Obama’s incredible demeanor while Romney was speaking to him

Last night, as I mentioned, I was annoyed by the split-screen view on C-SPAN that showed Romney’s permanent half-patronizing, half kindly-weak smile while Obama was speaking, so I switched to PBS, which only showed the candidate who was speaking. Well, by doing that, I missed something incredible. Here, posted at the left-liberal Slate, is an artfully edited RNC ad that shows the split-screen view during a long, cogent Romney statement about Obama’s economic failures, in which Obama is smirking and looking down the whole time. Didn’t Obama know about the split screen? How could he allow himself to have such an expression on his face? He truly looks, as some have said, like a misbehaving adolescent receiving a righteous lecture from his father, whom he disrespectfully refuses to listen to or look at in the face.

Or, leaving aside the father-son analogy, Romney looks like a man who is utterly serious about and fully engaged in the problem at hand, and Obama looks like a lout who couldn’t care less.

- end of initial entry -

October 5

Beth M. writes:

Obama has been an underachiever his entire life, but because he is black and has had good connections (from his white grandparents to Ayers, etc.) he has received one golden opportunity after another.

Obama never had a father, never served in the military, and has never received any sort of performance evaluation at school or in the workforce that didn’t pull its punches based on the fact that he was black, and the evaluator didn’t want to be accused of racism. Nobody has ever looked Obama in the eye and told him that his work wasn’t good enough.

The Obamas feel ENTITLED to four more years in the White House, and it galls them to have to defend Obama’s record. Because Romney is a “child of privilege,” it is especially irksome to Obama to have to stand in front of a crowd while Romney picks apart his Presidential record.

Randy writes:

It was all planned. Obama’s look was intended to diminish Romney’s stature. Romney’s attempt to “teach” Obama, appeal to his sense of reason, or fairness, and to show him the (moral) way will go no where with a committed Marxist and his imbecilic following, the American people. Obama knows he will win and the debates with this evil, rich, and out-of-touch buffoon is a waste of his precious time. Romney can scream and yell and carry on like a school kid trying to get the teacher’s attention, but it will fail. He will come across as just that, while the cool and collected Obama will carry on as our savior.

I agree with you that Obama was confident and was not as inept as the conservative media wants to believe. They are delusional. I looked at a few snippets on the YouTube video. One thing that struck me is how there is no real difference between the two. In one part of the video Romney said that he agreed with Obama that the government will not take in less money as a result of his (Romney’s) tax proposals. What? Is he serious? The primary purpose of the government is now to redistribute wealth. That is where most of the money is going—to transfer wealth from the producers to the unproductive “needy.” His objective should have been to show how the 60 year growth of the welfare state, like a parasite on its host, is collapsing our economy—just like in Europe. Nothing is “free.” An entitlement to one is an obligation to another, who becomes a slave to the one “entitled.”

As long as Romney just tries to establish himself as Obama “light,” he will be like the kid who is running behind, trying to catch up to the other kids who are trying to ditch him. He will come across as a buffoon against the serious, reflective, and cool Obama who has a “vision” of fundamental transformation as our society into the promised land of the Marxist, cultural and economic “paradise.”

If Romney were to take the position of Michele Bachmann, he may suffer the same fate. Let it happen. At least he will have been loyal to truth and simple morality, two things the left vehemently oppose. I might add that, have you ever heard Barry Goldwater derided in the same manner as Nixon and George Bush? I have not, even from the most committed leftists. There seems to be a respect (perhaps subconsiously) for someone who is principled and is loyal to those principles. And since traditionalist conservatism is both moral and transcendent reality, it cannot be denied or ridiculed by a sane person.

Dale F. writes:

Perhaps Randy is too young to remember anything about the 1964 Presidential campaign. Goldwater was treated with the same derision and outright hatred that every Republican on the national stage has faced for the last fifty or more years. The press was just as invested in systematically destroying him then as they are in destroying Romney today.

In later years, after his libertarian views on homosexuality and drugs and his skepticism towards religion became more widely known, he was granted some degree of absolution by the left, as he could be used as a stick to beat other conservatives.

Randy writes:

It may very well be that Obama’s team knew that Obama could never match Romney’s intellect. So they used the same strategy as in 2008. Obama projects himself as a “superior” being with a vision and don’t get into the details. Romney is a brilliant technocrat but does not have a transcendent vision. It is too much for the average dumbed-down American to comprehend. So, who is doing the most for America? It is the one with a vision that everyone can understand. That is, the government taking over and running a failed and greedy free market. Unless there is an equal vision from the Republicans, they will be rejected. And what is that “vision”? It is transcendent reality. A leaking lifeboat will not stay afloat if half the people are unwilling to WORK to stop the leak. When a small segment of the population supports the rest, that society will be reduced to Third-World status. No one is obligated to support someone else who has no desire to help himself or improve his lot. Entitlement is evil and a form of theft. Only when a candidate is willing to point out the reality of how this society has surrendered itself to delusional, leftist thinking, is there any hope of being taken seriously. The traditionalist conservative must be willing to criticize the underlying assumptions and attack them for what they are-a manifestation of evil.

Stephen J. writes:

Your post on Obama looking downwards “like a disrespectful child” reminded me that there is a 180 degree difference between how white and black children are taught to respond to parental discipline:

White parents tell their children, “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Looking away is taken as a sign of inattention and disrespect.

Black children are taught NOT to look their parents in the eye when being disciplined. “Don’t eyeball me,” etc.

Obama, with his multicultural, multi-parental upbringing, is probably deeply conflicted, but it appears that generations of black culture and practice won out Wednesday night.

LA replies:

Interesting point. But of course Obama was not raised by black parents or in a black culture, by by his white hippie mother and his white leftie grandparents. However, in his late teens and young adulthood he consciously joined and identified himself with the black American culture, including its unappeasable resentment toward whites. So that could be the source of the behavior.

Stephen J. writes:

Randy and I must have been watching two different debates. Obama was frequently sulking, looking down ( as if accepting a scolding ), surly and annoyed, picking his nose, and repeatedly addressing the moderator rather than his opponent. His “uhs” and “ums” were a significant detraction; his rambling prof-speak was often barely coherent.

Romney had to walk a tightrope imposed by the increasing peculiarity of our political culture, as well as make clear presentations of his views in a forceful manner; he did just that, and more.

Mitt’s not what Randy or I want, but to call him “Obama Light” is inaccurate. You go to war with the army you have.

LA replies:

I disagree that his “uhs” were bad; they were normal pauses that a person makes while speaking. And I didn’t hear him rambling, let alone being “barely coherent.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 04, 2012 10:53 PM | Send