Mr. Obama regrets…
…he’s unable to lunch tomorrow with King Harald of Norway.
President Obama cancels the traditional prizewinners’ lunch with the Norwegian monarch. In his continuing effort to needlessly offend even those previously disposed to like him, Obama has not only insulted the King of Norway, he also plans to skip the special concert on Friday in his honor, as well as foregoing the usual visit to the Nobel Peace Center.
Norwegians are not happy. Europe is slowly learning what Americans already know: that this president is either intentionally (or ignorantly) rude and arrogant, when he’s not being inappropriately obsequious.
[ADDENDUM: And then there’s Britain.]
Norway, you are stiffed. Now get stuffed. It is the way of the Obama.
He would have accepted if his tele-prompters were permitted to be placed to his left, right and across the table.
He did this to Sarkozy, too. When the head of one state invites the head of another state to dinner, I don’t think it is because one likes the other or plans for fun repartee. It is a matter of state. Is the State Department ever consulted on matters of protocol in this administration?
The snub is embarrassing to the people of Norway. But, it’s what they deserve for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama.
Utterly bizarre: to accept the prize without accepting the mannerly obligations that go with it. What could he possibly be thinking?
Mrs Whatsit: I ask myself the same question. The best answer I can come up with is that Obama doesn’t get the way human interactions work, and he doesn’t comprehend that he can actually end up offending his supporters if he doesn’t do these sorts of things. He has never really had to suffer the consequences of his actions and his arrogance; everybody’s always kissed his butt whatever he does, for some reason.
I also have a hunch that he hates these state lunches and museum visits and the like. He came very close to saying so during the campaign. So he disses people because he thinks he can get away with it, and doesn’t have the patience for doing the things he finds boring.
He’s never met “a hand that feeds” that he hasn’t bitten.
He only treats white folks that way.
He’s a jackass.
Someone said that those between, roughly, 30 and 55 do the world’s work. In our American culture, where youth is given credit commonly not yet earned, they also call the tune, as the piper said when booed.
Obama seems to perfectly represent the majority of that demographic, who seldom assume responsibility, but always assume someone else, who has accumulated some wealth, should pay.
As I was warned, decades ago, “experience is the best school, but also the most expensive.” We all now have been re-enrolled.
Great, I’m happy to see Obungler give the Nobel crowd the respect they deserve for turning the prize into a joke; from Arafat, to Gore, to B.O himself …
Hahahaha. This is fantastic. These people foolishly gave him a freebie Nobel Prize before he did anything to deserve it, and now theyre being snubbed. They fully deserve it.
Theres a fictional Cuban story my mother once told me about a greedy baker who went to court to sue someone who smelled the aroma of bread from his bakery. The greedy baker wanted to be paid for it. The wise judge’s verdict was that the baker should be paid for the aroma of his bread by the sound of a coin dropping. The moral, in other words, was that if one doesn’t provide the substance, they shouldnt expect payment for what amounts to nothing.
By giving Obama the Nobel prize, the Europeans paid top dollar for nothing… and now, theyre getting it. LOL !!!!
Whenever I get to worrying about our country’s future, it’s stuff like this that reassures me.
Some people are obsessed with the idea of taking President Obama down. There’s no need. He has plenty of ammunition, and he seems content to keep firing away at his own feet. The rest of us can just stand by and watch.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
P.S. — I’m waiting for a prominent Bush-basher to admit that President Bush actually did a much better job with America’s image abroad than President Obama is doing. Any bets on how long it will be?
I have met King Harald. He is quite nice..
Absolutely.
Karma is a bitch.
A Key quote from the article NEO lied to on Britain :
“What he did in Eastern Europe, he now seems to be doing to us. The Obama administration is far happier doing business with Brussels than it is with Britain.
It’s no coincidence that some of Obama’s closest advisers on European affairs, both inside the Pentagon and the State Department, are fervent believers in the idea of a federal Europe and are certainly helping those leading the charge towards a European super-state.
As a result, the Obama administration has already given its enthusiastic support to the Lisbon Treaty, the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, and the European Security and Defence Policy – all pan-EU initiatives. ”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1234291/NILE-GARDINER-Does-Obama-Britain.html#ixzz0ZEyC3VNP
not “lied to” but ” linked to”. Sorry NEO
Lisbon Treaty and Copenhagen Treaty. They are both nets. The former is smaller , but tighter. The second is not so tight, but larger.
