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Dan
Calabrese
Read Dan's bio and previous columns here
August 17, 2009
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.
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