Quote of the Day: “Obama the Vain”
By Bronwyn's Harbor on October 6, 2009 at 11:15 AM in Current Affairs
From “An Olympic Ego Trip,” George Will’s column today on the Obamas’ Copenhagen speeches:
Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about . . . themselves. Although the working of the committee’s mind is murky, it could reasonably have rejected Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Games on aesthetic grounds — unless narcissism has suddenly become an Olympic sport.
In the 41 sentences of her remarks, Michelle Obama used some form of the personal pronouns “I” or “me” 44 times. Her husband was, comparatively, a shrinking violet, using those pronouns only 26 times in 48 sentences. Still, 70 times in 89 sentences conveyed the message that somehow their fascinating selves were what made, or should have made, Chicago’s case compelling.
That’s not all that Will has to say:
Here’s more of Wills’ critique — and it’s both devastating and hysterically funny:
[M]eaningful sense is often absent from the gaseous rhetoric that makes it past White House editors — are there any? — and onto the president’s teleprompter. Consider one recent example:
Nine days before speaking in Copenhagen, the president, addressing the United Nations General Assembly, intoned: “No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.” What was the speechwriter thinking when he or she assembled that sentence? The “should” was empty moralizing; the “can” was nonsense redundantly refuted by history. Does our Cicero even glance at his speeches before reading them in public?
Becoming solemn in Copenhagen, Obama said: “No one expects the Games to solve all our collective problems.” That’s right, no one does. So why say that? Then, shifting into the foggy sentimentalism of standard Olympics blather, he said “peaceful competition between nations represents what’s best about our humanity” and “it brings us together” and “it helps us to understand one another.”
Actually, sometimes the Olympic Games are a net subtraction from international comity. But Obama quickly returned to speaking about . . . himself:
“Nearly one year ago, on a clear November night, people from every corner of the world gathered in the city of Chicago or in front of their televisions to watch the results of the U.S. presidential election. Their interest wasn’t about me as an individual. Rather . . .”
It was gallant of the president to say to the Olympic committee that Michelle is “a pretty big selling point for the city.” Gallant, but obviously untrue. And — this is where we pass from the merely silly to the ominous — suppose the president was being not gallant but sincere. Perhaps the premise of the otherwise inexplicable trip to Denmark was that there is no difficulty, foreign or domestic, that cannot be melted by the sunshine of the Obama persona. But in the contest between the world and any president’s charm, bet on the world.
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