That’s what happens when you elect “Celebrities”…
Forget the King of Norway.
Al Sharpton is upset, very upset:
The Rev. Al Sharpton held a press conference today to blast Tiger Woods for the lack of diversity among his mistresses. Sharpton claims that the lack of African-American women among Woods’ harem will have a negative affect on the black community, specifically young black girls…
http://www.celebjihad.com/celeb-jiha…ress-diversity
How many times have we heard leftist say ” We must all come together.” Not really addressing underlying problems, but rather they are suggesting that sinking ships tied together will not sink.
“We must all come together” is meant a lot more literally than many wish to believe.
When the US dollar callapses, they will most likely suggest a regional or world currency- rather than address the real issues…….
For J.L.:
The story of the greedy baker and the stolen smell has a nearly exact counterpart in one of the stories of the Japanese judge, Ooka Tadasuke. The story of “Ooka and the Stolen Smell” may be found here, just as I read it during my childhood in Japan.
http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/vbz/showthread.php?t=49857
or
http://tinyurl.com/ychx73q
The theme may be universal.
I’m waiting for some visiting head of state, when asked about his visit to the White House, to say ‘I didn’t know you could spend a million dollars at IKEA’….
The Won doesn’t need to talk to the King of Norway.
That doesn’t further his power in any way, now does it.
So much freedom to destroy, so little time left to do it in.
Obama truly believes every breathe may be his last. So, no time wasted talking to old white guys when he should be issuing more EPA directives and giving more borrowed money to unions, friends, and the Democrats.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1234430/Mystery-spiral-blue-light-display-hovers-Norway.html
Mystery as spiral blue light display hovers above Norway
and i have no idea… period.. lots of images.. but other than a projection… i cant think of what would cause that (especially since its not parallel to gravities forces).
“He only treats white folks that way.”
No, not really. Alice Palmer, the state senator who actually gave him his start in politics, and who Obama maneuvered out of being on the ballot during his election to her former office, was black, as was Rev. Wright. They’re right there under the bus with King Harald, Queen Elizabeth, and Gordon Brown.
“I’m waiting for a prominent Bush-basher to admit that President Bush actually did a much better job with America’s image abroad than President Obama is doing.”
Actually, AIDS activist Gregg Gonsalves said something closely akin to this, according to, of all places, the NYT. Gerard VDL has it on his “On the Right” column at his blog. Except Gonsalves doesn’t appear as concerned with image as with actions regarding treatment of AIDS in places like Africa.
David L.:
Thank you for the links.
Wow, that is indeed the same story. Very interesting.
I’m thinking there may be a Kenyan version, with a cook named Barack.
neo-neocon Says:
“I also have a hunch that he hates these state lunches and museum visits and the like.”
That and/or he is afraid of making social blunders. They’re not that big a deal and everyone makes them, but progressive lefties are so invested in acting like they’re cosmopolitan (as opposed to Bush and US ‘conservatives’) that even normal small ones really scare them. Sorta like bowing when not called for… but on a smaller scale… probably scares him these things will keep adding up.
J.L. Says:
“By giving Obama the Nobel prize, the Europeans paid top dollar for nothing… and now, theyre getting it. LOL !!!!”
They blew it the second they gave him the prize. It was another revelation of how lefties think. Have the right views / OPINIONS and your rewarded as if you achieved something (even when you have not). Have the wrong opinions and your out regardless. It said a lot about them.
If the Euros think they’re getting short shrift now, wait until they really need the US. Think Barry is going to break a leg lungeing to help them? I don’t. They’ll be lucky to get some fine words.
For my money, proof positive that Europe is inhabited by idiots is their fervor for Obama. If you were hiring a bodyguard, would you hire Pee Wee Herman? Apparently they would.
Occam’s,
Here is some more proof for the idiocy of Europe:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240504574585611840106426.html
Eurobabble at its best!
Just to be clear, I’m not a raving xenophobe. (I’m a raving something else, but not xenophobe.) My wife is a Euro, and agrees with me 100%.
