The Rawness

I’ve been killing flies with my bare hands my whole life. I have always kept quiet and never bragged about this fact, not because of any humility but because I was totally unaware of what an awesome feat this was. But apparently it is. Little did I know that I have been all this time a veritable Superman, with the reflexes of a cheetah and the bravado of an alpha ape. And I have Obama to thank for this discovery.

See, Obama killed a fly during an interview recently. I saw the headline reported in an oddly prominent fashion all through last week, which I found off given how there seemed to be more important Obama-related things to focus on like his wishy-washy responses to North Korea threatening to launch a nuclear missile in the direction of his hometown of Hawaii and the fallout from the Iranian elections. But no, despite all that, the media reassures us Obama is a badass tough guy because…he can kill a fly.

Seriously. It’s no news that the media will jump on any attempt to furiously fellate Obama, but this is ridiculous. Observe these grown men gushing.

It was a Dirty Harry ‘Make my day’ moment.

Then the next guy even praises him for having such great weather and rainbows at his speeches, as if Obama was somehow responsible for the weather. Oh wait, liberals think he’s God so maybe they actually do think he controls the weather for his speeches.

CNN chimed in:

When it’s appropriate he carries the big stick.

Mind you the reporter is saying this during the very same week he won’t respond to the Iranian situation and is responding weakly to North Korea. But no, fly killing is the measure of carrying a big stick. Truly the reincarnation of Teddy Roosevelt.

Here is a roundup of the rest of the media:

You just have to appreciate the concentration and the precision. There’s just a few things going on in the world, but it’s as if everything was just stopped and at a standstill for the President to lower the boom….apparently he wanted to shore up his credentials as being a tough guy!

I’m 95% sure Meredith Viera left a wet spot in her chair. I’m 100% sure her male co-anchor left a bigger one.

If it was Bush who did this I’m sure they’d accuse him of human rights abuses, want him to stand trial before a tribunal and even accuse him of racism and hate crimes if it turned out to be an African horsefly.

Some more great stuff in the media:

The media reports on scientists’ findings regarding how impossible it is for mere mortals to kill flies.

Swatting a fly with your bare hand is no easy feat either, as Caltech scientists Michael Dickinson and Gwyneth Card recently determined.

The researchers used high resolution, high speed digital imaging of fruit flies faced with a looming swatter. In the instant before a fly can usually zip to safety, its tiny brain calculates the location of the impending threat, comes up with an escape plan, and places its legs in an optimal position to hop out of the way in the opposite direction. All of this action takes place within about 100 milliseconds after the fly first spots the swatter.

“This illustrates how rapidly the fly’s brain can process sensory information into an appropriate motor response,” Dickinson explained.

Fleet-footed flies even tweak the escape technique, depending on the direction of the threat. Keep in mind that these insects possess a nearly 360-degree field of view, so they can see behind themselves. If a swatter comes in at a 50 degree angle, a fly can move its middle legs forward and lean back, raising and extending its legs to push off backward.

If the swatter comes from the back, no problem. The fly simply moves its middle legs a tiny bit backwards and leans its whole body in the opposite direction just before it jumps.

“We also found that when the fly makes planning movements prior to take-off, it takes into account its body position at the time it first sees the threat,” Dickinson said. “When it first notices an approaching threat, a fly’s body might be in any sort of posture depending on what it was doing at the time, like grooming, feeding, walking, or courting. Our experiments showed that the fly somehow ‘knows’ whether it needs to make large or small postural changes to reach the correct preflight posture. This means that the fly must integrate visual information from its eyes, which tell it where the threat is approaching from, with mechanosensory information from its legs, which tells it how to move to reach the proper preflight pose.”

So what is the optimal way to swat a fly?

“It is best not to swat at the fly’s starting position, but rather to aim a bit forward of that to anticipate where the fly is going to jump when it first sees your swatter,” he advised.

Staying a step ahead of one’s opponents isn’t a bad skill for a leader. President Obama is also clearly a hands on, take charge person.

Seriously, you could compile all these clips and excerpts without changing a single word and you would have the script for a hilarious Saturday Night Live sketch. You wouldn’t have to exaggerate a thing.

And I’m sure longtime readers remember how I discussed the obsession he and the media have with comparing him to Abraham Lincoln? Well, guess who else also had a run in a with a fly according to Associated Press?

