Michelle: Barack is “Sweet and Pathetic”
By SusanUnPC on June 19, 2008 at 6:35 PM in Barack Obama, Commander in Chief, Michelle Obama, Qualifications
Well, the Obama campaign is working hard to make her over — to make up for her primary remarks that he is “stinky” in the mornings and can’t make a bed as well as her 10-year-old, let alone put the butter and bread away. But the campaign has its work cut out for it, and Michelle clearly has a long way to go to become more like her new role model, Laura Bush.
Yes, Michelle really said she discouraged Barack Obama from entering politics because he is “sweet and pathetic.” I listened through four YouTube segments of Michelle Obama’s appearance yesterday on ABC’s The View to be certain. Here is that segment, in part 4:
Lynn Sweet, in her column at the Chicago Sun-Times, reports that, after Sweet wrote up Michelle’s remarks, “Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor called to say Michelle Obama said ‘empathetic’, not pathetic.” How ridiculous! Watch the above video, and it’s 100% clear that she said her husband, the presumptive presidential nominee, is “pathetic.”
WHY, oh why, do Obama and his campaign constantly try to “unring” the bell? Every time they do this, they just dig the hole deeper, and make the issue bigger than it really is.
It’s like Obama running away from his true history, as a child and young man, living in a Muslim household in a predominantly Muslim country, Indonesia, and traveling to Africa where most of his relatives are Muslims. That he grew up, partly, surrounded by practitioners of the Muslim faith, is not in itself a negative. But his adamant denials, and insistence he is a true Christian, just make him look, well, not only ridiculous but a liar. The saddest part of this obfuscation and denial is that he shouldn’t hide his life story, but instead turn it into a positive, that he was exposed to another faith and culture. (See my story, “Brit Hume Raises the Question of Barack Obama’s Muslim Background” and Pagan Power’s story here, “Obama Throws Muslims Under the Bus Too.”)
Here’s what veteran reporter Lynn Sweet originally reported about Michelle’s unfortunate remarks yesterday on The View. Sweet’s account is obviously accurate:
Barbara Walters asks Michelle Obama about how she reacted when husband Barack told her he was running for president. “Did you want him to be president,” Walters asked.
No, said Obama. “”Please, don’t do this. You know, I did not want Barack to go into politics because I thought politics was a mean business. And you know, I knew this man that I loved, he was sweet and pathetic, I thought. there was no way…….”"
At that Walters the other hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd seemed to instantly realize what Obama did not–that you do not call a potential president of the United State pathetic, even if you love him–and they started kind of shouting at her, to sort of stop her before she does more damage and gives another quote that will be used against her…
Someone suggested that Obama really intended to say “empathetic.”
Goldberg spelled out E M P A T H…
Michelle has a clear pattern of putting her husband down in public. (One can only imagine what she talks to him like when they’re alone.)
Some people feel a sense of power — and hide their own insecurities — by putting other people down often. These types of people seize control of their relationships, especially if the person on the receiving end is vulnerable to such put-downs. Michelle clearly seems to be one of those people who gains personal power and a sense of superiority by being the controlling person in the relationship.
This also explains why Barack — very frequently in his public speeches — mentions that he knows he is an imperfect person because his wife often reminds him that he is less than perfect. His repeated references to her put-downs mark him as a person who is vulnerable to control by domineering people.
That is a worrisome trait for someone who seeks to be a very powerful leader. It is not a reassuring sign that he truly can grasp and command the leadership role as President of the United States.
Aside from his gifts for oratory, I have yet to see other traits in him that show him to be leadership material.
I do not see him as a “buck stops here” kind of leader.
That portends for some very serious problems should he become Commander in Chief.
If he is speaking directly with domineering, power-hungry heads of state, he will have a difficult time commanding any control over the dialogue.
If he is seeking the advice of our nation’s military leaders — especially given his utter lack of experience in military matters — how will he be able to stand up to commanders in the military who, despite their training to defer to the Commander in Chief, also be ill at ease because they will see, at once, that 1) he is too unsure of himself, and 2) his required learning curve is too high. Besides his tendencies to defer to dominant people, he will not have the knowledge to challenge their arguments in tense international situations.
The list of scenarios is endless in which his inability to be the clear leader — with the in-depth knowledge to discern which arguments and courses of action are best, and the inner strength to be bold and decisive — could put this nation not merely in peril but also on some rocky, even embarrassing paths internationally and domestically.
It is a grave concern.
I’ve often said that Obama strikes me as having the personality of someone who’d fit well in an academic or public service environment — but never as the take-charge, buck-stops-here leader.
It is not in itself a fault that he does not have the characteristics of a real leader.
He is who he is, but his ambitions have gotten the better of him, and he’s pulling a Peter Principle on himself and the American people.
We can all — in our imaginations — fantasize, and envision ourselves as great, decisive leaders. But those among us who know ourselves also see and understand our own limitations, and we know, realistically, which among us has what it takes to be a real leader.
But he has no business running to be president of the United States.
by Ronald Scott
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