“The truth is, Obama doesn’t call anyone, and he’s not close to almost anyone. It’s stunning that he’s in politics, because he really doesn’t like people.” So said an Obama loyalist and ex-aide named Neera Tanden — now president of an influential Washington leftist group called Center for American Progress — in a recent magazine interview. As if adding to Ms. Tanden’s firsthand observations, Michelle Obama noted in comments today that her husband doesn’t have much of an ego, which explains why he doesn’t like people: he doesn’t like himself.
This impression was reinforced tonight during the dueling talking points charade CNN mistakenly called a debate. As I posted on social media, even Barack Obama looks like he’s tired of Barack Obama. He lied again and again, which must be draining, asserting that his opponent, Mitt Romney, wants politicians to make decisions for people’s health care, never mind the health care dictatorship monstrosity he hurled through Congress called ObamaCare. Obama lied when he said he doesn’t play politics with acts of war in reference to this year’s 9/11 attack on the U.S. in Africa after a man asked Obama who denied requests for more security in Libya and why? The question went unanswered.
Interestingly, Obama displayed the strongest reaction of his presidency during discussion of the Libya mass murder, a scandal which is still unfolding. When the moderator, clearly biased toward Obama, pointed out an Obama error, his eyes widened with a wildness, as he became visibly agitated and – for the first time in recent memory – it seemed like he cared about something. But his reaction seemed triggered by a desire for concealment of the mysterious something, as though someone had come close to naming what he dreads being named. For a few moments, Obama looked like he’d been caught doing something he doesn’t want to get caught doing.
Of course, as in the Democrats’ convention and the first debate, Obama spoke of a moral obligation to serve others – to a lesser extent, so did Romney – and he explicitly attacked Romney for being a person of wealth, a rare admission that he detests wealth, capitalism and making money. Obama may be telling the truth (though I doubt it) when he said he believes that America’s free enterprise system is “the greatest engine of prosperity the world has ever known.” What he didn’t say that should be obvious to everyone by now is that he also believes that the engine must be throttled to serve the collective; to hell with what makes it run: a system of government based on individual rights.
One of the evening’s best questions, and there were a few in this town hall style meeting, came from a woman who wanted Governor Romney to explain what differentiates him from President George W. Bush. To his credit, Romney answered partially that Bush spent too much money – implying that Bush made government bigger and Bush certainly did – and was fiscally irresponsible. But the event’s – this was not a debate – best question came from an American who happens to be black. He explained that he had voted for Obama in 2008 and, with his head hung low, he told the candidates that he had lost confidence and wanted to know what Obama had done to earn his vote in 2012. In an exceptionally worded challenge to the president I call the Nothing Man, the undecided voter wanted to know how Obama’s election is in his selfish interest. The man’s question amounts to: ‘what’s in it for me?’
It is the only proper question. Faced with a historic choice between a candidate who stands for mixed premises, ‘whatever works’ and the most fleeting allegiance to almost any principle – or a sinister president bent on destroying America in a slow, blank fade to the terror of nothingness – there is one answer.