President Obama launched his campaign from Abraham Lincoln’s hometown, used his Bible to be sworn in and quotes Lincoln at the drop of a stovepipe hat.

Now it seems the two share something else: an encounter with a fly.

Daniel Weinberg, the owner of the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago, has a photograph of Lincoln with a house fly on him.

Weinberg doesn’t know if the fly survived the encounter or if it suffered the same fate as the one that had the audacity to land on Obama during a television interview Tuesday and found itself on the business end of a presidential hand.

Remember, there is no liberal or pro-Obama bias in the media. None.

In parting though, allow me to share some Obama jokes from Rush Limbaugh:

How does Obama differ from God?

• God does not think he’s Obama.
• Liberals love Obama.
• God asks for only 10% of your money.
• God gives you freedom to live your life as you choose.
• God’s plan to save us is actually written down for people to read.

I had actually planned to do this post next week after some more installments of the Renaissance Man series, because it seems like each Obama post I do causes me to shed subscribers by the boatload. I thought maybe it would be better to space out my Obama analyzing posts as a result. But Politico.com today touched on the topic I was planning to discuss so I decided to bump it up on the schedule and do it now instead as it may become a hot topic.

A few months ago I did a post about dominant male body language, using Bill Moyers as an example. You can find the link here. I suggest you take the time to click that link and watch the video in that Moyers post before coming back here, since it relates to today’s Obama’s discussion.

You back now? Okay, I was reading conservative blog Ace of Spades a short while back and came across this post, which had this CNN video of Obama embedded in it:

Now the first few minutes are the typical fellating of Obama that today’s reporters routinely engage in whenever fawning and flattering asking him hard questions and speaking “truth to power.” But look at what happens at 3:20 when he gets irked at a reporter’s questions (something that happens more often than the media tells you; he pretty much hates any challenging questions). Notice how each time he dresses down the reporter, he gives him a slightly condescending shoulder pat.

A powerful domination tactic is showing a willingness to touch the other person at will, among other things. A good rundown of alpha male body language can be found at this site (emphasis added by me):

The body language cues the dominant person uses are these:

• Directs and controls the conversation.
• Freely asks questions and expects a response back but gives little or no self-disclosure.
• Stands with hands on hips, elbows out to sides. Takes up more personal space that way and wants to look bigger.
• Stands or sits taller than others on purpose.
• Freely interrupts others speaking. (Others don’t interrupt.)
• Long pause when answering a door knock, or replying to someone. Makes others wait.
• Freely touches others. (Others don’t touch back.)
• Will stare at others and demand attention. (Others don’t do the same back.)
• Never breaks eye contact first. Others usually break eye contact first by looking down, signifying submission.
• Occupies a bigger personal space and crowds others on purpose.
• Takes the lead purposefully when walking and going through doors.
• While sitting, will put hands behind head, put feet on desk, remove eye glasses and put ear-piece in mouth, or turn chair away from others and stare out window.
• If not well socialized, will eat and talk at same time while others can’t eat.

Even though I only emphasized the habit directly relevant to this video, I have seen him use other techniques on this list at different times, especially on Youtube, pretty much the only place to see any video of Obama portrayed in a negative light along with conservative blogs. The media filters out anything unflattering or calculating about Obama and carefully cultivates a wholesome, “aw shucks” folksy image for him.

As I’ve stated in part 1, part 2, and part 3, Obama nakedly uses more calculating power, domination and public relation techniques than any other public figure I’ve seen in a while, either consciously and deliberately or unconsciously and unwittingly, and I don’t think he gets away with being called out on it due to his subtlety or guile so much as the media working overtime to continuously manage and soften his image. The problem is that with the blogosphere, talk radio and Youtube, the mainstream media doesn’t have the near-monopoly on image management of public figures that it used to, so it should be interesting to see the alternative views of Obama that rise to the surface during the next four years.

Do check the Politico link for more examples of Obama using touch to gain control of discourse, as well as differing expert interpretations.

I found a great piece by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D and narcissism expert, diagnosing Obama with extreme narcissism. It’s really worth the time it takes to read it in detail, as I think he makes a very plausible case that I think is at least worth consideration, given the impact the man will have over our lives over the next four years.

