Senator Obama, Ambition and the Narcissistic Vampire Checklist

Senator Obama’s blind ambition leads him to associate with anyone and everyone that will give him a leg up. This man will do and say anything with and for anyone if it gets him where he wants to go. Well, he is a politician after all, but Senator Obama takes this methodology to a whole new level. Past is prologue.

Months ago, for the sake of my own sanity, I tried to view him with compassion and find some justification for his behavior. Perhaps his deep abandonment issues regarding both parents, coupled with having to choose between a black or white identity indicate that he has never really felt he belonged anywhere. And perhaps that is what makes him determined to fit in everywhere.

Didn’t he himself say that he is a blank slate onto whom others project their hopes or dreams? Quite the survival skill, eh?

He appears to be a man without a center, the ultimate people pleaser – charismatic, flirtatious, telling everyone what they want to hear. I have not witnessed him get upset about anything or any principle, nor has he ever been attached to any policy enough to expend any political capital on it. Unless, of course, he is being attacked, then it’s full steam ahead.

To protect his own name he will employ any and all means necessary – fair or foul. That is why his campaign has seen fit to play the race card constantly, and if that vile strategy works to deter all comers, so much the better. If it does harm to the electorate by stirring up divisiveness, racial tension or harms innocent people in the process, no matter. The ends justify the means.

For the life of me I cannot smell an underlying allegiance to any particular philosophy. How else could he meet with Israelis one day and Palestinians the next and tell each group exactly the opposite of the other – and get away with it. I still cannot figure out if he is the most radical lefty liberal or a closet Republican.

Some are under the impression he is not very smart. I disagree. I think it takes a great deal of energy and at least some intellect to so obfuscate every issue and every phrase so that we are all left scratching our heads at the end of the paragraph.

I have come to the conclusion that his halting, meandering verbal style (sans teleprompter) is a slick trick: his statements don’t come out not making sense because he is stupid. They come out not making sense because he wants it that way – so you can never define him on any issue. No, I never said that, what I really meant was…

That is why it never sounds like he is telling the truth. If you are making a true statement you don’t require fifty ers ahs ums aahs aaaaaaaaannnnd ands. What we are seeing is a man constantly trying to evade capture. If he just runs fast enough, you will never be able to pin him down.

That reeks of fear to me. As if he made one wrong decision, he would be irrevocably harmed. As Candy Crowley of CNN just reported, he will go nowhere without his teleprompter – not one mistake, Senator, not one organic or spontaneous phrase. Heaven forefend we see the real you.

Aside from his tactics, his disingenuousness, or his lack of a coherent, believable political philosophy or plan, there is an even more worrisome aspect to his persona that I find the greatest reason to not vote for him. The most dangerous thing about Senator Obama may not be that he believes in the crooked, divisive, radical people with whom he has allied himself in the past – but rather that he is just using them all just as he is using us.

But whether you believe he is driven by arrogance and ambition or a very specific endgame that yet remains hidden, I am not sure which is the more dangerous: to have a President of no philosophy or a President with a radical one? We require leadership, not someone who can be blown about with the prevailing winds. And if indeed he does have a more radical agenda, how would we ever determine it?

If he sat in Reverend Wright’s church for 20 years and never believed one horrid word that came out of Wright’s mouth, what was he doing there? You either believe the divisive rhetoric or you are just there for 20 years for political ‘street cred.’ There is no positive way he can spin himself out of that one.

Actually, he does have one overriding philosophy – and it is a through thread that holds true at all times – idol worship. He is very clear on the way he expects us to treat him. But how he is going to treat us – that’s where the waters get muddy.

Senator Obama ran to the left of Hillary to endear himself to the MoveOn.Org crowd, and once he had their votes in the primary, threw them under the bus along with his prior stances on FISA, NAFTA and public financing. He dumped them all without as much as a backward glance and then said blithely ‘I understand if it’s a deal breaker, but where else are you gonna go?’