For some reason have been unable to post, so I’m trying this. But the abstract for my post was: that op-ed was amazing, expat!
“…he’s unable to lunch tomorrow with King Harald of Norway.” If you didn’t know better you’d think he was on to something good.
A quote from the Thorbjorn Jagland article cited by expat above:
Here’s an example of the difference between pie-in-the-sky ideas and reality. The idea of universal rights and responsibilities may have been referred to in the UN charter, but that same UN charter also set forth five nations to have permanent seats on the UN security counsel, all with veto power. So (at the risk of sounding like that nut-job Qadafi) the UN never was an egalitarian institution to begin with. Nor were such ideals in evidence when the “third world” votes en bloc against the West and against Israel, while giving dictators seats on the Human Rights Commission.
I’m all for ideals guiding one’s actions to a limited extent. But one is headed for a great fall if they cannot differentiate between those ideals and the harsher reality we really live in.
Here’s another goody, but this one makes sense.
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/12/09/totalitarian-sentimentality
Re: the previous posts by David L. and myself about the story of “The Stolen Smell”:
I googled the story, and it apparently exists in several cultures. As David L. noted, the theme appears to be universal. Here is the Peruvian version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klUuRADwXEw
It appears that the Japanese version may be the original. But its very interesting that the same concept has resonated among many cultures.
Anyway, after getting a whiff of the smell coming out of Washington lately, I may want my money back. LOL
Neo wrote, “The best answer I can come up with is that Obama doesn’t get the way human interactions work, and he doesn’t comprehend that he can actually end up offending his supporters if he doesn’t do these sorts of things. ”
This rings true to me, and it bespeaks a lack of empathy that many are beginning to notice. That goes, I believe, with various pathologies I am not qualified to try to diagnose. What mystifies me most is that the man is a politician and an extraordinarily successful one (until just recently, at least.) I would have thought, Before Obama, that any successful politician would know, if nothing else, what makes other people respond and how to manipulate that. Bill Clinton was a master of the form. But this one — how did it happen that someone could manipulate so many people so swiftly and successfully to get what he wanted, while apparently understanding so very little about how people work?
Mrs Whatsit,
that might apply if he wasnt a post turtle..
his ability didnt get him there, and his ability will not get him off the post either…
so he doesnt need to have those skills if everyone around him gushes and does the talking and padding for him. i have gotten that treatment from people who wanted to have me be accepted fast. for the most part, you just smile, and shake hands, and gush at all the wonderful things people say. if you have enough noteworthy people do that, and you really dont have to have abilities, they apply their abilities for you.
now this is not usually done for someone with so little talent, but when done artificially it can act like payola… so what is a system for introducing people of talent or ability to others can be used by relying on peoples focus on trappings… and if you can make the same motions, often you get the same responses because there is an assumption that such actions wouldnt be wasted on someone without the ability.
you can make climate scientists this way too… and once boxed into an area that they cant actuall work or progess, they then either own up and walk, or they cheat..
as far as not getting how human interactions work, that has to do more with understanding what he is doing, and then judging where we are in relation to that.
that without knowing what he is actually doing and what line he is actually walking, we cant tell what the peoples responses should be… yeah he is making them less happy… but what his goal is may make no one happy anyway… so in this case, the rate happiness falls is what counts rather than whether we have it or not. in that case, his rate only has to last enough to put us in a position that is the goal.
here is the big problem.
that same position assumes that the other big states are just going to sit there and let it happen and not try to take advantage of it. hard to fight if you have not enough weaponry (using it up everywhere), its all over the world, there is no way to ramp up manufacturing, and no way to get loans to pay for it all either. a tapped out country is a very vulnerable country
“He only treats white folks that way.”
To put it even more succinctly, with a nod to Kanye West, “Barack Obama doesn’t care about white people.”
And, it does seem to be true. He goes bowing and scraping all over the world to various non-white world leaders but when it comes to the white people in Europe he can hardly be bothered to give them the time of day. Perhaps he is unconciously, or conciously, channeling his father and paying them back for any perceived ill-treatment they might have perpetrated on Africans. Not “Dreams of my Father” but rather “Revenge of my Father”. It’s happened often enough now that it seems to be beyond the level of coincidence. As I said in an earlier thread, Obama needs to learn that he represents the country, but is not himself the country. His petty little displays like this do not serve our interests at all.