Admittedly, if one’s sole source of Obama information is the media and their hagiographic portrayal of the man, it may seem to be a very off-base portrayal, but as someone who just finished Obama’s autobiography last week, I do think that you can find support for many of Vaknin’s claims in Obama’s own words. (My review of Obama’s autobiography will be the next installment in the series by the way) If you read between the lines of the recent Inauguration Day coverage however, you can still find evidence of the man’s narcissism amidst the glowing coverage.

Barack Obama, even though he’s actually accomplished very little so far in his political career when compared to most president-elects, has never been one to shy away from grandiose comparisons. He frequently invokes JFK and Lincoln every chance he gets. But lately his Lincoln invocations have hit a fever pitch.

In his first post-election press conference, four days after the election, when asked what he was doing to prepare for his upcoming presidency Obama responded “I have re-read some of Lincoln’s writings, who’s always an extraordinary inspiration.” Since then, Obama has been directly and indirectly invoking Lincoln’s name in numerous news interviews on the road to his inauguration, like on “60 Minutes:”

In Barack Obama’s appearance last month on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” the conversation turned to the president-elect’s long-time love of Lincoln.

“There is a wisdom there,” Obama told interviewer Steve Kroft, “and a humility about his approach to government, even before he was president, that I just find very helpful.”

Even his method of choosing his cabinet is supposedly based on Abraham Lincolns “Team of Rivals” strategy, as the media loves to remind us.

As we inch closer to Inauguration Day, however, it’s getting really out of hand. Obama announced he was planning to get sworn in on the same bible Lincoln got sworn in on:

From the [Obama] transition team:

“Washington, D.C. – On January 20th, President-elect Barack Obama will take the oath of office using the same Bible upon which President Lincoln was sworn in at his first inauguration. The Bible is currently part of the collections of the Library of Congress. Though there is no constitutional requirement for the use of a Bible during the swearing-in, Presidents have traditionally used Bibles for the ceremony, choosing a volume with personal or historical significance. President-elect Obama will be the first President sworn in using the Lincoln Bible since its initial use in 1861.

That’s bad, but not unprecedented. Other Presidents have used bibles previously used by their predecessors for inauguration ceremonies.

But then it kept getting more obnoxious, as Obama announced that he would recreate Abraham Lincoln’s train ride into DC:

Barack Obama has evoked Abraham Lincoln ever since launching his campaign at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill.

Now he plans to arrive in Washington the same way that Lincoln did in 1861, with a train trip that will include stops, speeches and crowds along the way.

On Jan. 17, Obama and his family will start the day with an appearance in Philadelphia, where they will board a chartered Amtrak train. The train will stop in Wilmington, Del., where the Obamas will be joined by Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. Then comes a stop in Baltimore before the group’s arrival that evening in Washington.

“He’s replicating the last leg of Lincoln’s inaugural journey to Washington,” said historian Harold Holzer, author of “Lincoln President Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861.” “This guy’s reverence for Lincoln has no bounds.”

Never mind the fact that many consider Lincoln’s train ride into DC to have been a debacle, as several historians and Lincoln scholars have pointed out:

Obama might want to rethink exactly which parts of Lincoln’s legacy are worth emulating, and which are not…Lincoln’s train journey can be viewed as rather a mixed bag of success and failure. Some Americans of his day thought Lincoln’s off-the-cuff speeches from the back of train weren’t terribly inspiring. Parts of the journey were disorganized, and his final arrival in Washington DC was actually rather a debacle, with some of his detractors accusing the president-elect of cowardice.

But wait, it gets worse. Now Obama is even planning to eat like Lincoln at the inauguration dinner:

The luncheon that will be served in Congress’s Statuary Hall to the president-elect and vice president-elect and their families — as well as congressional leaders, justices of the Supreme Court and pending members of the Obama Cabinet — will be modeled after foods that Lincoln ate and enjoyed.

The first course will even be served on replicas of the china picked out by then-first lady Mary Todd Lincoln at the beginning of her husband’s term in office…

The luncheon’s appetizer will be seafood stew in puff pastry — scallops, shrimp, lobster — served as a nod to the 16th president’s love of stewed and scalloped oysters.

The main course — duck breast with sour-cherry chutney and herb-roasted pheasant served with molasses sweet potatoes and winter vegetables — is a nod to the root vegetables and wild game that Mr. Lincoln favored growing up on the frontier in Kentucky and Indiana.

