Obama's Torture

Picture from Spiegel Online International

Note that quilted face working overtime to control the right placement of the chin and the lips. Here we see what Obama looks like tortured - by conditions of his own creation.

We have a man who has always been an outsider. He hates the United States and the grounds on which it was founded. "Every man an end in himself? Are you kidding? A Code of Individual Rights? Hate it! I think we should take what you've earned, Joe, and give it to your neighbor down the street who deserves a chance. It's only fair."

Rather, he nurtured from early in his life the story that he is a victim and he created in speech after speech how everyone in this country except white people are victims. Not only that, America is a hideous country that exploits the entire globe. All the third world countries are worse off because of the US. Reverend Wright was great support for twenty years for this position. "The solution is to take your money away and give it to the 3rd world countries." (This, of course, is straight-up Marxism, hand-maiden to poverty wherever it is believed and tried.)

Most people, including people who would not consider themselves victims even though he includes them in his race/ethnic categories, don't really buy his story. Apparently they do buy that they should be concerned about other people and take some kind of direct action through the government in order to right circumstances gone wrong. And yes, he is a good speaker, an orator in fact, seems intelligent, reasonable and is good looking.

There's only one problem. He got elected and he's no longer the outsider. He's in charge and he has a country to lead, a country which historically and by virtue of its constitution, he doesn't like. He only feels comfortable with his buddies who also don't like the country.

Having to speak to cadets who have chosen in the most overt and obvious action possible to serve a country they love, is too much a clash for him to overcome. Thus the picture of the tortured Obama.

This picture symbolizes Obama's conflict. He knows that the United States cannot survive with a leader as he is. And he knows that he will have to sacrifice these men to keep up the pretense. Even though the cadets were told to welcome him enthusiastically, they couldn't. They were cool.

They are not anxious to be thrown onto the pyre of perfidy.

He never used the word victory in his speech about fighting a war. Is this not a better indicator that he does not love this country? Is he willing to send America's sons and daughters to be killed - for nothing?

What we see is the same thing we have seen from the beginning of this man's presidency. He is small-minded and partisan, born of willful outsider-ness, and as a consequence is completely blocked from rising to the larger context required to be a leader. The root element missing from Obama is an integrated view of existence - a philosophy that corresponds to the way the world works that he can rely on to answer the questions "Where am I?" "How do I know?" and "What should I do?" Although he sounds intelligent, he actually isn't able to be. Wrong teachers, wrong influences, wrong philosophy. It doesn't work and he is their product. And since he is the gatekeeper for his life, as we all are for our lives, he is responsible.

Obama has never been able to overtly define himself. He has always known he couldn't because if he did so, he would be marginalized. Regardless of how innately bright the man is, he is driven to small-mindedness (better known as unintelligence) as part of the constant distraction that must be maintained to keep us from knowing who he is. (I actually question that he knows who he is. I think he's so used to being a nobody grounded in victimhood reaction, that he has never defined himself except superficially - a look, a face, a talent for talking and saying nothing.

I can say this: This man has no talent for political leadership. He is not a person who can provide guidance for people that leaves them calm and knowing how to get along. He could not draw a line to delineate one thing from another if his life depended on it. Why in the hell do you think he voted "present" 132 times in the Illinois Senate? If his "talents" don't move the nation, his time will be up. I think he is already starting to feel the effects of such a reality.)

Back when he was a Senator, thinking ahead to the presidency, he was on the Hate Bush bandwagon as were most of the Democrats. Because everything Bush was bad including his war in Iraq, Obama declared Afghanistan the good war. (He couldn't have won the election had he declared himself against both wars so he chose to play politics.) His small-mindedness landed him in front of the cadets at West Point.

I will say the fact that he is tortured by all of this is to his credit. For those of us wondering if he has a conscience, whether there is any there there, this is the first sign that there may be some stunted root of one in there someplace. But I have to say, he has me on the edge of my seat. Will this man melt down? Do we have a resignation in our future? Obama's look in this picture did bring Nixon to mind. Hmmm.