Slate to Obama: Enough about you, already
posted at 5:31 pm on December 22, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
Barack Obama flew to Hawaii this week after fiscal-cliff negotiations stalled, in part for a Christmas vacation, and in part to attend the memorial service for the late Senator Daniel Inouye. Obama offered a eulogy for Inouye, which usually means offering insights into the deceased’s life and character. Instead, as is Obama’s wont, he talked more about himself than the man whose life was supposed to be the center of attention.
Even Slate noticed the problem, and blasted Obama for his narcissistic streak:
Someone needs to tell Barack Obama—it must get particularly confusing this time of year—that his own birth is not Year One, the date around which all other events are understood. His much-noted, self-referential tic was on cringe-worthy display Friday when the president gave his eulogy for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, who served in Congress for half a century representing Obama’s birth state of Hawaii.
Inouye was a Japanese-American war hero (he lost an arm in World War II, destroying his dream of becoming a surgeon), and as a senator he served on the Watergate committee, helped rewrite our intelligence charter after scandals, and was chairman of the Senate committee that investigated the Iran-Contra affair. It’s the kind of material any eulogist could use to give a moving sense of the man and his accomplishment. But President Barack Obama’s remarks at Inouye’s funeral service were a bizarre twirl around his own personal Kodak carousel.
This comes as no surprise to readers of Hot Air; it was a recurring theme in the Obamateurism series. For that matter, so is Obama’s odd concept of math:
Obama likes to see events through the lens of his own life’s chronology. Thus we learn that Inouye was elected to the Senate when Obama was 2 years old.
Er, that’s not true. Obama was born in August 1961, and Inouye won election to the Senate in November 1962, taking office in January 1963. Obama wasn’t two years old, not even when rounding the numbers; he was one year old when Inouye won his Senate election. (At least this isn’t as bad as Obama’s Selma math.)
Emily Yoffe continues:
Obama acknowledges that as a young person he was unaware of politics, and thus Inouye. But then something important happened that made young Obama pay attention to the first man to be elected to Congress from Hawaii after it joined the union. When Obama was 11 years old he went on vacation with his family, and those paying their respects to Inouye got to hear a long description of this amazing trip, from Seattle to Kansas, from Disneyland to Yellowstone. They heard of the young Obama’s happiness whenever the motel had a pool or an ice machine. And finally, as the people must have been twitching in the pews wondering where this was all going, we get back to the late senator.
It turns out the Watergate hearings were taking place at that time, too, and Obama’s mother watched them in their various hotel rooms. It surprised young Obama to see that a man of Japanese descent was a senator. Little did most people know that the most important thing to come out of the Watergate hearings was that Obama, with his mixed-race background, saw in Inouye a hint of “what might be possible in my own life.” That Obama in some way may have been inspired to a political career by a man who overcame prejudice and later became Obama’s colleague is a fine point to make. But it is an incidental one to the life being celebrated.
It’s fine to relate personal stories during eulogies, but they should have the deceased as the focal point, not the eulogist. As Yoffe notes, this is a constant theme for Obama, whose speeches contain more self-referential pronouns than any of his predecessors of recent memory. Even the President who earned the monicker “The Big Me,” Bill Clinton, looks positively humble in comparison.
We’ll include this one in the OOTY polls next week, to be sure.
Related Posts:
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2 3
“Gimme some sugar, baby.”
rdbrewer on November 21, 2012 at 8:27 PM
SparkPlug on November 21, 2012 at 6:33 PM
Good evening :-)
Scrumpy on November 21, 2012 at 8:29 PM
OK. But you leftard drones still have a low-born, ill-bred, unmannered, dirt-common piece of trash as YOUR pResident.
YOUR preezy of the steezy is an embarrassment.
Solaratov on November 21, 2012 at 8:37 PM
narcotics
always
transcend
hurtful
obama
regrets
Kenosha Kid on November 21, 2012 at 8:40 PM
“Barack, I’d luv to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair.”
Hermeticus on November 21, 2012 at 8:55 PM
Caption,
Listen punk , If your don’t back off I’m giving this sword
your just walked into a quick twist.
Texyank on November 21, 2012 at 9:11 PM
What are you hallucinating about??
That spiel relates to nothing relevant to the topic.
You may be obsessed with the current election.
Get some rest.