The apple cinnamon sponge cake dessert is a nod to Mr. Lincoln’s love of apples and apple cake.

A backlash has already begun among historians, as documented in this Politico piece (worth reading in full):

Obama’s frequent invocations of Abraham Lincoln ? a man enshrined in myth and marble with his own temple on the National Mall ? would not at first blush say much about his own instincts for modesty or self-effacement.

And now there are early rumblings of a backlash to Obama’s ostentatious embrace of all things Lincoln, with his not-so-subtle invitations to compare the 44th president to the 16th, the “Savior of the Union.”

Simply put, some scholars think the comparisons have gone a bit over the top hat.

Sean Wilentz, a scholar in American history at Princeton, said many presidents have sought to frame themselves in the historical legacies of illustrious predecessors, but he couldn’t find any examples quite so brazen.

“Sure, they’ve looked back to Washington and even, at times, Jackson. Reagan echoed and at times swiped FDR’s rhetoric,” said Wilentz. “But there’s never been anything like this, and on this scale. Ever.”

Eric Foner, a Columbia historian who has written extensively on the Civil War era, agreed that comparing one’s self to Lincoln sets a rather high bar for success, and could come off like “a certain kind of hubris.”

“It’d be a bit like a basketball player turning up before his first game and saying, ‘I’m kind of modeling myself on Michael Jordan,’” he said. “If you can do it, fine. If you’re LeBron James, that’ll work. But people may make that comparison to your disadvantage.”

As it happens, Obama may find this an entirely apt comparison.

“I’m LeBron, baby,” he told a Chicago Tribune reporter at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. “I can play on this level. I got some game.”

I predict that this is just the beginning, and that the longer Obama is in office, the more the afterglow will wear off and his narcissism will become more apparent. Narcissism is not necessarily a bad thing, though, unless it’s so extreme that it leads to hubris and arrogance, causes one to overreach and impedes progress and teamwork (something many of Bush’s critics claim happened to Bush). To run for high office or shoot for such lofty goals in general requires a high level of self-regard to begin with; I don’t believe anyone runs for President without a little bit of narcissism. (Hell, even to create a blog requires a certain amount of narcissism) I do think, however, that Obama’s narcissism is incredibly transparent and way out of proportion to his actual accomplishments, and the fact that the media and public gives him such a pass on it is truly disturbing.

Recommended Reading:

This is part 2 of an ongoing series dedicated to piecing together a plausible personality profile of Obama. Part 1 can be found here.In the last part, I mentioned how I thought Obama’s main strategy was to sell himself using a compelling narrative rather than focusing on a message with a strong intellectual policy foundation. I’m currently reading his autobiography Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, and it hit me that Obama was portraying himself in the book as a Byronic Hero, which I discussed in part 1 of this series. In the book he also mentions his grandfather owning a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

He doesn’t mention reading it himself though, but it made enough of an impact on him as a kid for him to mention it decades later. It made me wonder whether seeing his grandfather own and use that book to help him with his sales career made him open to the idea of reading self-help books to improve communicating and connecting with people too.

I flipped through my copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People to see if I could see an obvious influence of the book on his personal style, but I couldn’t really see it, at least not in the first three chapters of his book or his campaigning style, which is all I really know of him right now. (As this series progresses I hope to eventually read everything about him I can get my hands on)

Right next to my copy of Carnegie’s book however was The 48 Laws of Power, so no a whim I flipped through that next, and the similarities between the book’s advice and Obama’s approach to defining himself and winning the Presidency were staggering.
Here is a brief summary of each of the 48 Laws of Power. I’ll highlight key laws which I think apply to Obama below. Most of the connections between each law and Obama are self-explanatory, but for some of them I added commentary in bold and brackets for clarification.

Law 2
Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies
Be wary of friends-they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.
[PUBLICLY DISAVOWING HIS FRIEND AND MENTOR REV. WRIGHT, OFFERING SEC. OF STATE TO HILLARY, IMMEDIATELY MEETING WITH JOHN MCCAIN]

Law 3
Conceal your Intentions
Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelope them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.

Law 4
Always Say Less than Necessary
When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.

