Jen Psaki and Marie Harf - State Dept. Spokesbimboes
Robert "Big Boy Burgers" Gibbs - Press Sec. to Obamanero
Jay "Howdy Doody" Carney - Press Sec. to Obamanation
Josh (The Importance of Being) Earnest - Press Sec. to Obamacles
Notice any similarities?
All five of these people are squeaky clean-looking white people who utterly lack gravitas, or a sense of personal power.
The puffy tedium of their faces screams, "Ignore me. I couldn't possibly have anything of importance to say."
In an Administration where important jobs are occupied by people who look like this,
and this,
and this,
one has to wonder why every spokesperson Obama chooses is the white equivalent of Steve Urkel, or some gay black TV Weather Man for a local evening news broadcast?
I started to notice this phenomenon right away, early in the Obama Administration. Watching Robert Gibbs' always befuddled appearance, I couldn't help think to myself, "Why would Obama, who is so conscious of image, choose this guy to speak for him day after day?"
Robert Gibbs looks like he couldn't convince his own mother to let him stay out 15 minutes later, much less convince American citizens of the merits of complex policy decisions.
And then, when Gibbs resigned, Obama doubled-down with Jay Carney. Carney's lack of charisma comes complete with a name seemingly chosen by some malicious trickster god to mock him into submission.
But Jay won't submit, no. Jay is too tough for that.
"My Mommy Doesn't Love Me Anymore"
And then, against all reason, Obama tripled down, appointing a third straight assclown, this time with the surrealistically ironic name of Josh Earnest.
WTF?
It's as if Obama is taunting us at this point.
But to what end?
I always wondered if Obama - (who seems to ascribe to that conspiratorial, Jeremiah Wright school of White Devil History, in which caucasians have cruelly and repeatedly told the Black Man he was equal only to set him up for humiliating defeat) - might have decided to get back at the White Man by sticking the most ineffectual and useless-looking white people he could find out in front, to defend the policies of an Administration whose policies are completely indefensible.
But likely it is I who is being conspiratorial in my thinking.
I floated my idea to my wife this evening, and she responded, "No, I think it's much simpler than that. Obama hires people like that because that's just who Obama believes his audience is."
"What? Stupid white people?" I asked.
"Yes, exactly."
It might help you to know two things about my wife:
1) She is not white.
2) She fundamentally dislikes Obama far more than someone like myself.
I still think there must be some truth to my darker musings, however.
I'd be interested to hear what others think and have thought over the past few years, as you watch these Spokefools twaddle their way through Press Conference after Press Conference.
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EXTRA BONUS POINTS:
12 comments:
The spokesmen all come off as stupid because it's impossible to defend the obama administration with logic.
Race might be a factor in who they select as spokesmen, but many of Obama's key people have not been black or non-white.
Axelrod, ploufe, ayers, soros, emanuel, reid, pelosi... they are or were key pkayers in the back rooms and none are white or as stupid as harf and psaki.
You have to be a postmodern leftist to work in The inner sanctum of the white house, not merely black.
Are you saying Marie Harf, Jen Psaki, and Jay Carney would come off well if they were working in some other Administration?
I'm sorry, but I think these people are exactly what I said they are.
It's not that they are stupid. I don't know that they are. My guess is they are all reasonably intelligent.
But they look ineffectual. They lack personal power, charisma, and gravitas.
Those are real characteristics. And they do not have them.
By the way, did you know the word "Plouffe" means "a fart that went wrong" in French?
A friend of mine sent me the following comment in an email (he doesn't have an account by which he can comment at this blog):
I think you've noticed a real pattern but misdiagnosed the reason.
These are all basically generic (D) bureaucratic slots that are going to just be filled from the ranks of your average ambitious DC type Smart Person who has attached himself to the right candidate. And sure, when it comes to 'who supported Obama and joined the Obama party machine?' it was mostly a bunch of white 'progressive' types. I'm reminded of a humorous campaign photo circulating in conservative circles a few years back where it was basically Obama surrounded by a bunch of white twentysomethings, and the joke was, this is the candidate of diversity?
The fact SWPL types are who ends up in the State Dept. spokesperson slot is just a downstream result of this. That's their bench so that's who ends up in that role. This is the party machine that got Obama there in the first place and so that's who claws these roles for themselves.
When it comes to certain key roles closer to Obama does he surround himself with people who, er, look more like him? Yes, probably.
But neither phenomenon requires a conspiracy theory. He surrounds himself with people he trusts (and he doesn't trust white people), he lets party-machine type slots be filled from the party machine according to the usual bureaucratic/spoils-system process. (I don't get the impression he's all that active an executive and for many of these roles I wouldn't be surprised if he takes no interest one way or another)
It's a sign of a not very healthy administration, I'd agree about that. But I don't think there's anything sinister about it.
Thanks, Pastorius, for a great post.
Soetoro did have white mentors - Reliapundit mentions them - but they are not the people he chose to put up as his press spokesmen.
He wouldn't dare showcase people who are smarter than he is. Look how bad he is when he has to think on his feet. An Ayres, an Axelrod, a Rahm would make him look like shit.
So he uses idiots.
But I think it is also a deliberate attempt to undermine American institutions.
With these two little girls who act like pre-teen Valley Girls with their tweets and hash tag signs representing the State Department, look how far we have fallen from "Perdicaris alive, or Rasuli dead."
