Cannibal Watch: Hey, Rube!

Rafique, I can certainly mock him (or rather more so, those who have elevated him to near-Godhood in assuming him to be what he clearly is NOT, what he has said he is NOT) while being clear that I don't think he's Satan or anything, can't I? :-) (I've known too many Spaniards...)

We have consistently pointed out here that Obama himself has repeatedly said that he is not what everyone makes him out to be, that perceptions of him are but a mirror of the expectations and aspirations of others. Good Lord, he calls himself a "blank screeen," so to argue with that is to argue with his own stated self-image.

"I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." --Barack Obama in The Audacity of Hope

It's a strange world in which I AGREE 100% WITH OBAMA and have people tell me I've got it wrong about him. Seems to confirm what Obama said above, doesn't it?

Now, some may see this as him being an empty suit, and a calculating, typical pol, but I don't see it that way.

O is already being cursed and he's not even president yet.

I knew sooner or later I would end up defending Obama, but man, not this quick :)

He's doing rather commonsense things; and like one bloggee had said, wanting his demise would be insane, as America would go down with him. I agree with Rafique; he's trying to stand out from the hard lefties who like the hard righties see the world in black and white. Which surprises me, to be honest.

Your insistence that the author is actually saying something other than what they openly say they are saying, even when they tell you you're mistaken as to what they mean, is redolent of one of the worst trends in modern academia, namely deconstructionist lit-crit.

Really? Redolent? Awesome turn of phrase. That's all real nice and insulting Tully. But I looked round, and what few things I could find describing definitions of the phrase "empty suit: match the understanding I've repeatedly described to you and asked you about. This at least suggests that I am right about how folks commonly understand the term. If this meaning is not predominant, it's at least common.

Presumably, one purpose of a blog such as this is to air your thoughts and be understood by others when you air them. You're obviously entitled to use whatever boutique definition you want when using the phrase. It's your blog.

_I_ will understand you, because you've repeatedly lectured me like a testy pedant. Others will not, and in such cases your meaning will be obscured or misinterpreted. What I am suggesting is simply that if you are actually eager to maximize understandability, then you would be well-served to use other terms, like maybe narcissist, or some other term that is commonly understood to indicate a lack of a consistent guiding moral philosophy other than self-interest and personal glorification.

If you weren't always so busy going right to "all pissed off" speed, you might have noticed that I didn't challenge your hypothesis, only wondered about the utility of your choice of words. Then you could have avoided the logical error of demanding that I provide you with some proof of a contention I hadn't even made.

When repeatedly challenged by you about my views on Obama, I've mostly stuck to pointing out that I didn't feel that he was anywhere near as progressive as his most progressive supporters believed, but that I had little choice but to wait and see what he did. We can at least agree on that point, that he ought to be measured by what he does (and to some extent by what he tires to do, I'd argue, but that's another argument).

I'm not sure how one tests the hypothesis that a given person's actions are all being undertaken for personal glorification. It's almost impossible to disprove. Which makes it a splendid talking point, I guess. I'll go ahead and say that in general the best approach would be to see whether any other axes of relative consistency also exist, over time, as actual actions are recorded. But since we're talking about a politician, and since self-interest is always part of the human equation, one does need to give the subject a little bit of benefit of the doubt from time to time. Or else consult with folks who think differently, just to be sure one's personal visceral response isn't the primary source of foam.

FWIW, I am open to consideration of whether or not there is more to Obama than narcissism. Who knows, I could grow to hate the guy. But if he keeps disappointing progressives who freighted their agenda right into Obama's heart, I might be too pleased to care.

Well said.

"as to date he's done a helluva job of "standing for" nothing but feel-good vagaries aimed at getting him advanced in his political career."

That is the truth. You said it more concisely than me. On one hand, I am glad he is not a hard ideologue (we shall see when it comes to important issues). And yet, I too, wonder what the price of this lack of passionate convictions will be in the face of political pressures and global crisis. What I don't want when its crunch time is a strong dose of pragmatic egoism coupled with the spreading out of accountability (see Gates, Clinton).