[RATHER THEN GIVE SPECIFICS AND GOING IN-DEPTH, OBAMA RAN USING VAGUE PHRASES AND SOARING BUT BANAL RHETORIC LIKE "YES WE CAN," "HOPE," "CHANGE," AND "UNITY"]

Law 5
So Much Depends on Reputation ? Guard it with your Life
Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once you slip, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.

Law 6
Court Attention at all Cost
Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost.
Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious, than the bland and timid masses.

Law 7
Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit
Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you.

Law 8
Make other people come to you – use Bait if Necessary
When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control. It is always better to make your opponent come to you, abandoning his own plans in the process. Lure him with fabulous gains – then attack. You hold the cards.

Law 11
Learn to Keep People Dependent on You
To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted. The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear. Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.
[OBAMA HAS DONE THIS WITH HIS FOLLOWERS BY ENCOURAGING THE MESSIANIC FERVOR HIS FOLLOWERS HAVE FOR HIM. IT'S REACHED THE POINT WHERE PEOPLE SAY THINGS LIKE BELOW]

Law 12

Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm your Victim
One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones. Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicious people. Once your selective honesty opens a hole in their armor, you can deceive and manipulate them at will. A timely gift – a Trojan horse – will serve the same purpose.

[OBAMA'S POST-ELECTION OVERTURES TO MCCAIN AND HILLARY CLINTON, TWO PEOPLE WHO COULD CAUSE HIM POLITICAL GRIEF IN THE FUTURE, FALL UNDER THIS LAW AS WELL]

Law 13
When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest, Never to their Mercy or Gratitude
If you need to turn to an ally for help, do not bother to remind him of your past assistance and good deeds. He will find a way to ignore you. Instead, uncover something in your request, or in your alliance with him, that will benefit him, and emphasize it out of all proportion. He will respond enthusiastically when he sees something to be gained for himself.
[THIS WORKS WITH OBAMA BY MAKING PROMISES BASED ON CLASS WARFARE. HE PAINTS A ROBIN HOOD IMAGE WHERE HE'LL REDISTRIBUTE THE WEALTH OF THE RICH AMONG THE POOR AND MIDDLE CLASSES. THIS LEADS TO DISPLAYS LIKE THE WOMAN IN THE YOUTUBE VIDEO ABOVE PROCLAIMING THAT HER GAS AND MORTGAGE WILL BE PAID IF OBAMA WINS.]

Law 20
Do Not Commit to Anyone
It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others – playing people against one another, making them pursue you.

Law 24
Play the Perfect Courtier
The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the mot oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.

Law 25
Re-Create Yourself
Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Re-create yourself by forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the audience. Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define if for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions – your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life.

[FROM WHAT I'VE READ SO FAR IN HIS BIO, OBAMA ALWAYS SEEMS TO BE TRYING TO RECREATE HIS IDENTITY GROWING UP. THE BOOK ITSELF SEEMS TO BE AN ATTEMPT TO RECREATE HIMSELF]

Law 26
Keep Your Hands Clean
You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency: Your hands are never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as scapegoats and cat’s-paws to disguise your involvement.
[PLENTY OF LEAKS AND CHEAP SHOT ATTACKS DONE BY OBAMA SUPPORTERS AND THE MEDIA, ESPECIALLY AGAINST PALIN, WHICH OBAMA THEN DISTANCES HIMSELF FROM BY PUBLIC DENOUNCING AFTER THEY'VE ALREADY HAD THEIR EFFECT. NOT SAYING HE WAS DEFINITELY BEHIND THESE ATTACKS, BUT HE DID BENEFIT FROM THEM WHILE MAKING SURE TO KEEP HIS HANDS CLEAN PUBLICLY]

Law 27
Play on People?s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following
People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf. In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power.

Law 28
Enter Action with Boldness
If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.

[OBAMA IS VERY GOOD AT THIS. HE ACTED LIKE HE WAS ALREADY PRESIDENT WHEN HE WAS IN THE DEBATES BY CONSTANTLY SAYING "WHEN I'M PRESIDENT..." AFTER HE WON, IN HIS ACCEPTANCE SPEECH HE IMMEDIATELY STARTED TALKING ABOUT HIS SECOND TERM. THAT'S BOLD AND AUDACIOUS.]

Law 30
Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless
Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more. Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work – it only raises questions. Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against you.

Law 32
Play to People’s Fantasies
The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes for disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.

