Here he is again at The Trinity United Church Of Christ:
W.T.PF???
The man is an embarrassment to the Catholic church, so I was pleasantly surprised to find (via Michelle Malkin) that a group of lay Catholic women who call themselves Catholic Women Against Politics And Hate Being Preached From The Pulpit have started a petition drive for the removal of Father Pfleger.
I know a lot of Catholics at the Ace Of Spades Father Pfleger thread were mortified, and embarrassed by this renegade priest being allowed to continue with his abuses against church teaching and tradition. If nothing else, signing the petition is cathartic.
I don’t say enough good things about John McCain. The truth of the matter is, I’m an arch-conservative, and let’s face it…McCain has done a lot of things to piss off conservatives, so much so, that it almost seems purposeful. And that causes many conservatives to stew.
Should I put up a McCain campaign button on my website? Should I drink the Koolaid, and become a good little Republican cheerleader for a guy I know is going to frustrate me in many ways as President, (if he wins the Presidency). I’ve never made any bones about whether or not I’d vote for the guy.
Nice Deb is voting for the guy.
The question is…Will I be able to enthusiastically support his campaign?
I don’t know about you, but I’ll take the B- over the F- any day of the week.
And stories like this one make the koolaid taste less bitter:
One evening last July, Sen. John McCain of Arizona arrived at the New Hampshire home of Erin Flanagan for sandwiches, chocolate-chip cookies and heartfelt talk about Iraq. They had met at a presidential debate, when she asked the candidates what they would do to bring home American soldiers — soldiers like her brother, who had been killed in action a few months earlier.
McCain did not bring cameras or a retinue. Instead, he brought his youngest son, James McCain, 19, then a private first class in the Marine Corps about to leave for Iraq. Father and son sat down to hear more about Flanagan’s brother, Michael Cleary, a 24-year-old Army first lieutenant killed by an ambush and roadside bomb.
No one mentioned the obvious: in just days, Jimmy McCain could face similar perils. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like for them as they were coming to meet with a family that –” Flanagan recalled, choking up. “We lost a dear one,” she finished.
McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee, has staked his candidacy on the promise that American troops can bring stability to Iraq. What he almost never says is that one of them is his own son, who spent seven months patrolling Anbar Province.
In his 71 years, McCain has confronted war as a pilot, a prisoner and a U.S. senator, but never before as a father. His son’s departure for Iraq brought him the same worry that every military parent feels, friends say, while the young Marine’s experiences there have given him a sustained grunt’s-eye view of the action and private confirmation for his argument that U.S. strategy in Iraq is working.
And then we have…Obama’s confirmation for his argument that U.S. strategy isn’t working:
Much has been written about Barack Obama’s charasmatic personality during his meteoric ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket. A reoccurring theme in many stories has been his apparent narcissistic qualities. Even though, for some time, I’ve been under the impression that Obama does indeed have some narcissistic qualities, I’ve resisted writing anything about it for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, I have no significant background in psychology, myself. I’m no expert, and can only claim to have a basic understanding of narcissistic disorder through what I’ve read independent of any sort of formal instruction. In other words, what do I know?
Secondly, this is a favorite ploy of the left. Bush (and conservatives) have been accused of every type of personality disorder known to man, (including narcissism), though on closer examination, one usually finds the diagnosis’ of disorder to be no deeper than, “we disagree with you so you must be crazy.”
Third…who cares? The man is still considered the second coming to millions even after the Reverend Wright, and William Ayers controversies; even after his terrorist endorsements, and commie connections came to light. So what if he’s in love with himself. To his narcissistic followers, that’s not a bad thing.
Finally…This assessment of Obama could be completely wrong.
But I don’t think so.
There’s just been so much written about Obama’s narcissism, going back over a year, (before he was even taken seriously as a contender), that it seemed worth looking into, and I thought it might be useful to bundle some of it up into one post.
