President Barack Obama's Thursday news conference was a sober reminder of the nature of the man in the Oval Office. I infer that even many of his supporters in the liberal media are finally catching on to the magnitude of his personality disorders.
How could a man in his important position continue to act so childishly, accepting no responsibility for his policies and behavior and demonizing everyone who dares to disagree with or oppose him? It's worse than embarrassing; it's unsettling.
From the conference we are reminded that Obama believes that:
- Only "big and bold" intervention by the government can get an economy moving; so long as he cites a few "expert economists" who agree with him, there can be no other legitimate opinion.
- Anyone who disagrees with or opposes him is engaging in partisan politics rather than acting in good faith, on principle and in the best interests of the country. Republicans have blocked him for partisan reasons for not just the past six months, but the past 2 1/2 years. He has "gone out of (his) way in every instance to find common ground" with Republicans. You know, as with "I won, John" and "I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talkin'" and "stay in the back seat."
- If Republicans continue to oppose his jobs bill, it will be because they don't want laid-off policemen, firefighters, and teachers working again.
- The failure, waste, and corruption in his $868 billion stimulus package are irrelevant when considering whether to embark on another such reckless venture. He doesn't need to explain away the damning empirical data on his stimulus bill, because economists told him it would work and therefore it did work. If he hadn't spent all that borrowed money, we would have experienced another great depression. Anyone who disputes this is either a rube or improperly motivated.
- It doesn't matter that he famously breached his promise that unemployment would not exceed 8 percent if Congress passed his stimulus bill or that studies show that only 7 percent of the stimulus money went toward infrastructure despite his commitments to the contrary. Nor does it matter that he cavalierly joked about having lied about the existence of a plethora of "shovel-ready jobs." He is a well-meaning liberal, after all.
- His good intentions also exempt him from accountability on the Solyndra scandal, because his ideology inclines him toward a blind faith in the existence of cataclysmic man-made global warming, which in turn requires him to mandate government subsidization of "green technologies." Those allegedly noble intentions further entitle him to a pass for ignoring those who warned the government not to proceed with the project. His intentions relieve him from responsibility for Solyndra's abject failure to meet the projections of the same kind of geniuses he is berating us for not following on his jobs bill.
- He still isn't the slightest bit concerned about our national path toward bankruptcy, addressing it only with a few throwaway lines about how this bill would pay for itself, even though no bill of his has paid for itself.
- He is going to stick to his lies that a) his bill is a "jobs bill"; b) it would implement the "Buffett Rule" when Warren Buffett himself said he is only for raising taxes on the super-rich; c) the "rich" aren't paying their fair share of taxes; and d) Republicans have not put forward an economic plan.
- He is going to continue to pretend or fool himself into believing that the American people still back his socialist approach to economic problems; his class warfare approach to influencing public opinion; his demagogic approach to entitlement reform; and his hyper-partisan approach to problem solving.
- He has complete confidence in Eric Holder, so he doesn't need to worry about the facts on "Fast and Furious," either; Holder's dubious testimony is of no concern to Obama, and he doesn't have to answer for it, because he trusts Holder, and therefore, so should we. Besides, even if it should turn out that Holder did something wrong, Holder is the attorney general and Obama's not responsible for him.
- He is never going to stop blaming everyone and everything but himself for the problems he has caused. Thursday, he told us yet again that our economic mess was created by George W. Bush, the Japanese tsunami, the two wars, the Republicans' gamesmanship over the debt ceiling, and Europe's financial instability. Oh, yes, and many of our problems even "predate the financial crisis."
Our chief executive either is a mastermind at Machiavellian manipulation or has deep psychological and emotional problems. I've never seen an adult in an important leadership position — especially not the president of the United States — show such frightening immaturity and self-absorption.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author, and attorney. His latest book, "Crimes Against Liberty," was No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction for its first two weeks. Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at www.davidlimbaugh.com.
© Creators Syndicate Inc.