrong. Which leads me to...
Fourth. The radical muslim interpretation is not one wild hare. It's two. Which should give everyone pause. There's a circling back that should make people queasy. He migrated to Indonesia as a child, where the evidence suggests he attended a muslim school as a muslim. That's not hard to understand by itself. One can outgrow early influences. But what if one doesn't outgrow early influences? He returned to the United States, clambered onto the most positive track anyone could hope to follow, and then found his way back to not just anti-American influences like Bill Ayers but much more problematic leading lights like Reverend Wright, who preached a perverse version of Christianity that found common cause with frankly religio-racial organizations like the Nation of Islam. The Reverend Wright was(is) an admitted admirer of Louis Ferrakhan. What was Obama doing in Wright's church? Is he really a Christian? Or is he a little known species of revolutionary we might term an "African Black Muslim"? Think about it.
I'll close with two equivocal pieces of evidence. Michelle Malkin is all upset about White House art acquisitions which suggest that the Obamas admire plagiarist African-American artists. I don't care about that. Plagiarism is a way of life for female artists. What I do care about is the art they've imported to the White House that shows their real disposition with regard to promulgating trans-racialism. There's an artist named Glenn Ligon, four of whose works they've chosen as emblematic of African-American contributions to the American canon that belong in the White House. Do they seem trans-racial to you?
Maybe you didn't get the drift. Here are more of Glenn Ligon's works:
Some other black president could have survived this. Obama won't. The one pitiful constant about him is his desperate desire to fit in, to be approved. Everyone should read this psychological profile of Barack Obama. It makes sense for a Manchurian candidate but not for a rising despot:
Did We
Elect a Beta Male As President?
By Greg Lewis
We're all somewhat familiar with the body language dogs display when they greet each other. The dominant alpha male approaches directly, asserting his authority, while the beta male genuflects, crouches, tucks his tail, and may even end up on his back, exposing his neck in acquiescence, making sure the alpha male knows he has no intention of challenging him. With his "we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist" opening to the world's dictators, the President is exhibiting classic beta male behavior, in essence rolling over on his back and exposing his throat to them to make sure they know he has no intention of challenging their authority.
Of course, the problem is that he's not simply exposing his throat, he's exposing America's collective throat, sending the message that he's a typical beta male intent on submitting to all the alpha male leaders around the world, and damn the consequences. His response to the discovery of Iran's newest, and heretofore "secret," nuclear facility was, as Daniel Henninger (Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2009) points out, to have our State Department offer to start a direct dialogue with the tyrannical Burmese regime.
The Obama administration has also offered conciliatory gestures to the genocidal Sudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and it has dispatched none other than John Kerry to meet with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. This, of course, is not to mention his somewhat more visible overtures to the world's alpha male thugs: Obama has consorted jovially with Hugo Chavez and his counterpart Daniel Ortega, he's bowed down to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, he's agreed to halt plans to install a missile defense system in eastern Europe to placate Vladimir Putin, and he's offered the aforementioned hand to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, despite the latter's expressed unwillingness to even agree to acknowledge the truly important issue of Iran's nuclear weapons in our talks, all quintessential beta male behaviors.
While we've all been seeking a political rationale for the president's actions, his behavior goes beyond the political to something deeper and more personal: like all beta males, Barack Obama simply does not have the temperament to confront tyrannical alpha males around the globe. In this light, even his inability to work with American allies Gordon Brown and Nikolas Sarkozy is a function of his being incapable of facing down the world's tyrants: to cooperate with our allies would require Obama to display alpha male behaviors, including demonstrating courage, something he's simply not capable of doing. The president's beta-male proclivities are arguably putting the safety of his constituents, the citizens of our country, in serious jeopardy.
Another cue to this unfortunate character trait of the president's can be found in the lack of assertiveness of his oratorical style. While many people insist that Barack Obama is a wonderful speaker, in fact, he exhibits less emotional range when he addresses a crowd than his predecessor, George W. Bush, did. He may have better speechwriters than W, but his delivery is monotonic and his cadences clipped, both signs of a beta male, unsure of himself, putting his words out there more for the purpose of seeking approval than of providing leadership.
The president's characteristic head tilt when he's speaking to an audience or having to deal with a tough question when he's being interviewed (although there are certainly very few instances of his having to do this) is another sign of submissive behavior. It crops up less than a minute in during an interview with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly (YouTube - Barack Obama Interview With Bill O'Reilly Sept 4, 2008 - FNC ) in answer to O'Reilly's question, "Do you believe we're in a war on terror?" After an initial "Absolutely," the Candidate begins to hedge, his head tilts as he explains the difficulty in sorting out the good guys from the bad guys in the Middle East. Like beta males everywhere, Obama is not about to commit to words that he might have to back up with assertive action.