As mentioned above, part of the reason for Obama’s success, I believe is the narcissism of his impressionable followers. Kathleen Parker put it this way at Real Clear Politics:
To play weatherman for a moment, he is a perfect storm of the culture of narcissism, the cult of celebrity, and a secular society in which fathers (both the holy and the secular) have been increasingly marginalized from the lives of a generation of young Americans.
All of these trends have been gaining momentum the past few decades. Social critic Christopher Lasch named the culture of narcissism a generation ago and cited addiction to celebrity as one of the disease’s symptoms — all tied to the decline of the family.
That culture has merely become more exaggerated as spiritual alienation and fatherlessness have collided with technology (YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) that enables the self-absorption of the narcissistic personality.
Grown-ups with decades under their double chins may have a variety of reasons for supporting Obama, but the youth who pack convention halls and stadiums as if for a rock concert constitute a tipping point of another order.
But it’s Obama’s own apparent narcissism that has most tongues wagging, many of them, psychologists who believe they’re able to detect most of the classic signs of the disorder in him. Here’s one I found in the comments section at The Debatable Land. This is from August, 2007;
Here are the DSM-IV criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (five or more listed below in order to make the diagnosis): 1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements); 2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love; 3. Believes that he of she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions); 4. Requires excessive admiration; 5. Has a sense of entitlement , i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations; 6. Is interpersonally exploitative, ie., takes advantage; 7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with feelings and needs of others; 8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her; 9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
While most (if not all) politicians exhibit some or many of these characteristics to one degree or another, one has to meet at least five of these criteria for the diagnosis. I’ll let people decide for themselves. In my humble but professional opinion (clinical psychologist), my observations confirm to me that he clearly meets five and most likely more of the above criteria. I have never given a diagnostic opinion for anyone without evaluating them personally, so I am reluctant to make this decision. However, as a psychologist may be employed as an expert profiler, this is my firm diagnostic impression. I’m interested in what others may think, keeping in mind their training and experience.
Another commenter with personal experience with NPD:
Personally, I think Obama clearly has narcissistic personality disorder.
My mother was diagnosed with it also. So I too have a really good idea of what it looks like. And to me, in Obama’s case, it’s clearcut.
And when I’ve looked online, I’ve seen that I’m not the only child of a narcissist who thinks this about Obama.
If you look at Obama’s language in books and speeches, there’s actually a great deal of “I” usage. And he’s prone to occasionally speaking in the third person. What I find more striking is that his “we” usage is often odd, as though everyone is an extension of him. My mother does exactly the same thing (a naive observer could even mistake this for selflessness). As well as the use of vague pretty language (everyone thinks she’s on their side) and the smooth charm.
Another person who claims to have a background in Psychiatry:
…In fact a friend of mine who is a police psychologist examined a few of Obama’s videos and appearances where he was defending himself and we both saw the classic symptoms showed by suspects when they lie. To be specific we know that when a person is lying they will become extremely defensive, refusing to answer any questions and even accusing you of lying, meaning they have something to hide.
Of course there is nothing wrong with defending oneself against an attack, but in Obama’s case you notice it’s never about the specific charges against him, it’s always about the attacker – his “persecutor”. It’s about deflection. It’s like the kid who gets caught in the cookie jar by Mom only to complain about what his sister is doing.
Here’s Dennis Pragertroubled by Michelle Obama’s remark about being proud of the United States for the first time in her life:
Sen. Obama later explained his wife’s remarks this way: “What she meant was, this is the first time that she’s been proud of the politics of America.”
I do not believe that Sen. Obama’s explanation is valid. I think Mrs. Obama said what she meant and meant what she said. But even if Sen. Obama’s reformulation of his wife’s remarks is valid, the fact remains that the closest person in the world to Barack Obama has never been proud of the politics of America, that it took her husband’s primary wins to change a lifelong lack of pride in anything about America’s political life. That’s troubling on its own — for his and her contempt for American politics. And it is even more troubling for its narcissism — do Sen. Obama and his wife believe that only his success has made American politics worthy of pride?
