I may officially be the last person to weigh in on both last week’s Vice-Presidential and last fortnight’s Presidential Debates. But if you’ll indulge something that struck me as I was reflecting the other day:
Much comment has been proffered on the striking difference in the manner of conduct between the members of the Democratic ticket at their respective debates. But allow me to offer a common thread:
Contempt.
President Obama has been widely and rightly panned for having seemed aloof and “not there” during his outing against Mitt Romney. Even the fellow-travelers of MSNBC criticized him for seeming to phone it in. The preparations he endured in the days leading up to the debate were widely reported as a chore for the incumbent, and it showed on the stage in my hometown that evening. If you were inclined to view the Commander as a walking ego who felt himself above the niceties of actually having to earn votes, his performance gave you no reason to change your mind. President Obama seemed a man who felt having to prove his point was beneath him.
Fast forward to last week where we saw the sitting vice president treat with utter disregard and disrespect the man who will soon hopefully take his job. I needn’t go on about the laughs, smiles, chortles, and dismissive guffaws (I did, after all, mention I’m the last to comment on this). President Obama’s most direct report showed in his own way the exact same contempt for Representative Ryan as he had a week earlier for the head of the ticket.
As dramatically different as their performances seemed on the surface, President Obama and Vice President Biden had, at the center of their psyches it seems, the exact same motivation: They don’t take the Romney/Ryan ticket seriously and don’t seem to consider their ideas even worthy of debate in the first place.
It’s not hard to imagine, when you think about it this way, why the Obama Administration has been completely incapable of accomplishing anything with the Republican Congress. Haven’t the two debates so far proven a perfect embodiment of what’s been wrong with this Administration from the (“we won”) get-go?
-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from a Secure Undisclosed Location)
Romney’s performance was youthful and energetic while Obama’s was listless, halting, confused, and old. Biden’s performance was childish and insufferable while Ryan was calm, dignified and mature. Now guess the ages of all four men.
Nick, I think you are dead on correct concerning the contempt and contemptuousness link shared by Biden and Obama.
Each defines “reaching across the aisle” as “conform or perish.” Their concept of “compromise” is overlooking your past “ignorance” if you totally cave to their agenda. Sort of like the slave master whipping the hard headed slave and then putting him in charge of whipping other hard headed slaves who need to be broken. There is a price to be paid when you join their mafia.
All dictators are the same. They use some variation of the Pavlov method to condition the subjects to accept the party line by giving them a taste of the punishment that awaits if they do not play along.
Obama and Biden both play politics for keeps. They just play different roles doing it. It is never really about principle; it is all about power and control.
Obama is busy building destructive regulations to unleash on his enemies to force them to avoid the pain. Biden is the proverbial “good cop” in the scheme. He comes on as Mr. Niceguy or Chuckles the Veep. He will buddy up to you and play warm and fuzzy while he shoves the shiv into your ribs.
Using the mafia model, Obama and Biden demand that the person across the aisle become a syndicate loyalist and aspire to be a “made man” by ratting out those in his circle who are enemies of the cosa rostra. If the newly minted loyalist can not deliver an enemy scalp, he is considered an enemy of the state and a traitor. Think about Arlen Spector who returned to the Democrat party with the proviso that he could not be counted on for the 60th vote. Being neither fish nor fowl, he was left to navigate the waters without the help of neither chart nor compass from either side of the aisle.
Joey Biden sat above Clarence Thomas at the Thomas Senate confirmation hearings and “strumming the pain of Thomas with Biden’s fingers, singing the life of Thomas with Biden’s words, killed Thomas softly with Biden’s song, told Thomas’ whole life with Biden’s words, knifing Thomas softly with Biden’s song.” On the other hand, Obama would have voted “present” and poisoned the water set out for the refreshment of Clarence Thomas during the ordeal.
So the Democrats vote for the guy on crutches who holds fast to their party line while voting against the guy on crutches who thinks independently because he threatens the very essence of victim class affirmative action.
Rule number one for Obama and Biden: obey the code of the plantation. Submit or be destroyed.