WHEN THE SIXTH GRADER'S MINDSET IS OUR WINDOW INTO PRESIDENT OBAMA'S PSHCHE

WHEN THE SIXTH GRADER’S MINDSET IS OUR WINDOW INTO PRESIDENT OBAMA'S PSHCHE

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© September 24, 2010

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“What is the remedy? It is not the chief disgrace in the world, not to be a unit – not to be reckoned one character, not to yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand. Not so, brothers and friends. Please God, ours shall not be so.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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WOULD THAT WE ALL READ MORE!

I was forwarded an article, written anonymously by a Washington insider who has access to the "naked truth" about President Barak Obama (“White House Insider On Obama: The President Is Losing It”).

As a reader of books on presidents, after reading this article, I could not but have a bad taste in my mouth. The piece says nothing but insinuates much.

This writer, who chooses to be anonymous, has the audacity to speak to the reader from a position of privilege and to rant, as he will about the Presidency of the United States. We, the reader, are expected to accept his entreaties as the gospel incarnate. It is truly a media age.

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Media provide our ignorance with infotainment to the beat of a celebrity culture, with junk thought, misguided objectivity, misuse of the singular, playing on our weakness for schadenfreude.

Given this inclination to project our angst on a person or thing outside ourselves, it is not surprising that we are quick to accept generalities as real rather than the fluff that they are.

We live in a digital age of electronic tools that generate junk thought and act as toys of distraction. Small wonder that a nasty piece like this gets our attention because we are told we have the voice of truth of the insider.

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STROLLING DOWN MEMORY LANE OF PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY

Perhaps the best way to describe my sense of this piece is to comment on various statements made by the anonymous author.

Did the media give candidate Obama an assist?

(Sly smile) “Sure, we definitely had people in the media on our side.”

John F. Kennedy made Barak Obama look like a novice when it came to romancing and seducing the press. He had the media eating out of his hands, forgiving him his every transgression, which were legion.

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“The opposition didn’t have near the energy, or the celebrity attraction that Obama brings.”

Why is it a positive when Kennedy created “Camelot” and all its nonsense becomes a negative when reference is made to Obama?

Teddy Roosevelt was no slouch when it came to creating celebrity. He manufactured the bravado that painted him the swashbuckling warrior among the mainly mythical “Rough Riders” of the Spanish American War.

Kennedy did it as well with his "PT 109" command in WWII. He was forced to abandon his vessel, and nearly fell into enemy hands through his ineptitude.

Kennedy compounded this by publishing "Profiles in Courage" while recovering from a back injury, failing to mention the book was largely written by an aid. His father, Joe Kennedy, made the book a national best seller by purchasing thousands of copies across the country. And yes, Kennedy accepted the Pulitzer Prize for a book largely ghost written. Where is the morality in this?

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“The country was burned out after eight years of Bush.”

With the exception of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who won four consecutive terms, it seems normal fare to tire of a president, especially in this media age, after two terms.

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“He absolutely obsesses over Fox News. For being so successful, Barak Obama is incredibly thin-skinned. He takes everything very personally.”

Compare this to Richard M. Nixon, or for that matter compare it to JFK and his brother, Robert. These leaders saw monsters in the shadows. And who was more thin skinned then Lyndon Johnson? Sensitivity is the hallmark of a politician when it comes to arrows targeted for their backs.

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“What does Joe Biden know about budgets and economics? Not much.”

This is probably true. FDR’s first vice president, John Nance Garner described the vice presidency “not worth a bucket of warm piss.”

It is only since the assassination of JFK that the vice presidency has taken on such gravitas.

With Joe Biden what you see is what you get, and with no apologies. The fact that he often has his foot in his mouth is par for the office.

Few presidents in the history of our nation have put someone on the ticket that might challenge their authority, possibly with the exception of Lyndon Johnson. The whole Kennedy clan loathed him, but felt he was necessary to win the election.

Vice presidents are generally chosen to win elections. Biden was a senior US Senator and expert on international affairs, a weakness assumed in Obama.

Vice president Chaney, on the other hand, was considered a co-president as "Saturday Night Live" loved to imply. History will have to weigh in on this.

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“He (Obama) is scared to death of Hillary.”

On whose authority? If this anonymous author said “Bill Clinton,” then it would have some traction.

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“He (Obama) respects her (Hillary) though, which might be why he fears her so much as well.”

God, how we love armchair psychologists!

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“I have heard that Bill Clinton does not like Barak Obama.”

Now what is that suppose to mean?

Is "liking" someone either necessary or sufficient reason for respecting or valuing someone? I think not.

It would seem this comment is a holdover from the touchy-feely days of the 1980s? I have never found “liking” or “disliking” a suitable indicator of either competence or confidence. "Liking" in this sense is a toxic word implying that we must like each other to work together. My experience has been that those who possess value added skills to the mix drive self-interest.

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“Obama played the race card?”

Kennedy played the religious card (Catholicism) to his advantage. Obama played the race card (African Americanism) to his. Nixon played the mislabeled card (Checker's speech). Show me where this is bad?

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“He (Obama) takes his meetings just like any other president.”

Show me any executive worth his salt that takes them any other way.