We are therefore confronted with either a contempt for America — if the original statement reflects Michelle Obama’s thinking — or some real narcissism on the part of both Sen. and Mrs. Obama. That narcissism is easily demonstrated. Just imagine if Hillary Clinton or John McCain had said they supported their spouse’s view that until their primary victories, they had never been proud of their country’s politics. Either of them would have looked foolish before the American people. That is why many believe Sen. Obama has been getting a relatively free ride in the American media, which largely adore him.
More blog buzz about Obama’s narcissistic personality here, here, and here.
Mark Steyn was taken aback by Obama’s reaction to Bush’s Knesset speech. If you remember, Obama was convinced that Bush, when speaking of appeasers, was referring directly to him:
It says something for Democrat touchiness that the minute a guy makes a generalized observation about folks who appease terrorists and dictators the Dems assume: Hey, they’re talking about me. Actually, he wasn’t — or, to be more precise, he wasn’t talking only about you. Yes, there are plenty of Democrats who are in favor of negotiating with our enemies, and a few Republicans, too — President Bush’s pal James Baker, whose Iraq Study Group was full of proposals to barter with Iran and Syria and everybody else. But that general line is also taken by at least three of Tony Blair’s former cabinet ministers and his senior policy adviser, and by the leader of Canada’s New Democratic party, and by a whole bunch of bigshot Europeans. It’s not a Democrat-election policy, it’s an entire worldview. Even Barack Obama can’t be so vain as to think his fly-me-to-[insert name of enemy here] concept is an original idea.
Yes, he can.
Then there’s Obama’s bizarre plan to rid the world of nuclear weapons:
I guess he’s going to be able to achieve all that based on his charm and good looks.
I may be just an armchair, amateur psychologist, but that right there is scary.
And here’s a recent example of what I would call narcissistic behavior, caught by Slublog at AOSHQ:
Yesterday, President Bush attended a number of fundraisers for John McCain. The media was not invited, and Barack Obama was outraged.
If you blinked, you missed it – John McCain and fellow GOPer President Bush held a private fund-raiser Tuesday night, but Democrat Barack Obama made sure it lasted all day. “No cameras, no reporters, and we all know why,” Obama said of McCain’s powwow with Bush.
“Sen. McCain doesn’t want to be seen, hat in hand, with the President whose failed policies he promises to continue.”
Mary Katharine Ham agrees with me, noting that Obama is now selling on his campaign website:
…a faux-leather-bound collector’s edition DVD of the “More Perfect Union” speech. A piece of oratory ripe for canonization at the age of just three months. A piece of oratory so sage in its insight, so true in its observations, so riveting in its delivery, that the orator himself admitted it was all bunk just one month after its delivery, and yet still believes that you should own a copy of this “landmark speech” from which he has since entirely backtracked.
Not only is this a ridiculously egotistical move, even for a presidential candidate, but it’s yet another appropriation of traditional patriotic words and imagery by a man who has claimed to dislike the manipulation of patriotic imagery for political purposes.
And Obama’s desire to give a campaign speech at Germany’s historic Brandenburg Gate:
The gate stood for 28 years behind the Berlin Wall in communist East Germany’s heavily fortified border zone. Probably the capital’s best-known monument, it was once a symbol of Germany’s Cold War division and now stands for its reunification.
Steg (spokesman for the chancellor), noted that the Brandenburg Gate has become “a place with a particular exclusivity, intensity and symbolism” in view of past speeches by sitting U.S. presidents and events such as a large rally in solidarity with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
As a result, he said Merkel has voiced “great skepticism as to whether it is appropriate to bring an election campaign being fought not in Germany but in the United States to the Brandenburg Gate.”
Steg said that “no German (chancellor) candidate would think of using (Washington’s) National Mall or Red Square in Moscow for rallies, because it would be considered inappropriate.”
Angela Merkel reportedly found Obama’s plan to be “a bit odd”.
In a famous 1987 speech that used the gate as a backdrop, President Reagan urged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “open this gate” and “tear down this wall.”
