Here is an example.
At second of two community meetings last night.
Me: As you can tell from my comments tonight, I really appreciated what you said last night.
Bob: Thanks. The audience response was relieving. Sometimes you wonder "what's the use?" Too bad so few others got to speak on point.
Me: Yes. Come to think of it, could you hear what Adam [in the audience facing the moderator and far to my right] said last night? He spoke at length on possible solutions. But without a mic it was hard to hear and I thought I heard him hit on some great points. Too bad he's not here tonight.I could not help how quickly Bob connected a local man's gum-chewing to Obama's widely noticed display of it at Normandy suggested his disinterest or even contempt (as Head of State) for the event being commemorated.
Bob: Yeah, I like Adam. He's a good man. But I was too far behind and I couldn't hear his comments at all.
Me: Too bad he wasn't as easy to hear as you are. I guess it didn't help that he was chewing gum. I'm sure it made it hard for him to project besides muffling his voice.
Bob: [Laughs.] At least he didn't do it on the podium like President Obama did at the D-Day celebration. For someone with so many handlers you'd think they'd have helped keep him from making that mistake.
Me: After so many "mistakes" you have to begin to think some of these things are deliberate.
Bob: I'm sorry, I can't believe in conspiracies.
Me: [snicker] What does conspiracy have to do with observing someone choosing repeatedly to behave boorishly for G-d know how many reasons?
Bob: I'm sorry, I can't believe in conspiracies.
So it clearly was on his mind. My guess is that it had already occurred to him that Obama was maybe bored at the least, and possibly even contemptuous. But he didn't like where that thought took him, so he discarded it.
His giving me such a quick and seemingly unrelated response suggests where he thought such thinking leads, and he engaged in double-think. "oh, it's a mistake that his handlers screwed up on." And he was also advising me, in a stern but friendly way, that it was best that I not think about it too much either.
Have any of you run into this sort of thing much? I mean, being a President can't rule out that boorish behavior is not deliberate. Cavalier at best. And there is nothing stopping ones motives from being much worse. And any rate, I think I spotted a fatal tic in Bob. LOL
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Dunno, Pasc. I can see him jumping to that after you inferred Obama was disrespectful on purpose.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I think it was nicorette.
Coulda been marinol :)
There are other reasons, some of which have been discussed, for him to do it intentionally. For instance, Obama is known to behave petulantly when an event is not about him. There he managed to get the news to talk about him exactly because of his gum chewing. But speaking of his petulance and incompetence is not forbidden, and in fact has become fashionable now that the Dems need to regain some credibility both before the November election and 2016. So, you see there is reason to be shocked that his mind drifted to conspiracy right off.
Delete(I live in a very extreme Left area. I know one guy who is openly statist and two who still call themselves communist. I only just met Bob and he me. I don't know if he is Left or not, but he may have felt I was testing him, so that could be the reason he went into denial mode so swiftly.)
The point I wished to make was not that there is a certainty of the knee jerk reaction, only that it happened so quickly. It might be interesting to test it elsewhere and see how fast you get a similar reaction. If you do, tell them "I only thought he has been acting childishly lately." I betcha they'll sign on to that -- in relief.