John
McCain doesn’t like Barack Obama.
Really.
And the dislike McCain feels toward his young upstart competitor in the
race for the White House has zilch to do with their competition for the
highest office in the land.
As
reported by numerous news outlets, McCain’s personal disenchantment with
Mr. Enchantment began the very first year that Barack Obama (D-Ill.)
joined the elite club called the Senate on Capitol Hill.
It
was somewhere in that first year that the new kid on the block
apparently approached the senior Senator and proposed that they work
jointly to put together maverick legislation on a lobbying and ethics
reform bill.
The four-term Arizona Republican, with 25 years on this earth more than
the freshman senator, long a proponent of reforming the ways of how
business is done in Washington, magnanimously took the Illinois senator
under-wing and agreed to his proposal.
"I like him; he's probably got a great future,” McCain reportedly
confided to a top staffer. “We can do some work together.”
The collaboration between the two reformed-minded men collapsed inside
of a week.
Amid charges and countercharges documented in severe and heated letters
publicly exchanged between the two men, Obama the younger accused McCain
the elder of placing loyalty to GOP leaders over his search for a
bipartisan solutions; McCain accused Obama of “typical rhetorical gloss”
and “self interested partisan posturing” looking to score points with
party leaders.
"Please be assured I won't make the same mistake again," McCain wrote
Obama on Feb. 6, 2006.
Ouch!
Now last week on his triumphant return to the Senate following his
clinching the Democratic Party’s nomination comes another report of an
odd exchange between Senator Obama and another senior Senator. This time
the report is of an encounter between Obama and Senator Joseph
Lieberman, a self-described “independent Democrat.”
The long-term Senator Lieberman has thrown his full support behind John
McCain, and has been serving as McCain’s attack dog. Obviously, McCain
and Lieberman have different points of views than Obama’s on many
subjects. But specifically McCain has been employing Lieberman to help
him garner the much-prized Jewish vote, which has been slow to warm to
Obama’s candidacy.
According to Roll Call’s account of the exchange between the two
men, “Obama dragged Lieberman by the hand to a far corner of the Senate
chamber and engaged in what appeared to reporters in the gallery as an
intense, three-minute conversation.
"While it was unclear what the two were discussing, the body language
suggested that Obama was trying to convince Lieberman of something and
his stance appeared slightly intimidating.
"Using forceful, but not angry, hand gestures, Obama literally backed up
Lieberman against the wall, leaned in very close at times, and appeared
to be trying to dominate the conversation, as the two talked over each
other in a few instances.
"Still, Obama and Lieberman seemed to be trying to keep the
back-and-forth congenial as they both patted each other on the back
during and after the exchange.
"Afterwards, Obama smiled and pointed up at reporters peering over the
edge of the press gallery for a better glimpse of their interaction.”
Since Roll Call’s
report, more light has been shed on the exchange. According to a
campaign aide who asked for anonymity when talking about private
discussions, Obama told Lieberman he was surprised by Lieberman's
personal attacks and his half-hearted denials of the false rumors that
Obama is a Muslim. (The aide says Lieberman was "strangely muted" during
the exchange; a Lieberman spokesman says the chat was "private and
friendly.")
Of the two reports, the
exchange between Lieberman and Obama is particularly jarring because it
hints at the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee exhibiting a
subliminal loss of emotional control bordering on physical intimidation.
We’ve witnessed other insights
into Obama’s character over the last months. His aside about Hillary
Clinton during the New Hampshire debate comes to mind. Throwing a
mocking "compliment" at his rival when asked about Senator Clinton's "likability,"
one of the many sexist code words deployed against her in this race,
Obama answered with noticeable disdain, "She's likable
enough,"
a smirk on his downward looking face, a gesture in itself impolite.
And, of course, there’s his statement, "I can no more disown him
(Reverend Wright) than I can disown the black community. I can no more
disown him than I can my white grandmother," which proved to be a lie.
When Reverend Wright became an albatross around his neck standing
between Barack and his dream of becoming president, Obama did the
politically expedient and in fact, disowned his Reverend Wright.
Many were put-off by his statement about his white grandmother, which
brought into question his emotional attachments to those who most
sacrificed for Obama.
To be sure, no candidate who seeks the presidency is perfect. Frankly,
anyone who sees themselves as qualified for the job has to be character
disordered. But among those who have sought the highest office in the
land, none has become the Party’s nominee with so little character
dissection.
Before he becomes the president of the free world, a little character
analysis seems a fair exercise.
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