Obama’s Press Conference

by Melissa Clouthier | March 25, 2009 1:52 pm

Still fluish, and trying to sleep while I can, I’m late to the party. I watched Obama’s snore-fest press conference. Here are my impressions:

1. The Press was not as servile as in times past. No, they are no where near the sneering contempt levels that President Bush enjoyed right out of the gate, but they were marginally less earnest and tentatively more questioning.

One thing concerned me. Many press members seemed obviously nervous. Obama ran the press conference by letting reporters know before the conference who would be called upon. No one from the NYT, Washington Post, USA Today, or any of the other big news papers got a question. An Ebony writer, asking about “all the homeless children in tents and under bridges”, did get a question. Politico also got a question. And then, Obama asked Ann Compton for a question. She was clearly unprepared and did not expect to be called upon.

There was/is a method to Obama’s madness, in my opinion. He is training the press. They will be off-center, unsure. They won’t know if they’re “in” or “out”. And oh, do they want to be “in”. He plays with them like dogs and they will do what they can to stay in the good graces of the master. It’s interesting psychology and it was a masterful use of behavioral therapy. He is molding them by a subtle system of rewards and punishments.

2. Obama is incapable of a straight answer. As usual, it sounds good but is empty. John Hawkins[1] points out the worst examples of double-talk.

3. Oh yes, Obama will cut. He demonstrated his loathing for the military, again. He went after charitable giving. Pejman Yousefzadeh says this[2][H/T Instapundit]:

Finally, when it came time to address the Obama Administration’s decision to reduce the tax deduction for charities, we got this beaut of a rationale for the Obama Administration’s stance on the issue:

People are still going to be able to make charitable contributions. It just means if you give $100 and you’re in this tax bracket, at a certain point, instead of being able to write off 36 (percent) or 39 percent, you’re writing off 28 percent. Now, if it’s really a charitable contribution, I’m assuming that that shouldn’t be the determining factor as to whether you’re giving that hundred dollars to the homeless shelter down the street.

It would be delightful to think that people give to charities purely out of the goodness of their hearts. But those of us for whom the color of the sky is blue know that there are some cold, hard calculations that go into decisions concerning charitable giving and while the President may choose to be sarcastic concerning his answer on the issue-and make no mistake, the sarcasm is redolent in the President’s answer. Verily, it drips off the computer screen-the fact of the matter remains that by reducing the charitable contribution deduction, the Obama Administration is reducing the ability of charities to receive contributions. “War On Philanthropy”?

So good is evil and evil is good. Those who sacrifice and serve–soldiers and charities–will suffer in Obama’s budget. Underperforming schools, and every form of social service will get big, blank checks. The government will control every part of the economy by taking it over.

In sum, Obama without a teleprompter is a fine thing. I hope he has a press conference every week. Is it boring? Oh yeah. Is it illuminating? Only in that his deception is illuminating. He hates and has contempt for anything described as good and noble. He just doesn’t believe it exists. And my thinking is that he can’t believe it exists. In order to believe that, he’d have less justification for his own experience.

Whatever Barack Obama is, he’s an interesting psychological study.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com[3]

Endnotes:
  1. John Hawkins: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/mt331/2009/03/a_review_of_obamas_press_confe.php
  2. Pejman Yousefzadeh says this: http://newledger.com/2009/03/president-superman-and-the-kryptonite-press-conference/
  3. MelissaClouthier.com: http://melissaclouthier.com

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