Law 33
Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew
Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usually an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need; it can also be a small secret pleasure. Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage.

[OBAMA IS A MASTER AT TELLING EACH INTEREST GROUP EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR]

Law 34
Be Royal in your Own Fashion: Act like a King to be treated like one
The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated; In the long run, appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you. For a king respects himself and inspires the same sentiment in others. By acting regally and confident of your powers, you make yourself seem destined to wear a crown.

Law 37
Create Compelling Spectacles
Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power – everyone responds to them. Stage spectacles for those around you, then full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.

[OBAMA'S STRIKING ICONOGRAPHY IS LIKE NOTHING I'VE SEEN FROM A MODERN CANDIDATE. SLEEK, BOLD, COMPELLING, CLEAN AND COLORFUL, IT'S THE TYPE OF BRANDING YOU'D EXPECT FROM A FRESH NEW HIP PRODUCT DESIGNED BY A TOP AD AGENCY AND GRAPHIC DESIGN FIRM. MANY OF HIS SPEECHES HAVE ALSO BEEN COMPELLING SPECTACLES, LIKE THE ONE HE GAVE IN BERLIN TO 200,00 PEOPLE]

[LOOK AT THIS CROWD OF 200,000 THAT CAME OUT TO SEE OBAMA SPEAK IN BERLIN. HOW'S THAT FOR COMPELLING SPECTACLE?]

Law 38
Think as you like but Behave like others
If you make a show of going against the times, flaunting your unconventional ideas and unorthodox ways, people will think that you only want attention and that you look down upon them. They will find a way to punish you for making them feel inferior. It is far safer to blend in and nurture the common touch. Share your originality only with tolerant friends and those who are sure to appreciate your uniqueness.

Law 43
Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others
Coercion creates a reaction that will eventually work against you. You must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction. A person you have seduced becomes your loyal pawn. And the way to seduce others is to operate on their individual psychologies and weaknesses. Soften up the resistant by working on their emotions, playing on what they hold dear and what they fear. Ignore the hearts and minds of others and they will grow to hate you.

Law 45
Preach the Need for Change, but Never Reform too much at Once
Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the day-to-day level people are creatures of habit. Too much innovation is traumatic, and will lead to revolt. If you are new to a position of power, or an outsider trying to build a power base, make a show of respecting the old way of doing things. If change is necessary, make it feel like a gentle improvement on the past.

Law 48
Assume Formlessness
By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack. Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the move. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed. The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet on stability or lasting order. Everything changes.

Regardless of whether or not Obama actually read 48 Laws or not, a majority of the book directly applies to the strategies Obama used when running.

Recommended Reading:

[This is the first of an open-ended, ongoing series I plan to have about Barack Obama and what may or may not motivate him. I think he makes a fascinating figure, regardless of whether or not you believe in his politics. I think he is an extremely cunning and Machiavellian figure with methods that, once deconstructed, will be very instructive to anyone interested in human nature. This series will go on for as long as I have insights to make about Obama, but will not be the exclusive focus of this blog.]

I had a lot of debates with my intellectual friends during this election about Barack Obama. Many of them would take apart the logical and economic fallacies of Obama’s proposals, giving examples of why they wouldn’t work and pointing out contradictions and inconsistencies. I kept responding that their intellectual approach was actually an obstacle for them in analyzing the political race because the informed people choose their sides and ideologies early in the game. After all, both candidates laid out their agendas very early in the game, either on their campaign websites, their political careers before the election or in their stump speeches.

Most of these much-sought after “undecideds” or “moderates” are simply not that intellectually engaged in the process, because if they were they’d have made a decision already. The key to these people is not to inundate them with more facts, because that is a waste. There are already more than enough facts out there for them to make a decision on. The key to win these people over is to switch from focusing on content, like facts and policy, and focus on context arguments, like enthusiasm, charisma, emotional connection, pointing out personal and professional associations, and likeability.

