busybody..
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2002
- Posts
- 149,503
It Takes One to Know One: Obama is Nothing But a Bullshitter
In a devastating commentary in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Scott Gottlieb – a practicing internist, former official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and currently a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute – demonstrated convincingly on Friday that President Obama simply doesn’t know very much about the practice of medicine.
If you want the details, read Gottlieb's piece. But I reference it here because it fits a larger and very troubling pattern about the president: The more he talks, the more he reveals himself not to understand the very subjects about which he waxes on with such seeming eloquence.
There is a name for a person with a talent like this: He is an expert bullshitter. And I will be honest and tell you it’s a talent I share. Deploying this talent can be a lot of fun, and I don’t have a big problem with it if it’s used innocuously. Many a great con artist will stand there and talk with such confidence about this or that, you are absolutely convinced this guy knows exactly what he’s talking about. The truth is that he doesn’t have the slightest idea, but he’s very smooth in his use of the language and his tone of voice, so he convinces you he’s on solid ground when he really isn’t.
Many a time I have stood and talked to a person who asked my opinion on something about which I didn’t have the slightest idea. (Some people have unrealistic expectations about the knowledge base of your average columnist.) I could simply say, “I don’t really know anything about that,” but why do that when I can make my wife bust up laughing by putting on my B.S. face and pretending?
I mean no harm. I’m just amusing myself. I wouldn’t use this ability to actually scam anyone, because I am a moral and honest bullshitter. But a bullshitter I am. And that’s why I know one when I see one.
President Obama is one of the most talented bullshitters I have ever seen. He knows all the tricks. He reframes every issue so he can keep it focused on the stuff he wants to talk about, and avoids having to address things he knows nothing about. He tells you what you already think, and he does it so convincingly that you don’t remember you never mentioned thinking any such thing. And most impressively of all, he blatantly makes things up, and says them with such conviction, you can’t imagine they’re not true.
It reminds me of a story I read about Howard Hughes, written by one of his personal aides long after he died. The aide related a story about a rare phone interview the reclusive Hughes granted to some members of the news media. A reporter asked Hughes about the widely reported notion that he had grown his fingernails and toenails several feet long. Hughes replied with a dismissive comment about how he couldn’t very well walk or pick up simple objects if he did that. Everyone laughed. He had convinced his interviewers that what he was saying was true. But it wasn’t true at all. He had simply done a very good job of making the actual truth sound ridiculous, and the reporters bought it.
This is what Obama does all the time. He waxes on about the economy, and about the decisive action that must be taken to address it. But if you actually consider carefully the statements he makes about the economy, you’ll start to figure out that he doesn't really understand economics at all.
Obama went to the Middle East and made a series of speeches about strategic issues, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They sounded smooth, but for the careful listener, they betrayed a shocking lack of knowledge about the subjects he was addressing.
This should really surprise no one. We elected a president who has never worked in the private sector, who has never functioned as an executive at any level, and whose very brief work in the U.S. Senate consisted of no significant accomplishments. He has spent his entire life spouting left-wing inanities with great eloquence, but he has learned very little about how the real world works.
And yet he was elected president, in part, because people were convinced he was brilliant, and they were tired of the “dumb” George W. Bush, who had not only run a large state for six years, but had also run several businesses and earned a master’s degree from Harvard.
Turns out Barack Obama doesn’t really know very much about anything, a fact that is troubling enough by itself. But when you combine it with his apparent conviction that he should be put in charge of regulating all these things he knows nothing about, and then you add in his talent as a first-rate bullshitter – you end up with the most ignorant guy in the room making the decisions for the rest of us.
I call bullshit.
© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
In a devastating commentary in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Scott Gottlieb – a practicing internist, former official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and currently a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute – demonstrated convincingly on Friday that President Obama simply doesn’t know very much about the practice of medicine.
If you want the details, read Gottlieb's piece. But I reference it here because it fits a larger and very troubling pattern about the president: The more he talks, the more he reveals himself not to understand the very subjects about which he waxes on with such seeming eloquence.
There is a name for a person with a talent like this: He is an expert bullshitter. And I will be honest and tell you it’s a talent I share. Deploying this talent can be a lot of fun, and I don’t have a big problem with it if it’s used innocuously. Many a great con artist will stand there and talk with such confidence about this or that, you are absolutely convinced this guy knows exactly what he’s talking about. The truth is that he doesn’t have the slightest idea, but he’s very smooth in his use of the language and his tone of voice, so he convinces you he’s on solid ground when he really isn’t.
Many a time I have stood and talked to a person who asked my opinion on something about which I didn’t have the slightest idea. (Some people have unrealistic expectations about the knowledge base of your average columnist.) I could simply say, “I don’t really know anything about that,” but why do that when I can make my wife bust up laughing by putting on my B.S. face and pretending?
I mean no harm. I’m just amusing myself. I wouldn’t use this ability to actually scam anyone, because I am a moral and honest bullshitter. But a bullshitter I am. And that’s why I know one when I see one.
President Obama is one of the most talented bullshitters I have ever seen. He knows all the tricks. He reframes every issue so he can keep it focused on the stuff he wants to talk about, and avoids having to address things he knows nothing about. He tells you what you already think, and he does it so convincingly that you don’t remember you never mentioned thinking any such thing. And most impressively of all, he blatantly makes things up, and says them with such conviction, you can’t imagine they’re not true.
It reminds me of a story I read about Howard Hughes, written by one of his personal aides long after he died. The aide related a story about a rare phone interview the reclusive Hughes granted to some members of the news media. A reporter asked Hughes about the widely reported notion that he had grown his fingernails and toenails several feet long. Hughes replied with a dismissive comment about how he couldn’t very well walk or pick up simple objects if he did that. Everyone laughed. He had convinced his interviewers that what he was saying was true. But it wasn’t true at all. He had simply done a very good job of making the actual truth sound ridiculous, and the reporters bought it.
This is what Obama does all the time. He waxes on about the economy, and about the decisive action that must be taken to address it. But if you actually consider carefully the statements he makes about the economy, you’ll start to figure out that he doesn't really understand economics at all.
Obama went to the Middle East and made a series of speeches about strategic issues, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They sounded smooth, but for the careful listener, they betrayed a shocking lack of knowledge about the subjects he was addressing.
This should really surprise no one. We elected a president who has never worked in the private sector, who has never functioned as an executive at any level, and whose very brief work in the U.S. Senate consisted of no significant accomplishments. He has spent his entire life spouting left-wing inanities with great eloquence, but he has learned very little about how the real world works.
And yet he was elected president, in part, because people were convinced he was brilliant, and they were tired of the “dumb” George W. Bush, who had not only run a large state for six years, but had also run several businesses and earned a master’s degree from Harvard.
Turns out Barack Obama doesn’t really know very much about anything, a fact that is troubling enough by itself. But when you combine it with his apparent conviction that he should be put in charge of regulating all these things he knows nothing about, and then you add in his talent as a first-rate bullshitter – you end up with the most ignorant guy in the room making the decisions for the rest of us.
I call bullshit.
© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