As far as race goes, when you look at Jeh Johnson, Eric Holder, or Valerie Jarrett, you are looking at some of the lightest black people you can find. Now there has always been a hierarchy of color in the African-American community: (If you're white, you're right, if you're brown, stick around, but if you're black, stay back; the paper bag rule, and so on.) But with these three, Soetoro has chosen peopple who are very visibly mixed-heritage, as he is. Holder is from a Barbadian family, with a very elite background. And Valerie Jarrett was raised in Tehran - I think the pro-Iranian emotions in the White House come from her visceral love of the country where she was raised.
Anyway, great post, and great discussion.
Punditarian,
Thank you for the kind words. I think I am generally wrong in my assessment. I think my wife's comment is pretty accurate. I think you and Reliapundit are also pretty accurate here.
The thing is, there is a pattern here, and the pattern means something. The fact that these people are all ULTRA-white, stereotypes, velveeta-slicing, Hallmark-card giving, stuff-animals on the back window of the car type white people, ---- probably drive mini-vans with their families (complete with cat and dog) are stenciled in outline on the back window ---
all these things mean something.
I am saying that they would not sound as dumb if they were defending a sensible, logical, patriotic administration.
You don't have to tie yourself up in knots and get all flustered when your answers are consistent with our nation's basic principles.
These spokesmen get flustered and stupid sounding because of cognitive dissonance: deep down they know that the critical questions they get about obamas policies are right and yet they have to defend them and this internal conflict leads them to stutter and blurt out stupid stuff. If they are very disciplined, then they can take a breath and look up the pre-planned answer in their notebook and then repeat it.
Further proof it is the policies: when cabinet secretaries appear in Congress to testify they often sound dumb too. And this includes holder and johnson and koskinen and panetta and his omb director etc etc etc et al.
I will agree that the spokesmen are not the best weve had. Though gibbs was a lot better than those who have followed.
I see what you mean.
And yeah, Gibbs was the best.
I think Reliapundit is right, the fact that the policies and actions are awful makes it hard to defend them in a reasonable way.
But I think Pastorius is right, too, about the type of people we are seeing in this role.
Another comment emailed to me:
It is easy to understand why a 'spokesperson' has to be a lame-ass Smart white person.
That's because 'spokeperson' is mostly a nothing role that no one with a real future could want. Think about it. There's no career called 'spokesperson'. You can do it for at most like 2-4 years and then you're back job hunting. What did you do? What are your skills? 'Spokesperson'.
Yeah, good luck with that.
And again, remember, these party-machine types are ambitious DC Smart People who went to Brown University or whatever. They see all their friends becoming important and going to important parties. So who is left to do this spokesperson thing? Whoever couldn't get the important roles. But they'll at least polish their skill at being a spokesperson (which inherently involves looking like you're saying important stuff while saying nothing).
The best-case scenario for these people is to use it as a launchpad to some kind of corporate-communications gig. So they're basically auditioning the whole time.
The exceptions were Tony Snow (who had a real media career before he did it), and Jay Carney (who also kinda did, and was young enough that you can still see him becoming a news chief of a web magazine or some such). Where is Ari Fleischer now? (Just checked: 'media consultant', has his own consulting firm. Sounds like mostly trading off connections there)
This Jen Psaki chick's problem is not that she's a lame white person who says nothing. It's that she's been screwing up at the role by saying (and tweeting) *stupid* things. Spokespeople are supposed to sound important and deliver their words in a slick way but say nothing of substance without anyone noticing till later. That's the gig. If you *remember* something a spokesperson said or did, that's a red flag that they've screwed up.
And don't get me wrong, it's a real skill. It's a performance. It's what some types of salespeople (the non-flashy kind) have to do. It's what CEOs have to do.
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It doesn't bother me that they are stupid-appearing people because I don't expect it'd be anyone else in this type of role. It'd have to be
-'progressive' enough to want to be in the Obama admin in a purely political role with no lengthy future to it, hoping to springboard from there mostly via connections
-college-educated, because of course it has to be a Smart Person
-good (or think they are good, or someone in the party-machine thinks they are good) at 'public speaking', or talking like a CEO, like maybe they'd secretly want to be a CEO - corporate ambitions, anyway
This also kinda screams out - upper middle class, has college degrees but they aren't too technical, maybe private schools, materialistic in the sense that he/she compares him/herself a lot to his DC peers who buy million dollar townhouses
So, doesn't this all pretty much scream out 'white person'? Not *necessarily*, obviously, but just based on the odds, that's who is likely to end up in this role. Right?
Whatever the reason for these front people, the Obama administration has become a parody of governance -- that is, Obama's thumbing his nose at white civilization (our republic founded by genius white men)?
Question: Who defends the likes of Psaki and Harf? In my view, these women come across as bimbos. And Harf's blinking and hair-grooming gestures drive me up the wall!
I don’t think it is possible to oppose Barack Obama without also having a jaundiced view of his henchmen. If you fundamentally disagree with the Obama narrative, then you must also disagree with those he hired to implement his Marxist policies. One good example is Robert Gates, who finally resigned when he realized that Obama intended to destroy the US military and our missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. What confounded me is that Bob took as long as he did to step down. And who replaced Gates? The squalid Marxist Leon Panetta. Following him came Chuck Hagel, who Obama imagined would be pliable due to the fact that he hasn’t been sober since 1968. Now we must wonder why Ashton Carter was selected —surely not because he’s got a mind of his own, right? It does seem that Psaki and Harf are exactly like John Kerry, though. Personally, I would hate to have that on my resume.
Each sec def worse than his predecessor. By design. Gates is a gentleman who mistakenly gave obama the benefit of the doubt for too long. Like many.
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