What I found shocking reflecting on last night's debate was how angry and entitled McCain was, in a very open way.
McCain's manner was one of that who believed he should not even be on the same stage with this person. This indicates a person of extreme rights and extreme wrongs, not a statesmanlike persona, but an angry and impulsive one.
McCain carries strong ideas of what a liberal is, ideas that vary little from his cherished ideas of who betrayed the nation during the Vietnam war. A stock character, driven and created by his own rage, carried, as it has been since the '70s, with a virtual ideological blindness--blinded by a contemptuous rage--that there are others who cannot understand the world the way he can. This is not judgment, but angry certainty. This is not readiness, but a just-contained rage that he should be confronted by such ideas.
You can see it in his constricted "can you believe it" rage at one who disagrees with his ideas. This kind of contemptuous, angry dismissal of others ideas leads easily into the impulsive decisions of the last few months--generated with barely contained contemptuous rejection of those who would reject his ideas--only the most recent forms of those essential constructs--a contemptible media, easily fed with false notions and panaceas, as he believes they were earlier in his life; intellectuals, whose reason and deliberation is contrasted with the sharp, impulsive action that for his life has constituted a certain knowledge, and an angry, certain need to sweep away those who would stand in the path of righteous certainty.
What is beautifully ironic is how McCain maintains this contempt even as he switches from one position to another in the opportunistic second--this is when the look of contempt and entitlement turns, for a moment, to anxiety and panic.
Soon, however, the gaze is back. No matter what the new position is--impulsively determined, desperately grasped--if only "they" knew better. If only "they" knew the truth.
This kind of ideological rigidity and certainty (note how Obama could not contain himself from smiling when McCain attempted to compare him to Bush in that regard) combined with impulsive decision making, from the "gut" of sure knowledge, is what has created the outcomes of the past 8 years.
It was--in a setting where one would not expect it to be, where one would expect McCain to contain it--glaring apparent last night.
This is an amplification of the last 8 years rather than a change.
We do not need to experience this type of decision making again.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
What A Debate Reveals: Anger, Entitlement and Contempt
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12 comments:
We still don't know Obama and he clearly STILL cannot answer a simple question. Do you know OBama?
http://doyouknowobama.blogspot.com
We DO know Obama, but the scary thing is, we also know what the republicans and John McCain have created for us in these last eight years!
The one topic i was interested in hearing was Immigration (i.e. illegal aliens). Its amazing how, in the beginning it was talked about a lot, & all of a sudden dropped, never to be talked about before the elections again.(pray-tell) why might that be?? My problem with B.O. is, because politicians have made themselves out to be such chronic liars over the past 20 or so years, how do we believe anyone now. He says he's converted from Islam to Christianity, but according to the Qur'an, in oder to do that, you need to make a public statement denouncing Islam. Maybe he did that & I never heard about it.. I don't believe a persons religion should be a platform for denying someone to be president, but what would be refreshing in a politician is "Being honest"
What does it matter if B.O is Muslim or Christian? He's never claimed to be Muslim. Anyway, judging from the debates, Obama strikes me as more of a "uniter" than McCain could ever be.
Mr. Obama is an American...just like the rest of us. We know who he is!
Obama was the ONLY one who WAS answering questions last night...not just saying things like "The veterans know I'll take care of them..." HOW? It's all generalizations. If you didn't hear Obama's thoughtful and well-thought-out responses it was perhaps because they were over your head. They were pretty clear to me and everyone else I talked to. Michael...get over yourself. Barack didn't have to renounce being a muslim because he WASN'T one! Perhaps Sarah Palin should denounce her wack-job of a church which she attended for 26 years even PARTICIPATING in things like "removing witchcraft." Obama may or may not have sat in a pew listening to his pastor and, like most, NOT agreeing with every word he said. It blows my mind that uneducated people who wrote 2 of the of previous posts even read this article as it was obviously way over their heads. If you couldn't see the blatant disdain for Obama that McCain displayed, the most glaring example of which was the way he wouldn't even LOOK at Obama when he was speaking, in fact turned his body away and made his trademark "I'm so much better than you" smirk. The funny part is, McCain states that he has experience yet still has not named more than one good bill he has worked on/passed (especially in the last 8 years) that has helped anyone other than the mega rich in this country!
Thank you, Dr. Lipman. This was very informative. I will be sharing your thoughts regarding McCain. I believe you are correct. I also believe that if the citizens of this country vote McCain into office then we deserve everything we get. This is our time to make a stance and say we won't take it any longer. Michael...get a clue. Again, Obama was never a muslim. Stop believing what the media is feeding you and actually start searching for the truth. You want honesty, but you don't want to put forth the effort to find it. Shame on you! Kristal, Dallas, TX
Hey Dr.,
Your comments on Sen. McCain are typical of you yellow dog liberals who talk, and talk, and talk, and offer no action on anything except to "steal" the money of productive people and risk takers who employ the majority of people to achieve your socialist goals. Some things never change. Obama is nothing but a charlatan and a demagogue who cites nothing but class warfare and this "middle class" nonsense who will lose their jobs if the small businesses in the country are taxed to death. But, socialists don't understand this until the collapse of their socialist policies occur and everyone suffers.
Wake up people. Obamasocialism will not work and the masses will suffer accordingly.
Hey Dr.,
Your comments on Sen. McCain are typical of you yellow dog liberals who talk, and talk, and talk, and offer no action on anything except to "steal" the money of productive people and risk takers who employ the majority of people to achieve your socialist goals. Some things never change. Obama is nothing but a charlatan and a demagogue who cites nothing but class warfare and this "middle class" nonsense who will lose their jobs if the small businesses in the country are taxed to death. But, socialists don't understand this until the collapse of their socialist policies occur and everyone suffers.
Wake up people. Obamasocialism will not work and the masses will suffer accordingly.
Dr- Thank you for this post.I quit WATCHING debates years ago as I found myself too easily distracted by mannerisms, etc. to keep track of what was being said. I was appalled at Mr McCain's tone of voice and belittling attitude throughout the debate. Beyond rambling generalities there was little substance in his responses.
I compared notes with a friend who watched. She was fuming about Mr McCain's angry stance and refusal to look at Mr Obama.
It was sad for both of us- we respected Mr McCain a great deal at one point. Not anymore.He does not seem to be able to get those last pictures of American soldiers being plucked off rooftops as the Vietcong marched into Saigon out of his head...Though sad, it is not the "place" I want a President making policy decisions about Iraq from. Nor decisions about Russia, nor Pakistan, nor Afghanistan...Contrary to many of my American neighbors , I don't buy the idea that foreign relations can be reduced to simple questions with simple answers.Mr McCain knows that too. He made much of Mr Obama considering sitting down with Iran "without preconditions".He knows full well that diplomatic circles make a LARGE distinction between "without preconditions" and the "unconditional" he kept implying Mr Obama was saying. Smarmy.Angry and smarmy .
there is another clip running around the interwebz of him being interviewed by the local des moines paper that shows more of the same from him, essentially. it is not that obama is black, as i originally thought; it is not even (necessarily) b/c obama is a liberal; as many have said, mccain has a problem w/ personalizing his politics. he sees anyone who disagrees w/ him as his enemy. that active aggression of his is what scares me the most; not just b/c he claims to value bipartisanship, but also b/c he will be leading us into what will inevitably be very tenuous relations w/ the rest of the world... his style is really more dick cheney than it is george dub, and there is a reason why dick wasn't the face of the admin, despite being the smarter one of the pair.
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