“I know more” - Obama’s self-centered immaturity

Thomas Sowell calls attention to it in his column today, after which I provide via Huffinton Post a striking example of what Sowell’s talking about.

Sowell begins - - -

After the big gamble on subprime mortgages that led to the current financial crisis, is there going to be an even bigger gamble, by putting the fate of a nation in the hands of a man whose only qualifications are ego and mouth?

Barack Obama has the kind of cocksure confidence that can only be achieved by not achieving anything else.

Anyone who has actually had to take responsibility for consequences by running any kind of enterprise-- whether economic or academic, or even just managing a sports team-- is likely at some point to be chastened by either the setbacks brought on by his own mistakes or by seeing his successes followed by negative consequences that he never anticipated.

The kind of self-righteous self-confidence that has become Obama's trademark is usually found in sophomores in Ivy League colleges-- very bright and articulate students, utterly untempered by experience in real world.

The signs of Barack Obama's self-centered immaturity are painfully obvious, though ignored by true believers who have poured their hopes into him, and by the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that Obama represents.

The triumphal tour of world capitals and photo-op meetings with world leaders by someone who, after all, was still merely a candidate, is just one sign of this self-centered immaturity.

"This is our time!" he proclaimed. And "I will change the world." But ultimately this election is not about him, but about the fate of this nation, at a time of both domestic and international peril, with a major financial crisis still unresolved and a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon. …

The rest of Sowell’s column’s here.

Back on April 7 at Huffington Post Mayhill Fowler posted (with audio link) - Obama: No Surprise That Hard-Pressed Pennsylvanians Turn Bitter - reporting Sen. Obama’s now famous bitter small town people clinging to their guns and religion remarks made April 6 at a San Francisco fundraiser. (I believe Fowler broke the story)

Also at Huffington on April 7 Fowler put up a second post - Obama: No Need For Foreign Policy Help From V.P. (with audio) – quoting other, more detailed remarks Obama made at the same fundraiser which illustrate exactly the self-centered immaturity Sowell talks about today.

From Fowler’s post - - -

Last night at a fundraiser in San Francisco, Barack Obama took a question on what he's looking for in a running mate. "I would like somebody who knows about a bunch of stuff that I'm not as expert on," he said, and then he was off and running.

"I think a lot of people assume that might be some sort of military thing to make me look more Commander-in-Chief-like. Ironically, this is an area--foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain."

"It's ironic because this is supposedly the place where experience is most needed to be Commander-in-Chief. Experience in Washington is not knowledge of the world. This I know.”

“ When Senator Clinton brags 'I've met leaders from eighty countries'--I know what those trips are like! I've been on them. You go from the airport to the embassy. There's a group of children who do native dance. You meet with the CIA station chief and the embassy and they give you a briefing. You go take a tour of a plant that [with] the assistance of USAID has started something. And then--you go."

"You do that in eighty countries--you don't know those eighty countries. So when I speak about having lived in Indonesia for four years, having family that is impoverished in small villages in Africa--knowing the leaders is not important--what I know is the people. . . ."

"I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college--I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. . . ."

"Nobody is entirely prepared for being Commander-in-Chief. The question is when the 3 AM phone call comes do you have somebody who has the judgment, the temperament to ask the right questions, to weigh the costs and benefits of military action, who insists on good intelligence, who is not going to be swayed by the short-term politics.”

“By most criteria, I've passed those tests and my two opponents have not."

Fowler’s entire post’s here.

Comments:

Sen. Obama’s true believers and media flacks suggest he’s another JFK.

Can you imagine Sen. Kennedy in 1960 speaking as naively and arrogantly as Obama did at that fund-raiser?

"I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college--I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. . . ."

That’s a line you’d expect a presidential candidate to deliver at a roast when he’s lampooning himself.

But Obama saw nothing laughable in his reference to his brief trip to Pakistan during his college days. He meant to impress his listeners with his knowledgeable and experience.

They say he’ll be surrounded by experienced foreign policy advisors.

But how do you give advice to a president who’s both arrogant and inexperienced?

Hat tip: RealClearPolitics.com