Being a beta male is all about developing strategies for deflecting aggression, and for this reason, beta males do have an important place in society. Within the confines of a social unit, beta-male behavior can help to defuse aggression and maintain domestic peace. But in a world where other nations' alpha-male leaders are constantly probing for even the smallest signs of weakness, having a beta male president has thrown into stark relief the dangers to which this president's unfortunate character trait is exposing his country.
To return to the canine metaphor: It's the height of folly to think that other nations won't be doing everything they can to make President Obama their bitch.
By Greg Lewis
We're all somewhat familiar with the body language dogs display when they greet each other. The dominant alpha male approaches directly, asserting his authority, while the beta male genuflects, crouches, tucks his tail, and may even end up on his back, exposing his neck in acquiescence, making sure the alpha male knows he has no intention of challenging him. With his "we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist" opening to the world's dictators, the President is exhibiting classic beta male behavior, in essence rolling over on his back and exposing his throat to them to make sure they know he has no intention of challenging their authority.
Of course, the problem is that he's not simply exposing his throat, he's exposing America's collective throat, sending the message that he's a typical beta male intent on submitting to all the alpha male leaders around the world, and damn the consequences. His response to the discovery of Iran's newest, and heretofore "secret," nuclear facility was, as Daniel Henninger (Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2009) points out, to have our State Department offer to start a direct dialogue with the tyrannical Burmese regime.
The Obama administration has also offered conciliatory gestures to the genocidal Sudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and it has dispatched none other than John Kerry to meet with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. This, of course, is not to mention his somewhat more visible overtures to the world's alpha male thugs: Obama has consorted jovially with Hugo Chavez and his counterpart Daniel Ortega, he's bowed down to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, he's agreed to halt plans to install a missile defense system in eastern Europe to placate Vladimir Putin, and he's offered the aforementioned hand to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, despite the latter's expressed unwillingness to even agree to acknowledge the truly important issue of Iran's nuclear weapons in our talks, all quintessential beta male behaviors.
While we've all been seeking a political rationale for the president's actions, his behavior goes beyond the political to something deeper and more personal: like all beta males, Barack Obama simply does not have the temperament to confront tyrannical alpha males around the globe. In this light, even his inability to work with American allies Gordon Brown and Nikolas Sarkozy is a function of his being incapable of facing down the world's tyrants: to cooperate with our allies would require Obama to display alpha male behaviors, including demonstrating courage, something he's simply not capable of doing. The president's beta-male proclivities are arguably putting the safety of his constituents, the citizens of our country, in serious jeopardy.
Another cue to this unfortunate character trait of the president's can be found in the lack of assertiveness of his oratorical style. While many people insist that Barack Obama is a wonderful speaker, in fact, he exhibits less emotional range when he addresses a crowd than his predecessor, George W. Bush, did. He may have better speechwriters than W, but his delivery is monotonic and his cadences clipped, both signs of a beta male, unsure of himself, putting his words out there more for the purpose of seeking approval than of providing leadership.
The president's characteristic head tilt when he's speaking to an audience or having to deal with a tough question when he's being interviewed (although there are certainly very few instances of his having to do this) is another sign of submissive behavior. It crops up less than a minute in during an interview with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly (YouTube - Barack Obama Interview With Bill O'Reilly Sept 4, 2008 - FNC ) in answer to O'Reilly's question, "Do you believe we're in a war on terror?" After an initial "Absolutely," the Candidate begins to hedge, his head tilts as he explains the difficulty in sorting out the good guys from the bad guys in the Middle East. Like beta males everywhere, Obama is not about to commit to words that he might have to back up with assertive action.
Being a beta male is all about developing strategies for deflecting aggression, and for this reason, beta males do have an important place in society. Within the confines of a social unit, beta-male behavior can help to defuse aggression and maintain domestic peace. But in a world where other nations' alpha-male leaders are constantly probing for even the smallest signs of weakness, having a beta male president has thrown into stark relief the dangers to which this president's unfortunate character trait is exposing his country.
To return to the canine metaphor: It's the height of folly to think that other nations won't be doing everything they can to make President Obama their bitch.
So Obama bows to the King of Saud. He laughs and bluffs his way through a confrontation with Chavez. What will he do face to face with Putin or Ahdumjihad? What if he's not really one of us but one of them? And a Beta to boot? Maybe he's a man in a burkha, perpetually concealed from us and perpetually obedient to his, uh, Prophet? What if 'bending over' is a duty he learned in childhood? What if his ineffable 'manner' is really synonymous with his abstract bitch burkha? And Muhammed is doing him all night and all day.
How much trouble are we in? As I said, devil's advocate. I confidently await your convincing rebuttals...