The White House issued a statement that President Obama said, “He did not want to meet King Harald V, without first meeting King Haralds I, II, III, and IV.”
kcom Says:
December 9th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
He doesn’t care.
He’s a master at getting people to think well of his abilities, without ever having had to demonstrate them. Thus he’s editor of the law review, but never writes an article for it. He’s begged to take a part-time position teaching con law, but to the despair of the faculty, he never writes any of the articles needed to justify a tenured appointment.
Everyone wants that clean, articulate black man on their team, because it makes them look (according to lefty standards) good. But in the end, it’s all glamour, because there’s nothing behind the image.
Occam’s Beard Says:
“For my money, proof positive that Europe is inhabited by idiots is their fervor for Obama. If you were hiring a bodyguard, would you hire Pee Wee Herman? Apparently they would.”
And now none of us are going to run to help them either.
Check out how they were rude to the Hollywood types.
neo said: Mrs Whatsit: I ask myself the same question. The best answer I can come up with is that Obama doesn’t get the way human interactions work, and he doesn’t comprehend that he can actually end up offending his supporters if he doesn’t do these sorts of things. He has never really had to suffer the consequences of his actions and his arrogance; everybody’s always kissed his butt whatever he does, for some reason.
That’s as good as I can do too, though I might add my suspicion that Obama remains something of an unrepentant stoner and a slacker :
“What do these people expect of me? Like, I need to chill, once in a while, dude.”
Mrs. Whatsit ( or is that Whachamacallit):
While most politicians are “people persons,” not all are. Consider Richard Nixon.
Letterman’s top ten reasons
1) He knows he didn’t deserve the prize, so avoids spending much time in Norway. The more time he spends there, the greater the possibility there is of being found out. Think Telltale Heart.
2) To stiff the Norwegians for their imperialistic treatment of the natives in their colony of Spitzbergen
3) He is an isolationist and doesn’t give a hoot about Euros once he has gotten what he wants out of them.
4) While the State Department knows all the details about how a POTUS should behave towards furriners- they’ve been doing this for a while- there is a Hillary mole at State who is sabotaging him. After all, the foreign missteps have been going on for most of Obama’s term.
5) He will get neither votes nor contributions from the dinner.
6) He’s heard horror stories about lutefisk from listening to Prairie Home Companion.
7) He heard rumors that the Norwegians still clung to guns and religion. Oh wait, that was the Swiss for guns.
8) He had heard that the lack of sunlight in Norway in December led to a nervous breakdown.
9) He doesn’t want to miss the Chicago Cubs game at Caminsky Field. ( Actually Comiskey to Caminsky is real live Chicago speak)
10) His childhood is one of perennial dislocation. His guardians kept telling him, “Remember to do this in that situation.” Yes, all kids get those instructions. It is hard enough for a kid to adapt his behaviors to ONE consistent set of instructions, but Obama got multiple ones. Must have been very disorienting. Result: when the State Department goes into the instructional mode for how to behave with those furriners, Obama says, “Hell with it.I won’t jump through those hoops any more.” He finally got himself comfortable in Hyde Park, and that was the last adaptation for him. All the hoops he jumped through on the campaign trail, he first jumped in Hyde Park.
As a riff on Neo’s title, here is Ella Fitzgerald singing Miss Otis Regrets from the Cole Porter Songbook. Say no more.
Yeah
Well you can bump and grind
It is good for your mind
Well you can twist and shout let it all hang out
But you won’t fool the children of the revolution
No you won’t fool the children of the revolution, no no no
It probably doesn’t apply, but I’m listening to good ol’ M. Bolan and T. Rex, and thinking about B. Obama.
10) His childhood is one of perennial dislocation. His guardians kept telling him, “Remember to do this in that situation.” Yes, all kids get those instructions. It is hard enough for a kid to adapt his behaviors to ONE consistent set of instructions, but Obama got multiple ones. Must have been very disorienting. Result: when the State Department goes into the instructional mode for how to behave with those furriners, Obama says, “Hell with it.I won’t jump through those hoops any more.” He finally got himself comfortable in Hyde Park, and that was the last adaptation for him. All the hoops he jumped through on the campaign trail, he first jumped in Hyde Park.
