CCRC Editorial Section

Obama talking, but is he listening?

Published in the Keene Sentinel Feb. 20, 2010 

In my previous letter, I suggested that the public statements of our president showed two very interesting characteristics; a disconnect from reality, and a strong bias toward saying what he believes his audience wants to hear. These two characteristics are the hallmarks of “pathological lies”.  Pathological liars don't think of the truth in their replies to questions, they think only of what they perceive their audience wants to hear, and they express it in artfully chosen words.  I failed to mention that such liars are also very good at discerning the expected response of their audience.  Obama's campaign speeches certainly were a testament to his shrewd judgment of what the electorate wanted to hear.  That they bore no relationship whatsoever to his plans to govern does not take away from this shrewd facility. 

I hardly had time to ponder the pathology of the president's reaction to Scott Brown's victory,  wondering how his imagination would spin it, when the answer popped right out in an interview with George S on ABC.  The president was asked for his understanding of the reasons for Brown's victory.  His reply was artful in the extreme.  He stated that the fundamental reasons for Brown's victory were the very same as the fundamental reasons he won the presidency one year earlier! 

Give that man a bright blue ribbon!  “Artful” hardly describes it.  No ordinary mortal could have come up with such a reaction.  I only wonder how many other thoughts preceded that whopper.  It's been said that our president is smart, articulate, smooth, etc.  This statement on ABC encapsulates all those characteristics in one shot.  But as with any pathological lie, it leaves unanswered the question as to whether he has learned any lesson from the Massachusetts election.  Only time will tell.       

I am presently wondering what new tales our president will spin while he and his cronies figure out how to deceive the American people into believing he actually learned any lesson from the Brown fiasco.  Some adorers think he will do the Clinton pivot!  I'm more skeptical.  The true believers in his inner circle will convince him that he needs to work over the voters with more platitudes, even more artfully expressed.  If so, we can count on somewhat less obvious and  blatant disregard for the voters, with more imaginative, and more imaginatively expressed, proposals. 

He still believes he needs to TALK AT us more, not LISTEN TO us. 

Of course it's always possible that he may actually turn on his hearing aid.

I was happy to see the other letters in the Sentinel (23 Jan) on the president and his pet project.  I agree completely with John Mann that any new initiative has to start somewhere, but did it have to start as almost 3000 pages of HEALTH CONTROL?  And I agree with Jerry Sickles that the Sentinel ought to respond to Obama's blatant mendacity, namely, his C-span pledge on the Sentinel's own premises.  And while I agree with the sentiments in John Blair's letter, I remain more optimistic than he, that our letters may be the necessary wake-up call for both Concord and Washington. 

Fred Ward
386 Route 123 South
Stoddard 03464

446-2312

drfred@hughes.net