Amidst this horrid financial crisis, Senator McCain made a bold move by offering up a mortgage restructuring plan, modeled after Hillary’s, which he gave her credit for. First Obama tried to pretend it was his. When that didn’t work, he trashed it, saying the plan will not work. Did he offer a plan of his own? No. He seems to have no concern for the good of the American people, just what gets him his own way.

In Pennsylvania, he just indicated that reforming health care and education are now in jeopardy because of the economic crisis and rescue bill. Just what he was waiting for – ‘gee, guys, I can’t do any of the other stuff I’ve been promising you either.’

When a man has no allegiance to the truth and or even to the ardent supporters who put him on the map, how can we trust that he will ever do anything he promises? The DNC doesn’t appear to have any need to hold his feet to the fire either but instead line up to be kicked in the pants and keep stumping for him.

Just ask Rep. John Lewis, who most unjustifiably played the race card on Senator Obama’s behalf even though he had previously been threatened with primary challenges by the Obama campaign, and was pressured into changing his support from Senator Clinton. Just ask General Wesley Clark who was unceremoniously thrown under the bus after taking on John McCain’s qualifications on Face the Nation. Yet Clark, too, is still out there, good soldier that he is, campaigning for this callous man.

The press treats Obama to a double standard unlike any I have ever seen. He flip flops on core Democratic principles with no consequences even from his own party in this ‘no-lose’ year for Democrats. What are they so afraid of, I wonder, that they indulge him like an angry child throwing a tantrum? Complete adulation is all he will accept. Anything else is tantamount to treason.

But live by the sword, die by the sword. If you pretend you stand for everything, ultimately you stand for nothing. His reluctance to stand for a tough vote and make a decision, his arrogance, coupled with the elusiveness that has propelled him so far in his career are precisely the things that will derail him in the end, either in November or down the road. It is impossible to look at a man for some 21 months and still have no idea who he is, unless he doesn’t want you to know.

That is not leadership I can believe in. I need to believe in more than the glory of a name. I need to believe in the person who is under it.

I ran across an interesting and entertaining item prepared by Albert J. Bernstein, Ph.D. called the Narcissistic Vampire Checklist and in closing, I thought I’d share it with you:

The smartest, most talented, all-around best person in the world test:

1. This person has achieved more than most people his or her age.

2. This person is firmly convinced that he or she is better, smarter, or more talented than other people.

3. This person loves competition, but is a poor loser.

4. This person has fantasies of doing something great or being famous, and often expects to be treated as if these fantasies had already come true.

5. This person has very little interest in what other people are thinking or feeling, unless he or she wants something from them.

6. This person is a name dropper.

7. To this person it is very important to live in the right place and associate with the right people.

8. This person takes advantage of other people to achieve his or her own goals.

9. This person usually manages to be in a category by him or herself.

10. This person often feels put upon when asked to take care of his or her responsibilities to family, friends, or work group.

11. This person regularly disregards rules or expects them to be changed because he or she is in some way special.

12. This person becomes irritated when other people don’t automatically do what he or she wants them to do, even when they have a good reason for not complying.

13. This person reviews sports, art, and literature by telling you what he or she would have done instead.

14. This person thinks most criticisms of him or her are motivated by jealousy.

15. This person regards anything short of worship to be rejection.

16. This person suffers from a congenital inability to recognize his or her own mistakes. On the rare occasions that this person does recognize a mistake, even the slightest error can precipitate a major depression.

17. This person often explains why people who are better known than he or she is not really all that great.

18. This person often complains of being mistreated or misunderstood.

19. People either love or hate this person.

20. Despite this person’s overly high opinion of him or herself, he or she is really quite intelligent and talented.

SCORING: Five or more true answers qualifies the person as a narcissistic emotional vampire, though not necessarily for a diagnosis of narcissistic personality. If the person scores higher than ten, and is not a member of the royal family, be careful that you aren’t mistaken for one of the servants.

Please tell me if this reminds you of anyone?