In 1994, four years after German reunification, President Clinton spoke on the other, formerly eastern, side of the gate – declaring that “Berlin is free.”
Americans are beginning to notice Obama’s elevated opinion of himself. There’s nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?
Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted “present” nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.
It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history — “generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment” — when, among other wonders, “the rise of the oceans began to slow.” As Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, “Moses made the waters recede, but he had help.” Obama apparently works alone.
Obama may think he’s King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.
After all, in the words of his own slogan, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” which, translating the royal “we,” means: ” I am the one we’ve been waiting for.” Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his lectern, until general ridicule — it was pointed out that he was not yet president — induced him to take it down.
UPDATE (July 23):
Yep, more and more people are are beginning to notice:
Barack Obama always was a larger-than-life candidate with a healthy ego. Now he’s turning into the A-Rod of politics. It’s all about him.
He’s giving his opponent something other than issues to attack him on: narcissism.
A convention hall isn’t good enough for the presumptive Democratic nominee. He plans to deliver his acceptance speech in the 75,000 seat stadium where the Denver Broncos play. Before a vote is cast, he’s embarking on a foreign policy tour that will use cheering Europeans – and America’s top news anchors – as extras in his campaign. What do you expect from a candidate who already auditioned a quasi-presidential seal with the Latin inscription, “Vero possumus” – “Yes, we can”?
Now I think he is so dangerously narcissistic his ego just warps the world around him, like gravity, so that everything really does wind up revolving around him.
This is pretty extraordinary. A candidate for the American Presidency is using flyers printed in German to turn people out for his campaign rally in Berlin on Thursday. This flyer can be found on a bilingual page on BarackObama.com advertising the event … The German flyers bear Obama’s campaign logo and say “Paid for by Obama for America.” …
So, this isn’t just some sober, high-minded foreign policy speech, part of a foreign trip occurring under the auspices of his official Senate office. It is a campaign rally occuring on foreign soil. They are using the same tactics to turn out Germans to an event as they would to any rally right here in America.
He calls this “breathtakingly arrogant”.
Glenn Reynolds says Obama seems to be running for President of the World.
UPDATE (July 24):
This spoof poster about Obama’s trip to Berlin says it all:
Via Newsbusters: Jake Tapper from ABC is one of the reporters covering Obama on his overseas trip. Here are some of his thoughts:
Obama’s campaign has been pulling out all the stops, distributing these flyers in German to round up a huge crowd for his speech tonight, one the Obama campaign is billing at almost presidential. Even though he is not the president.
-to his hobnobbing with world leaders, to his military exercises in Israel and Iraq, everything about this trip is meticulously designed to make you comfortable with Obama as commander in chief. That started with his newly retrofitted plane. The American flag on the tail wing has been replaced by an enormous Obama “O.” And the slogan “change we can believe in” is on the sides. [Tapper is now inside the plane.] Inside, the plane has been redesigned to separate the senator and his staff from us lowly reporters. And this was the site of a big media mutiny the other day as Obama officials insisted they’d be able to brief us on background as anonymous officials. One of them said that’s what we did at the White House during the Clinton years. We pointed out they don’t work at the White House. Other flourishes, an Obama napkin holder after we refueled in Ireland.
The operative term here is “hubris”. A word of Attic Greek origin, hubris was a major concept animating classical Greek thought. Hubris is overweening pride, an arrogance so profound and so visible as to affront the gods themselves. Hubris was a quality often identified with Greek tragic heroes. The hero allowed simple human pride in his accomplishments and station to burgeon to offensive proportions, at which point the wheels of fate began rolling. The ending was never good — the valiant Ajax stabs himself to death at a lonely spot, the kingly Oedipus is transformed into a howling, self-blinded wreck.
Barack Obama embodies hubris in chemically pure form. Not that he’s a tragic hero, or a hero of any sort, to anyone apart from his deluded legions of college freshmen. Beyond cleaning Hillary’s clock, he has no accomplishments to speak of, and as for his station… A glance at Trent Lott, Robert Byrd, and Ted Kennedy clearly reveals that “U.S. senator” is not a position of particular pride.
