Distant. Aloof. Cold. Detached. I am, of course, describing the 44th President of the United States. There is a very good reason why these words keep appearing in newspapers and online. Because Barack Obama is distant. He is aloof. He is cold. He is detached. I was at Whole Foods Saturday, but I didn’t check the price of Arugula. Last time I bowled it was over 200, not a 37. When I hold a glass of beer, I look like I’ve held a glass of beer before. And oh, I know how to throw a baseball. 

Remember George Bush? They kept telling me he was a moron, yet somehow he got elected…President of the United States…TWICE. So who is the moron exactly? The reason? He came across as a regular person. In his past he liked to booze it up, he made jokes that can be childish (like every single guy on the freaking planet), he likes sports (he owned the Texas Rangers), and he makes errors when speaking, again, like most people do. Bush came across as some guy you would see at the local steak house in Dallas with his wife on a Saturday night.

Remember Bill Clinton? He obviously liked women and had a few too many of them, had an annoying wife, playing the saxophone, liked fast food, and came across as that friend you know who does too much of everything, but you love him anyway. Clinton came across as the guy at the strip club who is asked ‘so where is the wife tonight’ and replies ‘not here’…and everyone laughs.

Much of it is indefinable. It’s personality. It’s charisma. It’s also intangible. It is how someone ‘carries’ themselves. It is the language they use, or don’t use. It’s not about telling a hardscrabble story; we could all fashion one in some form or another. It is about how you relate to others as a person-how you look at other people. It’s about Relatability. 

Barack Obama has none. And the more you try to be someone you aren’t, the less genuine it looks. Is he black enough? Don’t know. He certainly has that Bryant Gumbel/Tiger Woods thing going, where you kind of ‘talk like a white man’. People don’t relate to Constitutional Law Professors. Think about what you think of professors. Now think of law professors. Now Constitutional law professors. Not exactly someone you can’t wait to go to the bar with. Obama is undefined and because of that, nobody defines themselves as similar to him. Because he refuses to take a stand on anything, always trying to find ‘consensus’, people don’t know what he stands for, if anything.

Fill in the blank…Barack Obama ____________.  You cant put black, or liberal, or likes to give speeches. What describes him?

The best you could say right now is that Barack Obama believes in Government.

Justice McNamara

Update on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 4:08PM by Russ

Bob, I think, asks the wrong question:

Is this what you’ve become…a Hollywood finocchio who cries like a woman?

I’ve been seen more and more reports in the MSM about how tired our Fearless Leader looks, how he seems distracted, how gray his hair is getting.  The hair thing seems to happen to most Presidents, but the others seem to indicate that our Divine Julius Obamacus Caesar is an unhappy man, that he’s not deriving any satisfaction from the job.  On the other hand, one could argue that he’s acting like a little kid who hasn’t gotten his way and is just going through the motions.

Then again, knowing Bob, he’s probably just being ironic. This is who Obama is…not what he’s become. Anyone who chose to actually look at his life during the election could have told you this would happen.

Bob links a great piece by Carol that mirrors Justice McNamara’s insight.

I have nothing to add other than that, again, this is who Obama is. This is who he’s always been. Don’t expect things to change, except perhaps for the worse.