Obama’s indifference

In my “Stab at a theory of Obama,” posted yesterday, I said

[H]e doesn’t care how bad the stimulus bill is objectively, or even about how bad it makes him look. That’s not what he’s about. At his core, what he’s about is the construction of an identity that allows him to manipulate and have his way with a country he fundamentally doesn’t like. At some level of himself, he doesn’t think the badness of the bill will reflect on him. He’s above all that.

Tony Blankley has interesting and disturbing article today on Obama in which he gives examples of Obama’s amazing detachment from the responsibilities of his office, and then offers four theories about Obama, the last of which is:

his personality type leaves him surprisingly uninterested in things that aren’t personally about him.

Among the examples of Obama’s stunning indifference to grave matters under his authority, Blankley tells this:

The second item, President Obama’s performance at the Gitmo executive order, provided brief but revealing insight into the president’s personal involvement in vital decision making. He had campaigned hard on closing Gitmo. His first public signing as president was that executive order to close it down. The central issue of Gitmo’s closing was and is: What do we do with the dangerous inmates? President Bush kept it open primarily because his administration couldn’t figure out an answer to that question.

Thus, it was breathtaking that at the signing ceremony, President Obama didn’t know how—or even whether—his executive order was dealing with this central quandary.

President Obama: “And we then provide, uh, the process whereby Guantanamo will be closed, uh, no later than one year from now. We will be, uh. … Is there a separate, uh, executive order, Greg, with respect to how we’re going to dispose of the detainees? Is that, uh, written?”

White House counsel Greg Craig: “We’ll set up a process.”

To be at the signing ceremony and not know what he was ordering done with the terrorist inmates is a level of ignorance about equivalent to being a groom at the altar in a wedding ceremony and asking who it is you are marrying.

This also conncects with my response to Joan Swirsky’s article, “obama’s Revenge.” It’s not that he has some positive desire to hurt America. Rather, he expresses his alienation and disdain for America by just not caring.

Paul K. writes:

I guess insouciance is key to Obama’s “cool.” Obama’s first official trip on Air Force One, a 31-minute flight to nearby Williamsburg, Virginia, was shamelessly wasteful (a helicopter flight would have made more sense), but I was particularly struck by this detail:

Departing from the South Lawn, Obama broke from tradition as he boarded Marine One, the presidential helicopter. He seemed to stun the Marine standing at attention by reaching out to shake his hand. The Marine obliged, shaking the president’s hand before returning to a steady salute.

The president’s impulse to treat his Marine guard as if he were a supporter at a campaign rally obviously made the man uncomfortable. It was inappropriate, and demonstrates that Obama is clueless about some fundamental matters. Perhaps the traditional gesture of respect threw the Commander in Chief off his stride.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 18, 2009 05:46 PM | Send