He bit! Obama took the bait!


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He bit! Obama took the bait!
 
When Sarah Palin came out with her call to impeach Obama, I did a face-palm.
 

 
Good Lord!
 
I love Sarah, but really?

 

Right before an election?
 
The timing is all wrong.

 

All Obama has to do is keep quiet and both his left-wing supporters and those on the right who are afraid of losing power will eat this appeal to impeach alive. This gives ammunition to Democrats seeking to win Senate elections, fer Kerrrisssakes!

 

Here's an example. I saw this pop up earlier today on the Wall Street Journal:
 
The Impeachment Delusion: You know it's a bad idea when Sarah Palin and MSNBC agree.
 
Krauthammer, who I often like, thinks the impeachment idea is boneheaded.

 

And on and on.
 
But then this just happened (from Politico):
 
Barack Obama on impeachment: 'Really?'
 
He bit!
 

Holy shit! He bit!

 

By responding personally and taunting his critics, Obama has shown vulnerability to the unconscious mind of normal people. He screwed up.

 

So long as he did not mention impeachment, being sued, etc., and let his people take care of it, this was an affair of the fringe in the mainstream mind. Politics as usual. People who don't like Obama want to get rid of him. What else is new?

 

Now that he has spoken about it, though, he bestowed upon it mainstream legitimacy.
 
The following post of mine from 2009 better explains my thinking here.
 

A Brazilian author, Nuno Cobra, once wrote something I really resonate with in cases like this. In his book, A Semente da Vitória (The Seed of Victory), he was talking about a semi-uneducated country-dude kind of mentor named Pedro who had a different take on life than what you normally get in Brazil. He attributes Pedro with getting him started on facing life's big issues and the major challenges of the world. (Cobra is top in his field. He is the trainer of several Brazilian sports champions, the most famous being Ayrton Senna, three-time Formula One world champion.)

He quoted Pedro as saying: "Não se deve lutar com quem não se gosta, para não se igualar a quem você repudia."

Roughly translated, this means that you should not fight against someone you dislike so you don't get on equal terms with a person you repudiate.

 
I suppose I could have translated "dislike" for "disdain" to get a more accurate translation of the feeling, but I think the message is clear.

 

Obama is the one who formally holds power, not those who are calling for his impeachment. He has now lowered his standing to their level by indirectly admitting they have enough power to strike him down.

 

The mainstream person is going to think if this were not an important issue, why would Obama be talking about it? 

 

Suddenly, in this light, the widespread outcry about him going to Texas to fundraise, but refusing to visit the border, takes on new meaning. I think, image-wise and on an emotional level, not reason-wise, people are starting to think of Obama as a jerk.

 

I doubt the people who hate him have the stomach to do what is necessary on a story level to finish him off--start floating the image that he has become corrupted by power. They won't do that because they would thus imply that he was not corrupted at one time. And they want him to be the devil incarnate.

 

But I think Obama taking the bait like he just did, allied to his recent displays of arrogance and nonchalance in the face of recent scandals and grave issues like the children on the border, he is putting that image in the popular mind all by himself.

 

Time will tell where this will go, but I predict it will not lead to a good place for Obama.

 

Michael

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Interesting.

Make sense.

I train my people to refuse to respond to banal cheap shots, whether they are verbal, oral or in media.

A...

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Here is the sections...

"You hear some of 'em, 'sue him, impeach him,'" Obama said, then added a sarcastic, "Really?"

"For what? You're going to sue me for doing my job? OK. I mean, think about that, you're going to use taxpayer money to sue me for doing my job, while you don't do your job?"

The crowd applauded.

"Sometimes I feel like saying to these guys, 'I’m the guy doing my job. You must be the other guy,'" he said.

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Now Pelosi is talking about this.

 

She's saying she didn't push to impeach Bush for the weapons of mass destruction stuff because of her tremendous love for the country.

 

Heh.

 

She didn't do it because she didn't think she could win. 

 

(And, I, for one, would not have opposed it. My anger over the Patriot Act is still as intense as it was when I heard about it down in Brazil.)

 

 

There are too many heavy hitters on Obama's side suddenly talking about impeachment, starting with him.

 

That tells me there is some heavy hitting stuff going on backstage.

 

Michael

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Wow.... at this rate, there's no way he'll win in 2016.

So clever.

Do you ever think about what is best for the individual citizen of this country?

Plus, as you indicted about your disability, your sense of humor sucks...now here we are in agreement.

A...

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Naomi...Errmmm...as a Canadian even I know a president can only be elected 2x.

JT, I think she knows that and I think she was attempted to be humorous.

Although you could be correct.

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JT, I think she knows that and I think she was attempted to be humorous.

Adam,

I favor the adjective "snooty" myself.

It's the disease of those who like to tell others how to live while ignoring how they themselves live.

When you look down your nose all the time, you have to raise your head back to see others, thus you can't see your own feet.

:smile:

Michael

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Naomi...Errmmm...as a Canadian even I know a president can only be elected 2x.

Back on topic.

Michael this may be the biggest f up of Obama's career.

Priceless!!!

I hope this is the beginning of his end, the sooner the better.

He ends in 1.5 years no matter what. He is out of office then.

I seriously doubt whether he will ever be appointed to a federal court as a judge.

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MSK When Sarah Palin came out with her call to impeach Obama, I did a face-palm.