Gringo: I don’t know if that’s a Letterman Top 10, but it sounds bang-on to me.
I read Obama as a deeply wounded individual who is about the last person who should be POTUS.
Neo –
think there’s any chance O has Asperger’s Syndrome?
It’d explain a lot…
I think what Gordon said has a lot of merit. He has always been an entertaining exotic. I can imagine him at Harvard tossing in an amusing anecdote about Indonesian to deflect attention from his failing information about a subject. He knows exactly how to use his background to make others feel a bit provincial, so rather than confront, people just accept what he says as true. The most threatening thing in the world to an educated cosmopolitan Harvard type is to be considered a rube.
That Jon Stewart piece that makes fun of Obama’s weatherization ideas shows something else about Obama: he jumps on one tiny idea that ties togethers uneducated black kids with the great goal of saving the environment and he doesn’t let go. Now, there’s nothing wrong with caulking windows, but it’s not an energy policy. It is also not something that requires federal attention. In fact, he could have gotten something like that started in Chicago years ago. Why didn’t he? It was too hard; he needed the power of the presidency–to caulk windows.
I just caught a bit of a talk round on Obama’s prize. There were some expats, including an economist who teaches at the Free University of Berlin. He was talking about how Obama will push forward the environmental measures that Bush ignored. Someone else mentioned that there is lots of innovation in America re: solar and wind energy. It sounded as though this has all happened under Obama. None of the America “experts” in the round bothered to point out that America doesn’t work top down, that millions of little people in America have the opportunity to try things out and that the best ideas are eventually taken up. It drives me nuts that such people are distributed around the world explaining America and reinforcing clichees.
Nobel ceremony: Michelle is wearing a sweater. Obama is the fulfillment of Martin Luther King’s dream. Almost sounded as though the Nobel Committe all by itself brought about the end oof racism in America. Now they are into the brothership of nations and how only Obama understands this. The nose is up in the air. I will try to listen to a bit of Obama’s speech, just to see what’s up, but my belly is churning already. I fear I may lose my lunch. Wish me luck.
Well, he defended America, and even said some nice words about Reagan, but he went back to his stopping torture and ordering Guantanamo closed. Same old, same old Barry. The line that really got to me was about people trying to vote being intimidated. Of course, the Euros don’t know about the New Back Panthers in Philly and how they were given a pass because Barry and co. couldn’t stand up to the radical blacks. The Euros never hear anything bad about Obama so he can skate through without being asked about his contradictions.
While lots of previous prize winners were mentioned today, I didn’t hear Shirin Ebadi’s name. Maybe I just missed it.
Dear Gringo.
FYI the Cubs play at Wrigley Field and not at Comensky Park (reference Point 9).
Huxley, for accuracy’s sake I should have labeled it “Gringo Top 10.”
Huxley :
Years ago a childhood friend talked to me about the perils of interracial adoption. My friend works in high-level management, knows enough about social work and such to write 500 page manuals, and is black.
The friend brought up an example of a black adopted by white professionals, whom the friend knew when both were children- in an attempt to give the adoptee “black experience” as a child- who ended up in prison. Reason: difficulty in navigating self-identity as a minority when raised by majority members. Being raised by whites, in a lily-white town, he self-identified as white, and had difficulty when on his own in a society which considered him black.
I related the story of friends of my parents who adopted a child from Asia when they worked there. We saw each other every year. As a child the adoptee was of sunny disposition. Raised in a prosperous suburb, there was no distinction placed on the adoptee from being white/Asian. When the family moved temporarily to California, the adoptee was placed in a situation where long term socialization was expected to segregate itself along racial lines:” Go hang out with the Asians.” This was a message the adoptee had never heard before. Sunny disposition no more, and years of therapy had no effect. Years later, long returned from California, the adoptee committed suicide, unintentionally taking down the one remaining parent.
After hearing this story, my friend told me, “After you started the story, I knew it was going to end up badly.”