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“Though even then, he seems to lack a certain focus.”

Again, nothing is more boring or counterproductive than regularly scheduled meetings. They become meetings for meeting sake.

Most of what is hashed over in these routine meetings is given more relevance when the appropriate parties meet directly.

Alas, boredom often takes precedence. Small wonder the president occasionally lacks a “certain focus.”

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“If you want to see President Obama get excited about a conversation turn it to sports.”

Good for him!

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“Barak Obama doesn’t have a whole lot of intellectual curiosity.”

Now that is unmitigated nonsense! This says more about the anonymous author and absolutely nothing about the president.

If the author has read any of the president’s books he knows of the range, breath and depth of his mind, as well as his gift for subtle expression.

No one has ever accused the president of having "ghost" writers create his manuscripts. Writing is hard work. It takes discipline, time, attention, and talent, all of which appear in abundant supply

If the anonymous author has listened to Obama discussing (in depth) a wide range of subjects as he has done on such television shows with Jim Lehrer and Charlie Rose, he could not but think otherwise.

You cannot be intellectually gifted if you are not intellectually curious. You cannot have a rare intelligence by osmosis. If anything, the president is too curious. I would imagine he could easily drift off on a panoply of subjects if he did not check himself.

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“When he (Obama) is off script, he is what I call a real “slow talker.”

This is but another example of junk thought. It implies meaning when it is meaningless. The implication is that “slow talk” is indigenous to slow thinking, which is ridiculous.

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“He just doesn’t strike me as particularly smart. Bill Clinton is a smart guy. He would run intellectual circles around Barak Obama.”

Everyone is free to express his or her opinion. This anonymous author chooses to imply he has an inside track with the assessment tools of the psychometrician.

He implies he can gauge the character and capacity of the president’s mind and then label it with impunity.

If this were not enough, he engages the old ruse of "compare and compete" using Bill Clinton as the straw man. At this point, the article that was suspect becomes totally incredulous.

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“The fighting (in the cabinet) is off the charts.”

Imagine that! Well, I'm sure it is quite true. I certainly hope so. Conflict is the glue that holds an organization together, not the absence of conflict.

Now, internal stress and strain can mount when external demands accelerate, as they did with President Bush and Katrina, and with President Obama with the oilrig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Add to this the daily media blitz and you have something of nightmare proportions with which to grapple.

My wonder is why anyone except a masochist would submit him or herself to such duress. Fortunately, our elected President and Congress are willing to do such battle.

My experience in organization is that “in fighting” is par for the course. Ventilation is always better than violence.

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“Come again, what about the First Lady?”

Michele Obama doesn’t escape the anonymous author’s junk thought. How could there not be stress in a marriage when you have no privacy?

JFK had girlfriends, one was alleged to be a Russian spy, another a gangster’s moll, putting the nation in jeopardy for the president's dalliances, of which the media remained essentially silent.

Jacqueline Kennedy was said to be less than angelic when it came to running her household. A subordinate in a “tell all” book captures this First Lady without makeup.

To be fair, it must be like hell in a basket to live in the president's zoo for four to eight years. Pat Nixon chain-smoked her way through it, and Bess Truman had enough sense to go back to Missouri.

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“I saw first hand the President of the United States yelling at a member of his staff.”

Can you believe that statement? Extra, extra, the president is human!

What could be more obtuse than to insinuate that yelling is somehow abnormal?

Who hasn’t yelled at a subordinate?

Andrew Jackson used it as an expression of affection.

I wouldn’t want a president who couldn’t break glass with his decibels. Lyndon Johnson was legendary in his temper tantrums, and no one could be more conspiratorial than tricky Dick.

If we are looking for the presidency to be occupied by saints, by individuals without flaws, we had better look outside the body politic in some other dimension because such people don’t exist in humankind.

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“Would another four years of an Obama presidency be the best thing for America?”

The anonymous author doesn’t think so because “Obama is not up to the job,” and “Obama is lazy.”

Compare Obama’s vacations to George W. Bush and one wonders when Bush had time to be president. Of course, he had Chaney and Rumsfeld to mess things up for him.

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“What this country needs is a president who is focused on the job more than on himself.”


It would appear that President Barak Obama, as was true of every president before him, has a sense of history.

This can be a problem. I would have hoped that Obama had tackled jobs before he tackled healthcare. History will indicate long after I am gone whether he was right or not.

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“He doesn’t really understand the idea of work, real work, get your heart and soul into it work.”

As you have seen, giving this anonymous author the benefit of the doubt, I have difficulty understanding where his head is.

Work is no longer manual, no longer busy work, no longer sitting at your desk to the wee hours of the morning contemplating your navel. It is no longer measured in chronological but psychological time.

My best thinking has always been in the shower when God talks to me, never at the workplace, never associated with coming in early and leaving late, but thinking.

The presidency is a symbolic role as well as an orchestration of initiatives. Furrowed brows and weighty demeanors do not a thinking president make.

Leadership is about taking risks and mobilizing resources to certain ins, and hoping for a little luck along the way, because there are no guarantees things will come out in the end as planned.

Leadership is all about timing. And yes, leadership is enduring ignoramuses like this anonymous author and staying with the program.

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