I had to look up face palm. I got many graphic hits. Apparently, it is a cultural reference on this planet.

double-facepalm1.jpg

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Wow.... at this rate, there's no way he'll win in 2016.

Great! +1. Truly insightful. Thanks for being here. I always had half a hint of understanding that something was under the surface with you. Now I am sure that I saw the fin cutting water. Brilliant. Hahahahaha. Cuts to the core of the real problem here. You made my day. Thanks!

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Wow.... at this rate, there's no way he'll win in 2016.

Does this mean anything--anything at all?

Just a smidgin of something?

He'll be gone forever in less than two years, and then it will be as if he never even existed.

I just don't understand this obsession with every little thing that the President does. It's not as if which hand he holds it with when he takes a piss is gonna be at all relevant in the long-run of things.

(I'm reminded of my liberal friends' obsession with Bush. If he so much as chewed his food a bit too loudly, you'd bet I would be hearing all about it and how its destroying our freedoms).

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I train my people to refuse to respond to banal cheap shots, whether they are verbal, oral or in media.

Like, do you give them treats and go "chuck-chuck"? I saw Andy McDowell do that in Accidental Tourist. You give them the treat, and go "chuck-chuck" and they associate the sound with the reward, so from then on, you can just make the sound without giving them the treat. Myself, "trainer" is a job title on my resume, but I never claim to actually train people. I provide training. The people train themselves if they want. Sometimes they do not want to. Often it is from lack of interest, but one time I had a guy with a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, so I just gave him the books and let him work in his own. Most of the other people, it is an interaction, where I say something and they tell me whether they understood me or not and if not, then I try again. Basically, my client learners train me to to be a presenter.

But then, most likely, we work with different kinds of people.

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Wow.... at this rate, there's no way he'll win in 2016.

So clever.

Do you ever think about what is best for the individual citizen of this country?

Plus, as you indicted about your disability, your sense of humor sucks...now here we are in agreement.

A...

Of course, being an individual citizen of this country, I'm always thinking about what is best for me.

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I just don't understand this obsession with every little thing that the President does.

You don't understand something, that's for sure. I actually expect that kind of superficiality from you. (It's like MM who thinks this is about supporting or bashing Sarah Palin, who he can't stand on a visceral archetypical level, and that's all he thinks about it.)

I'm seeing this from the standpoint of COBS. For a man who deployed that capability and did it well, Obama is falling into some elementary errors. I find it fascinating how vanity and being goaded pushes a human being to commit such basic mistakes, so much so he might just get impeached instead of engineering consent.

But like I said, I don't expect you to understand this perspective or fascination. You still think according to the political-cultural dichotomy game they serve up in the mainstream media while pretending to yourself (and to others) you are so very above it.

I have faith in you, though. One day you might begin to see this stuff--and that where you are at right now is posture, not substance. What's worse, it's posture that has been programmed into you, not posture you freely chose with that beautiful mind of yours.

I want to say unshackle thine eyes and your mind will do the rest, but the worst kind of blind person is the one who wants to see without opening them. It takes time...

Michael

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I just don't understand this obsession with every little thing that the President does.

You don't understand something, that's for sure. I actually expect that kind of superficiality from you. (It's like MM who thinks this is about supporting or bashing Sarah Palin, who he can't stand on a visceral archetypical level, and that's all he thinks about it.)

I'm seeing this from the standpoint of COBS. For a man who deployed that capability and did it well, Obama is falling into some elementary errors. I find it fascinating how vanity and being goaded pushes a human being to commit such basic mistakes, so much so he might just get impeached instead of engineering consent.

But like I said, I don't expect you to understand this perspective or fascination. You still think according to the political-cultural dichotomy game they serve up in the mainstream media while pretending to yourself (and to others) you are so very above it.

I have faith in you, though. One day you might begin to see this stuff--and that where you are at right now is posture, not substance. What's worse, it's posture that has been programmed into you, not posture you freely chose with that beautiful mind of yours.

I want to say unshackle thine eyes and your mind will do the rest, but the worst kind of blind person is the one who wants to see without opening them. It takes time...

Michael

In your OP, you said the error he made was showing vulnerability by acknowledging his critics and their calls for impeachment. But really, I think it's the opposite. To quote him, "I don’t have to run for office anymore, so I can just let it rip." If you look at the facts, there never was, and there likely never will be, any serious impeachment case brought up against Obama. That there is, is just wishful thinking. Really what he's doing is saying:

come-at-me-bro.jpg

precisely because he knows that no one can touch him.

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I train my people to refuse to respond to banal cheap shots, whether they are verbal, oral or in media.

Myself, "trainer" is a job title on my resume, but I never claim to actually train people. I provide training.

Basically, my client learners train me to to be a presenter.

Trainer is not on mine.

In terms of the word "to train," let's look at some definitions, shall we? Yes we shall.

to prepare someone or yourself for a job , activity , or sport , by learning skills and/or by mental or physical exercise.

This is the connotation that I had in mine.

You apparently had a more Pavlovian meaning which I would call conditioning,

A...

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Of course, being an individual citizen of this country, I'm always thinking about what is best for me.

Stay out of my foxhole.

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come-at-me-bro.jpg

precisely because he knows that no one can touch him.

Hmm...is that a half racist slur you just used because he is a mulatto[ is a term used to refer to a person who is born from one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of any proportion of noticeable European and African ancestry. In the broadest sense, it is applied to persons of Black and White ancestry.[1]]?

A...

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