But even if he hasn’t founded cities, destroyed monsters, or led men into battle, Obama does share one quality with the heroes of the ancient world: an absolute conviction that he is superior to the ordinary run of humanity. Like them, Obama believes himself a man of destiny, and like them, Obama will go over the edge.
UPDATE: (August 2):
Another American Thinker, Kyle-Anne Shiver believes Obama is a gift from God:
Barack Obama actually appears to be running against God. By claiming that he can do things only God can do, like heal “broken souls” and fill up “holes” in people’s hearts, make all “divisions” go away and disperse with all inconvenient “distractions,” Barack Obama claims power that no mortal man, and certainly no mere president has ever had, or ever will have, no matter how much money he has to spend or how brilliant or how able he may be.
Most rational human beings know this without thinking hard.
That’s why this isn’t an ordinary election, and why it is becoming more absurd by the hour.
-Snip –
Obama has arisen from nothingness, from one accomplishment-free political gig to another, propped up by leftists adulators and sycophants, to offer a perfect portrait of socialism’s eternal snare. Forget God; put your hope in mankind. Human arrogance and narcissistic pride. From the fall in the Garden to the present, from generation to generation, Satan’s delusion holds sway with many.
Barack Obama is walking, talking, breathing narcissism. The iconography of his campaign is nothing, if not the glorification of Obama, a solitary, quite mortal man. They must glorify Obama’s image because, in reality, he has no accomplishments that bear mention.
Obama struts his nothingness with grace; even his detractors admit that.
What could more openly and more amply demonstrate the absolute emptiness of socialism’s promise than the perfectly empty resume of its newest hero?
-SNIP-
The salvation that Obama offers comes in the form of radically changing America to a utopian state, which he contends will fix our “broken souls.” That simply is not within the province of his abilities.
As Pope Benedict has so wisely and emphatically stated:
Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.
— Truth and Tolerance; p. 116
Barack Obama stands front and center now, offering the age-old false promise that mankind can save itself through “collective redemption,” and simply because he employs Christian language and symbols, no genuine lovers of God will be fooled.
Hope in God?
Or hope in Obama?
I thank God every day for giving us Americans such a clear and easy choice. Perhaps He is simply using Barack Obama to separate a bit of chaff from the grain.
Are you thinking of visiting the Flight 93 crash site? If you plan your visit for the weekend of August 2nd, you can help stop the gigantic terrorist memorial mosque that will soon start rising from the ground there.
August 2nd is the next scheduled public meeting of the Memorial Project, where anyone can sign up to speak during the public comment period. Tom Burnett Sr. (whose son Tom Jr. broke into the cockpit of the hijacked airplane) announced last Friday that he and Alec Rawls will be traveling to Somerset for the August meeting. They will be rallying outdoors, speaking at the public meeting, and visiting the crash site.
Mr. Burnett is asking other concerned parties who can make it to please come. The crash site is a beautiful and meaningful place to visit in any case, and here is a chance to make your visit even more meaningful. It is an opportunity to in some small way follow the lead of the heroes of Flight 93 by helping to stop the re-hijacking of Flight 93.
Mr. Burnett’s announcement came on the Mancow Muller radio show, where Congressman Tancredo was also a guest. When controversy over the Crescent of Embrace design first arose back in 2005, Tom Tancredo was instrumental in forcing the Park Service to alter the design. Last fall he noted that the giant crescent remains unchanged in the so-called redesign and asked the Park Service to scrap the design entirely. On Friday he said that he would help Mancow Muller and Tom Burnett to stop the crescent design (audio, 19 seconds):
Certainly I will do everything I can to help you. I will bring it to the attention of my colleagues. I’ll use the time I have on the floor of the House to rail against it.
General Benjamin S. Griffin, commanding general, U.S. Army Materiel Command, talks with Brig. Gen. ShallalAbdul Rasool Habeeb.
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero. We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
Nice Deb 