The parents who adopted interracially were loving and attentive. That wasn’t the issue. Minority identity being raised by majority parents, and navigating the issues of self-identity, was the issue. BTW, when I worked in Trinidad, I had direct experience in realizing that being a racial minority in a majority society IS an issue: as a Trinidadian MBA student at USC sitting next to me on my flight out of Trinidad stated, “the shoe is on the other foot.” Given what society is, Obama made the correct decision to self-identify as black.
Given those horror stories about interracial adoption, it is a miracle that Obama ended up as well as he did. Granted, being the child of an interracial couple, and being raised by white grandparents and an Asian stepfather in addition to one’s white parent isn’t exactly the same situation as what is related above. But there are similarities, and for a variety of reasons, wounded he is.
“it’s what they deserve for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama.”
Not to mention Jimmy Carter and Al Gore.
To quote the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committtee, they should “think of this as a kick in the leg.”
Wouldn’t it be funny if the Peace Prize Committee didn’t send the million dollar check? Eventually, Obama would call them and ask “Where is it?, and the Committee could tell him “The check is in the mail.” As many times as necessary.
What could he do? Nothing!
Bob from Virginia:
Bob, what I wrote, I wrote quite deliberately. Last summer, in an interview with Bob Costas about Obama’s being a White Sox fan, Obama referred “what used to be Cominskey Field” as the place where the White Sox play. He got two out of threee right. He was correct about the name change: it is now U.S. Cellular Field .When Obama referred to Cominsky/Kaminsky instead of Comiskey, he was speaking in the Chicago vernacular. However, were you to poll US males, not just in Chicago, my guess would be that 90-95% of them would state that Wrigely Field was the home of the Cubs, and that Comiskey Park referred to the White Sox.(I myself was hazy about the name change.)
For someone who spent 20 years in Chicago to refer to the home of the White Sox as a Field instead of a Park, states that person is rather out of touch with Chicago culture, not to mention the US mainstream culture. This was an attempt on Obama’s part to portray himself as one of the guys, a typical Chicagoan, a typical American, and he came off rather badly. He got two out of three, but not the trifecta. He can’t quite get all the cultural cues right.
Makes you think that he might have talked about attending some Red Sox games when he went to Harvard Law, at Finley Park or Fenway Field.
I made a double dig by referring to a Cubs game. Who plays in December? Da Bears.
A Chauncey Gardiner with one difference. Chauncey would go to dinner.
I’m sure Neo will have a thread on this but I’m getting my prediction in early. Well, it’s not exactly a prediction but an observation, because I’ve received an advance copy of Obama’s Nobel speech in Oslo. To paraphrase, here are the key points of the speech:
I blah blah blah blah blah… I blah blah blah… I blah blah blah blah… blah blah blah me… etc., etc.
Once more on the speech: VDH over at NRO Corner asks, “Is there a Microsoft program somewhere that writes these things out?” Sort of a higher tech version of kcom’s paraphrase.
In re the million-dollar Nobel check:
I heard on the news today that President Obama intends to donate it to charity, but he hasn’t picked which one yet.
Is it just me, or does that seem like narcissism to you? I can’t help but feel that, were President Bush to win such an honor — and to be told about it months in advance — he’d announce the name of the charity immediately. The charity would then get some much-deserved (in the donor’s opinion) time in the spotlight, which is another free gift. It would also emphasize that this isn’t all about him.
I don’t think our current President thinks that way.
As to why he keeps doing this: I still think President Obama has rarely, if ever, had to pay a price for insulting someone… and so he insults his friends freely, convinced that he can always win them back with a smile and a handshake.
How many people, worldwide, can now claim to have been snubbed by Barack Obama? You can start here with the “bitter clingers to guns and religion” in the United States, then add in the entire nations of Great Britain, Israel, Honduras, Poland, and now Norway.
Obama’s minions believe in international law and international consensus. If we reach a point where half the world doesn’t like him, will liberals consider that reason enough to impeach him? Just wondering.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
He skipped lunch with the king because he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist bowing to the monarch.
We shouldn’t overthink this, or, pardon NEO, overshrink this.
He knows it annoys the Norwegians. He knows it will make it harder to work with them, and possibly other Europeans.
He knows it’s incremental damage to us.
He doesn’t care.