Keep in mind I’m not calling these undecideds stupid. Although I think many of them actually were stupid, there were also many intellectuals that were tired of focusing on logic and facts and were looking for someone that would engage them emotionally

This is the beauty of Obama, he perfectly understood the power of context over content. When his informercial came out for example, a friend of mine went into an in-depth refutation of it, declared it a failure for being too pessimistic and showing economic illiteracy through factual inaccuracies. I told him to turn off his intellectual instinct to engage every message on a logical.  He needed to realize that the content was irrelevant. It was pure public relations, and Obama was creating a brand using snazzy graphics, slogans and iconography and creating a narrative using soaring rhetoric, cinematography, drama, characters, the narrative, the music that pulled on the heart strings.  It was pure style over substance, and it needed to be judge it as a feel-good movie trailer or commercial and not a logical argument. And from that perspective, the informercial worked.

Most Presidents have written books before or during their elections, but they have usually been policy books. Obama main book, the one most discussed in the lead-up to the election, was pure narrative, an autobiography describing his struggles with class and race and not much else. No sophisticated policy arguments, no nuanced intellectual viewpoints, just personal narrative. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance paints him to be the Byronic Hero. This is an archetype well proven to resonate with people, especially single women, in works of fiction:

A Byronic hero exhibits several characteristic traits, and in many ways he can be considered a rebel. The Byronic hero does not possess “heroic virtue” in the usual sense; instead, he has many dark qualities. With regard to his intellectual capacity, self-respect, and hypersensitivity, the Byronic hero is “larger than life,” and “with the loss of his titanic passions, his pride, and his certainty of self-identity, he loses also his status as [a traditional] hero” (Thorslev 187).

He is usually isolated from society as a wanderer or is in exile of some kind. It does not matter whether this social separation is imposed upon him by some external force or is self-imposed. Byron’s Manfred, a character who wandered desolate mountaintops, was physically isolated from society, whereas Childe Harold chose to “exile” himself and wander throughout Europe. Although Harold remained physically present in society and among people, he was not by any means “social.”

Often the Byronic hero is moody by nature or passionate about a particular issue. He also has emotional and intellectual capacities, which are superior to the average man. These heightened abilities force the Byronic hero to be arrogant, confident, abnormally sensitive, and extremely conscious of himself. Sometimes, this is to the point of nihilism resulting in his rebellion against life itself (Thorslev 197). In one form or another, he rejects the values and moral codes of society and because of this he is often unrepentant by society’s standards. Often the Byronic hero is characterized by a guilty memory of some unnamed sexual crime. Due to these characteristics, the Byronic hero is often a figure of repulsion, as well as fascination.

More on the Byronic Hero can be found here:

The Byronic hero is an idealised but flawed character exemplified in the life and writings of Lord Byron, characterised by his ex-lover Lady Caroline Lamb as being “mad, bad and dangerous to know”.^[1] The Byronic hero first appears in Byron’s semi-autobiographical epic narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-18). The Byronic hero typically exhibits the following characteristics:^[2][3]

• high level of intelligence and perception
• cunning and able to adapt
• sophisticated and educated
• self-critical and introspective
• mysterious, magnetic and charismatic
• struggling with integrity
• power of seduction and sexual attraction
• social and sexual dominance
• emotional conflicts, bipolar tendencies, or moodiness
• a distaste for social institutions and norms
• being an exile, an outcast, or an outlaw
• “dark” attributes not normally associated with a hero
• disrespect of rank and privilege
• a troubled past
• cynicism
• arrogance
• self-destructive behaviour“

The Byronic Hero is immensely powerful with women, and usually just about any fictional work that is immensely popular with women has a Byronic hero as its protaganist, from Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (Signet Classics) to the vampire Lestat in Ann Rice’s works to the character Edward in the new hit movie Twilight, based on a popular novel Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1). I think the immense popularity of Dark Knight last summer with women was because it portrayed a battle of wills between two (arguably three) Byronic heroes. This Byronic appeal was so strong that it created an intense love of the movie among single women despite the fact the movie is, in my humble opinion, utter crap. Is it any wonder Obama’s biggest voting block was unmarried women?

In Obama’s bio, he mentions early on that his grandfather had a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People on his desk. One of the key concepts in the book is to use dramatization and narrative to sell ideas rather than cold, hard logic, which just tends to alienate. I think this is a major part of where his strategy to build narrative over content came from, which is why unlike previous presidents, his book was a book about dramatic personal narrative rather than a book on policy. And within this narrative, he smartly chose to use the Byronic hero as his main character, except with a happier, more optimistic ending. A “safe” Byronic hero with the sharp, dangerous edges filed down if you will.

