It is startling to read something written by someone else that is identical in substance and thought to one's own writing. Below are lengthy excerpts by Peter Wehner in Commentary, December 4. Except for the lead paragraph I have not excerpted what I don't agree with totally. I recognize too an inconsistency in my own thought that is present also in Mr. Wehner's article: One who is "adamantine," a rigid ideologue, those characterizations I do not agree with totally, I do think, where once I thought Obama was the opposite, a floating piece of pragmatism drifting by, I now think he really does have a philosophical core, but one who has a philosophical core, moreso if he is adamantine, is not going to be "lost and confused," Wehner's terms, or "depressed," mine. Such a one is going to be oblivious to insults to the soul. I do not think Obama is chronically or clinically depressed, where a year and a half ago I thought the clash between the reality of the world and his worldview might well have produced acute depression. And I still think he might have been depressed then.
It is impossible for me to see other than depression, low spirits, the blues, the black dog, choose your term, choose your color, in his body language on Saturday. But what clash am I reading into his body language? To me it was perfectly clear: his Islam-view versus reality. Peter Wehner sees a clash there, too. But I read, and I put it aside because it clashed with my Obama-view, that the reason he was "adamant" about addressing the nation from the Oval Office, was because he was deeply concerned that his own adamant, sunny view of Islam was being "lost" in the all the campaign noise...Honest Injun, Pilgrim, that's what I read. So his soul isn't shaken by a clash with reality. He was fucking concerned that his message as the president of the United States, Islam is Peace, was being drowned out by the blare of Trump-ets! Fucking shakes my worldview to think that.
Anyway, I can't figure the guy out, and Peter Wehner has him not figured out the same way I do:
If you want to witness an adamantine mind at work, you could do a whole lot worse that observe the 44th president of the United States. Barack Obama is the most rigidly ideological president of my lifetime, a man who has a nearly blind adherence to a particular ideology (progressivism). It’s a disturbing, if at times a psychologically fascinating, thing to witness.
...
But in the case of jihadism, when the killers themselves are invoking the Koran and the Islamic faith to justify their malevolence — when the caliphate established in the heart of the Middle East is called the Islamic State — the president refuses to confront it. He goes into contortions to downplay or ignore the connection to Islam. He has a narrative to advance, and he will do it even if he has to run roughshod over reality to do it.
No one is asking Mr. Obama to indict all of Islam or have America or the West declare a war on it. He should do neither. But what we should expect is the president to understand the nature of the enemy we’re facing. It would also be refreshing if the president did not live in a world hermetically sealed off from facts that are inconvenient to his worldview. But that is precisely what Mr. Obama is doing.
Barack Obama has a self-conceit: He sees himself as pragmatic, empirical, a man driven by reason rather than emotion, truth rather than dogma. Which simply underscores how ideological he is. His self-conception is a self-delusion; he is blind to how closed his mind is and how much he distorts reality in the cause of his meta-narratives. This happens on issue after issue — Mr. Obama’s intellectual distortions are not, alas, contained to a single topic — but it may be most pronounced in his utter inability to see the struggle within Islam that is unfolding before his very eyes. He doesn’t want it to be true, and so he won’t allow it to be true.
Here’s the problem: There is an independent reality apart from what Mr. Obama thinks. He can ignore the truth, but he cannot wish it out of existence. And by ignoring the reality of things, he makes everything worse. (It turns out that calling ISIS a “jayvee team” last year and declaring it “contained” a day before the massacre in Paris doesn’t make it so. Who knew?)
Mr. Obama is lost and confused, inhabiting a world of his own making. That would be bad enough if
he was a community organizer; it is disastrous for a man who is president. America and the world are
paying a terrible price because of the closing of Barack Obama’s mind.
It is impossible for me to see other than depression, low spirits, the blues, the black dog, choose your term, choose your color, in his body language on Saturday. But what clash am I reading into his body language? To me it was perfectly clear: his Islam-view versus reality. Peter Wehner sees a clash there, too. But I read, and I put it aside because it clashed with my Obama-view, that the reason he was "adamant" about addressing the nation from the Oval Office, was because he was deeply concerned that his own adamant, sunny view of Islam was being "lost" in the all the campaign noise...Honest Injun, Pilgrim, that's what I read. So his soul isn't shaken by a clash with reality. He was fucking concerned that his message as the president of the United States, Islam is Peace, was being drowned out by the blare of Trump-ets! Fucking shakes my worldview to think that.
Anyway, I can't figure the guy out, and Peter Wehner has him not figured out the same way I do:
If you want to witness an adamantine mind at work, you could do a whole lot worse that observe the 44th president of the United States. Barack Obama is the most rigidly ideological president of my lifetime, a man who has a nearly blind adherence to a particular ideology (progressivism). It’s a disturbing, if at times a psychologically fascinating, thing to witness.
...
But in the case of jihadism, when the killers themselves are invoking the Koran and the Islamic faith to justify their malevolence — when the caliphate established in the heart of the Middle East is called the Islamic State — the president refuses to confront it. He goes into contortions to downplay or ignore the connection to Islam. He has a narrative to advance, and he will do it even if he has to run roughshod over reality to do it.
No one is asking Mr. Obama to indict all of Islam or have America or the West declare a war on it. He should do neither. But what we should expect is the president to understand the nature of the enemy we’re facing. It would also be refreshing if the president did not live in a world hermetically sealed off from facts that are inconvenient to his worldview. But that is precisely what Mr. Obama is doing.
Barack Obama has a self-conceit: He sees himself as pragmatic, empirical, a man driven by reason rather than emotion, truth rather than dogma. Which simply underscores how ideological he is. His self-conception is a self-delusion; he is blind to how closed his mind is and how much he distorts reality in the cause of his meta-narratives. This happens on issue after issue — Mr. Obama’s intellectual distortions are not, alas, contained to a single topic — but it may be most pronounced in his utter inability to see the struggle within Islam that is unfolding before his very eyes. He doesn’t want it to be true, and so he won’t allow it to be true.
Here’s the problem: There is an independent reality apart from what Mr. Obama thinks. He can ignore the truth, but he cannot wish it out of existence. And by ignoring the reality of things, he makes everything worse. (It turns out that calling ISIS a “jayvee team” last year and declaring it “contained” a day before the massacre in Paris doesn’t make it so. Who knew?)
Mr. Obama is lost and confused, inhabiting a world of his own making. That would be bad enough if
he was a community organizer; it is disastrous for a man who is president. America and the world are
paying a terrible price because of the closing of Barack Obama’s mind.
