Peggy Noonan and @barackobama’s unconscious* assumption of privilege.

Peggy Noonan is quite the humorist.

This is the reason many people don’t like ObamaCare. It’s also part of why people wind up making fun of the president at state fairs. (On that, everyone should breathe deep and remember, as the noted political philosopher Orson Welles once put it: “It’s the business of the American people to take the mickey out of the president.” It’s not only what we do, it’s what we should do. Welles was speaking on a talk show; it was the 1970s; he was talking about people making fun of some Republican president, Nixon or Ford. So what? They can take it. And they’re not kings. Let me suggest a classy Obama move that might go over well. From his Vineyard vacation spot he should have the press office issue a release saying his reaction to finding out a rodeo clown was rudely spoofing him, was, “So what?”

…HAHAHAHAHA!  Good one!

Say he loves free speech, including inevitably derision directed at him…

…HAHAHAHAHA!

…and he does not wish for the Missouri state fair to fire the guy…

…HAHAHAHAHA!

…and hopes those politicians (unctuously, excessively, embarrassingly) damning the clown and the crowd would pipe down and relax. This would be graceful and nice, wouldn’t it?

…HAHAHAHAHA!  Of course, Peggy knows full well that she’s making a funny:

He would never do it. He gives every sign of being a person who really believes he shouldn’t be made fun of, and if he is it’s probably racially toned, because why else would you make fun of him?

The truth of it is, Barack Obama enjoys an enviable position for a Democratic politician: people in this culture tend to be extra-cautious when it comes to making too-public, too-caricaturing fun of people who happen to have large amounts of melanin in their skin.  In most cases, this is a combination of laudable shame about some of the less savory events in our history, and a genuine hesitance to offend; alas, when applied to Barack Obama, the practical result is that it’s given him a full-blown case of elitist privilege.  And I think that Obama’s blissfully unaware about just how much he benefits from it.  Then again, I have never really been impressed with this guy’s intellectual curiosity.  I mean, I’m sure that he must have some; it’s just that Obama’s never been forced to work for (or at) anything, and dear God but does it show by now.

:pause:

They really and truly did go out and find a caricature of George W Bush to run in 2008, didn’t they? Although, speaking clinically: a real shame that they couldn’t find one that didn’t need lopsided majorities to get legislation passed.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Mind you… like so many other things about Barack Obama, this fortunate (for him) immunity that he enjoys is not particularly transferable.  And it will be highly amusing to watch the eventual Democratic 2016 candidate react badly to discovering that.

*The ‘unconscious’ part is, as they say, a topic of some debate.  Personally: I have a low opinion of the average cultural sophistication and self-awareness of Ivy-League public-policy academics who have never held real jobs as adults.  Others are free to differ with me on that.

12 thoughts on “Peggy Noonan and @barackobama’s unconscious* assumption of privilege.”

  1. In re: PS:
    Moe, they’re already trying to insulate Hillary from such lampoonery vis a vis her double X chromosomal position.

    1. People, especially women in positions of authority, seem to view a missing Y chromosome as a reason for extra challenge …
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      Put another way, the worst boss for a powerful woman is another powerful woman. (makes you really wonder about Huma Weiner*, doesn’t it?)
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      Mew
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      * I’m kind of old school about wives taking their husbands’ names.

    2. It hasn’t really worked all that much. We can always point to all the BS the Left has thrown at our Women Candidates. The best way to neutralize “historic” Hillary is to either nominate a women as our Candidate ( Martinez, Fallin,Haley) or nominate one as our VP ( all the above plus a significant portion of the Republican Conference in Congress)

        1. No, that’s ancient history to a significant part of the electorate. Keep asking about that Reset With Russia, Egypt, and other noteworthy accomplishments in her time as SecState.

  2. Someone alluded to the terror among the left that once the mockery of O’bama starts, if they don’t stop it, it will never end. Hence the overkill on the rodeo clown. Having a Democrat President laughed out of office would not be a good harbinger of things to come for the Democrats.

    Why do you think he must have “some” intellectual curiosity Moe, I haven’t seen any signs of it. That’s been my impression from the beginning, he has zero intellectual curiosity, it would force him to go outside his comfort zone.

    1. Between Jay Leno and a rodeo clown, the cracks are gettin’ pretty wide …
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      At some point, the whole fetid, PC-covered boil is gonna pop.
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      Mew

      1. Yep, that’s my impression too. That explains the terror on the left and the desperate over reaction to the rodeo clown event. They can sense the moment approaching and are utterly unable to come up with a way to derail or divert it.

        1. The timing looks good, from here, to hit during the 2014 election, which means every poster of Dem* candidate X with Obama becomes fodder for mockery.
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          Mew
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          * Chris Christie and Mitch McConnell included

      1. Given the salary range he and Michelle were in back in Chicago, do you think they raised the girls, or farmed it out to nannies?
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        I do think, for what it’s worth, that he has some intellectual curiosity .. but that he has mostly been – and continues to be – coached into mis-directing it.
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        Mew

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