The other source of Obama’s power I think comes from the book 48 Laws of Power, which I will demonstrate in the next part, which can be found here.

Recommended Reading:

Recently Ruff posted the following comment:

Say, are you ever gonna post comments about the election?
I understand all the arguments supporting apathy or ambivalence regarding the whole circus. But I?m still interested in hearing what people think and feel about the various issues (or non-issues).

I lean conservative on a number of issues but fully support Obama but that?s irrelevant.
I?m curious as to why liberals believe the democratic platform represents them. I?m even MORE interested in learning why conservatives believe the republican platform represents them (it doesn?t). and as far as this particular election why some people still consider themselves undecided at this point in the race.

I haven’t been focusing much on the election because I’m quite apathetic about it. Neither candidate moves me. I think McCain will be a much better President than Obama, but that’s not saying much. I am frustrated with the constant bitching of the media, late night talk shows, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and their ilk. Yet at the same time I’m tired of watered down conservatism I feel that George W. Bush and McCain represent. I want a conservative that can communicate the ideas of conservatism in a way that connect with the public without having to pander to moderates, the way Reagan did.

So at this point I just want to give the Democrats the chance to stop being armchair quarterbacks and show us what they can do. Hopefully they can do a good job and show us maybe they were right all along. But in all honesty, I think liberal quasisocialist policies during a recession equals the second term of Jimmy Carter, an unmitigated disaster. And Jimmy Carter’s awful presidency was the best thing for conservatism ever. If Americans kept electing uninspiring or poorly communicating Republicans like Nixon and Ford over and over again, we never would have gotten the inspiring conservatism of Reagan, but rather just a slow ideological death for the Republican party. Ford losing opened the door for Reagan’s resounding win. Call it creative destruction. I feel McCain would be a better President than Obama, but that’s not saying much. I’d rather see some creative destruction again and just have McCain lose.

Give the Democrats the presidency and the Congress and let’s have their ideas on display for the world to see. No one to blame, no armchair quarterbacking, let them run the show. I predict the worst, but who knows, maybe I’ll be surprised.

Post comments about what I wrote or any thoughts you have on the election at all in the comments below. This is an open thread, as long as it’s election related it’s fair game.

UPDATE (10/31/2008):

This is awesome:

I’m looking to expand my views by trying some books with more of a leftist slant. In this post, I discussed my favorite conservative books. I want to try something different and read some good liberal books, but most of the liberal books I find seem to not really confront conservative viewpoints with good logic but instead tend to just sidestep the conservative arguments altogether by just responding with invective and/or smug sarcasm. It’s a frustration I find with a lot of modern progressive spokespeople, they seem to think smug condescension and sarcasm is an argument in and of itself:

The problem with sarcasm is that it pokes fun at the other side without actually making an argument. If you happen to agree with the speaker’s view already, this can be pretty entertaining: you don’t need an argument, so you enjoy the affirmation of how smart you are and how dumb the other guy is. But what if you don’t already agree? Well, in that case sarcasm doesn’t tell you very much except about the nastiness of the speaker. The sarcastic comment rather suspiciously avoids addressing the merits, and is more likely to turn off the undecided than persuade them.

It’s part of the problem I have with the Daily Show and Stephen Colbert, where people are inexplicably hailed as “geniuses” (truly an overused and increasingly meaningless word in this day and age) by the media and the progressive man-on-the-street for getting up every night and being sarcastic in front of a sympathetic audience that is dedicated to hearing their own views parroted back at them on a nightly basis. Sarcasm is simply making fun of someone by saying the opposite of what you mean. If that’s now the gold standard for “genius” than every teenage girl in America is currently a genius. And if that’s the current standard for genius, who do we use for examples of “mildly clever.” And what new word do we use to describe people like Da Vinci, Newton and Einstein?

I don’t mind sarcasm and smug condescension being used in putting forth an argument, I just hate when that is where the argument begins and ends, when it is basically the whole argument.

So back to my original question: can anyone recommend me some well-researched lefty books with convincing arguments that aim to change your views rather than just preach to the choir? So far I’ve been recommended Big Trouble by J. Anthony Lukas and the books of Eric Hobshawm. I don’t care if the author is trying to advance an agenda (honestly, who isn’t?) as long as aid agenda doesn’t lead to rampant intellectual dishonesty in the writing.