Mimzey on November 21, 2012 at 9:13 PM
…no caption needed for the picture…I think JugEars just had bad breathe!
KOOLAID2 on November 21, 2012 at 9:15 PM
Obamateurism of the…
Oh wait.
Left Coast Right Mind on November 21, 2012 at 9:18 PM
Dirtball.
Period.
justltl on November 21, 2012 at 10:36 PM
It started with a whisper…
PA-Cman on November 21, 2012 at 10:54 PM
This is one time he should have bowed…
vulcannomad on November 21, 2012 at 11:04 PM
Anyone else notice how much U2denver sounds like this fella:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc&noredirect=1
U2denver . . . would you say your impulse to protect the slobberer in chief is stronger, weaker or about the same as your impulse to get people to Leave Britney Alone?
SoRight on November 21, 2012 at 11:09 PM
“lickey-lickey from western dickey is ickey-ickey.”
Or,
“You pay big american dollah for this in Bangkok, but no go here, Joe.”
locomotivebreath1901 on November 21, 2012 at 11:38 PM
Reggie Love smells just like you do.
profitsbeard on November 22, 2012 at 2:53 AM
Obama does these indecent acts with women in politics because he does intend to insult them. It’s him “dissing” them.
He makes no syllabic mispronunciation of “foreign words” taking extra care to pronounce them just.exactly.right.per.the.locals but with women in foreign political positions, Obama does the body-language gestures equivalent of tossing a drink in their faces.
This lips-attacking thing here and the repeated name-mispronounciation weren’t accidental or stupid, they were Obama sticking his finger up his nose and then wiping it on them symbolically.
Remember that middle finger of his up against his nose when HIllary Clinton or George Bush or McCain would speak, not to mention when Obama mentioned any of their “ideas”?
This “take my rubbery wet lips” thing here with this “little foreign lady” is the same thing.
Lourdes on November 22, 2012 at 6:17 AM
I wrote about this a long while ago when Obama took off for Europe before and after his first election.
He TRIED the “feel my arm on your body” grab with Germany’s Merkel but she was noticably not allowing Obama to stand close enough to her for him to make that indecent grab of her.
The grab I refer to is that indecent thing Obama does when he “meets” another — puts his hand first on their shoulder, then runs that hand down their bodies, usually along their back.
It’s very indecent body language EXCEPT with people you already know and already know well. Obama uses it to communicate not affection but lack of respect for the stature of someone else — his is so important, after all, in his mind, so meeting someone else in his presence means he must display his grandiosity to them and the absence of their “space” or “personal boundaries” when he’s there.
Lourdes on November 22, 2012 at 6:22 AM
My caption:
“It’ll be quick! It’s only an infectious intrusion, don’t resist, it only takes a second.”
Lourdes on November 22, 2012 at 6:24 AM
San Suu Kyi: Look. I been under house arrest twenty five year. Playa could you give a girl five minute?
:)
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on November 22, 2012 at 6:34 AM
And your delusion that this man is somehow “perfect” and can do no wrong because he was reelected is just as funny and ironic, douche bag. He and his VP are a walking, talking gaffomatic comedy team. I might start my own site just to carry the banner of OOTD.
And really, we’re just conditioned to respond in what we’ve been taught by your side is an appropriate level of discourse after seeing 8 years of George Bush being treated like a door mat.
Get ready for four more years of obamma’s incompetence and us pointing it out.
hawkdriver on November 22, 2012 at 8:21 AM
I’m shocked that there isn’t a staff member who coaches this fraud on the etiquette needed in cultures that are not American. His embarrassing manners undo a lot of respect that has taken years to establish. Coaching a narcissist takes exceptional talent and the four years of crass behavior vindicates the mentality in charge of the Nation.
mixplix on November 22, 2012 at 8:52 AM
I’ve spent many years traveling and living in S.E. Asia. Not even wives and husbands kiss in public. In private the older generation does not “western kiss”, they do what could be best described as a “sniff kiss”. There is an additional element that there is no getting around, upper class S.E. Asians think that any dark skinned person is dirty, this applies even to their own countrymen.
You can be sure that there will many more of these situations in the coming years from The One. Remember when he told us that he was best qualified to be president because he lived in a foreign country at age ten? What fools Americans are! Obama’s formative years were spent praying to allah and with a mother who hated white traditional America. He never went to Christian Sunday school, never played knothole baseball or Pee Wee football, never was a Scout, never rode a bike in the Memorial Day parade, never watched Disney or old John Wayne movies. In short, he was never inculcated in Americanism. He was inculcated in islam with a marxist third world view. He may be a legal resident and citizen of the United States of America, but he is not nor will he ever be an American. Only fellow lapsed “americans” could have put him in office. They should feel shame for their actions but they are incapable of doing so. Under Obama, America is eating its “seed corn” and it cannot ever be replaced. When the WW2 generation and their traditional “boomer” children are gone, this will be a socialist country. Remember what Lenin said, “The goal of socialism is communism”.
SpiderMike on November 22, 2012 at 10:03 AM
That was excellent.
onomo on November 22, 2012 at 11:00 AM
Yes, SpiderMike, that was excellent.
Lourdes on November 22, 2012 at 11:05 AM
So does the media refer condescendingly to Burma’s other name as its “self-declared” name like they did to Israel’s ACTUAL capital of Jerusalem?
Nutstuyu on November 22, 2012 at 11:12 AM
I love how Obummer being re-elected makes him even more brilliant, but apparently the same effect doesn’t apply to Bush.
Nutstuyu on November 22, 2012 at 11:16 AM
Obama, what a vulgar ape !
arand on November 22, 2012 at 11:24 AM
Haven’t read the entire thread, so someone may have beaten me to this.
“When a Democrat does it; it isn’t sexual assault, it is a blessing.”
Subotai Bahadur on November 22, 2012 at 11:29 AM
Kiss ya ugly wife.
Sams88 on November 22, 2012 at 12:02 PM
The Cambodia “servant” part is way better – she showed him who is boss. The US president is an Oaf.
Schadenfreude on November 22, 2012 at 12:06 PM
Relax baby…the US Taxpayers will pay for the abortion.
Klem Kadiddlehopper on November 22, 2012 at 12:19 PM
The Ugly American.
“In the novel, a Burmese journalist says “For some reason, the [American] people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They’re loud and ostentatious.”
Mimzey on November 22, 2012 at 12:26 PM
On his trip to Cambodia, a country he claimed didn’t deserve a visit due to its strongman government, first lady Bun Rany greeted Obama with a traditional “sampeah” pressed-hands greeting reserved for servants, a little dig that was probably lost on him but not to Asians.
In the sampeah, “the higher the hands and the lower the bow, the more respect is shown.” …the ocular proof.
Akzed on November 22, 2012 at 12:53 PM
Heh. Great minds and all…
Akzed on November 22, 2012 at 12:54 PM
Don’t give me none of your lines and keep your hands to yourself.
Mojave Mark on November 22, 2012 at 6:34 PM
Don’t let bad breath spoil that special date!
claudius on November 23, 2012 at 9:26 AM
Obama: “Feel that? It’s gabardine.”
Lourdes on November 23, 2012 at 11:09 AM
Like “whole load Joe” said baby..I carry a big stick.
bluesdoc70 on November 23, 2012 at 2:00 PM
But at this very moment Brr Brr, under this $5000.00 suite, I beeez quite Inflexible …. If you know what I mean.
Hornet on November 23, 2012 at 5:54 PM
Uh, I don’t think so.
I had a date with Kobe once.
NoPain on November 23, 2012 at 6:20 PM
And the left wing kooks were apoplectic over the Bush backrub on Merkel. Look at how awkward their boy Obama is on the world stage.
TonyR on November 24, 2012 at 12:56 AM
Look! It is important to fully inflate your Chinese people.
Bulletchaser on November 24, 2012 at 2:21 PM
Confirmed: Black dudes fawn over asian chicks.
kregg on November 25, 2012 at 7:40 AM
No broken Protocol here. When questioned, his response “is” “Bill did stuff like this all the time”. So it “is” OK with me too.
MSGTAS on November 26, 2012 at 8:41 AM
Give it to me baby, a-ha, a-ha!
Give it to me baby, a-ha, a-ha!
Give it to me baby, a-ha, a-ha!
And all the girlies say I’m pretty fly (for a half-white guy).
RalphyBoy on November 27, 2012 at 1:21 AM
Obi-Wrong Baracki can kiss my…
Olo_Burrows on November 30, 2012 at 4:55 AM
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2 3