Announcement

**goadam1** · December 13, 2009, 10:29 AM

Re: Obama's response to Janszen, Taibbi, et. al.

Originally posted by babbittd View Post

"I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...in;cbsCarousel

He spoke to 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft about the bonuses in an interview in which he is also extensively questioned on his Afghanistan plans for the first time, discusses the economy, jobs and addresses the breach in security at the White House state dinner.

The interview will be broadcast this Sunday, Dec. 13, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

****

Comments left by readers run the gamut from typical Republican party talking points blaming the entire mess on Dodd, Pelosi, Frank, Reid and ACORN. To typical Democrat party talking points comparing Obama to Lincoln.

And also the occasional independent thought:

I want to be friends with those people.

In Manhattan, being critical with Obama means you are a racist tea party member. I think he is the biggest liar EVER. Worse than Nixon. A charming panderer.

He did keep his promise of expanding the war in Afghanistan. And my democrat friends bought the idea of all the thought that went into it. He didn't jump in like Bush.

**due_indigence** · December 13, 2009, 11:58 AM

Re: Obama's response to Janszen, Taibbi, et. al.

When I pointed out on a forum that 3 of Obama's top 7 campaign contributors were Wall Street banks back in October 2008, it was like flipping the bird at the Fuehrer at the Nuremburg rally. The madness of crowds! Obama was a seducer. But like all seducers, the hangover eventually sets in.

People need to remember (though they won't) that charisma is a sign of psychological deformity on the part of the charismatic. If someone is making you feel too good then that is a sign of manipulation. I see these guys like Joel Olsteen filling crystal cathedrals and the like and I KNOW it's just a matter of time before they're found in the back of limos with a hooker.

People, the truth is dry, dull and unpalatable. If you can come away from a purportedly serious political speech 'feeling happy' then someone failed to explain the reality to the situation to you. Chances are they failed to explain it intentionally. You got duped.

**ThePythonicCow** · December 13, 2009, 01:02 PM

Re: Obama's response to Janszen, Taibbi, et. al.

Originally posted by due_indigence View Post

When I pointed out on a forum that 3 of Obama's top 7 campaign contributors were Wall Street banks back in October 2008, it was like flipping the bird at the Fuehrer at the Nuremburg rally.

Theorem: Now, now, it wasn't that bad.
Proof: You're still here.
Q.E.D.

(Good post by the way.)

**flintlock** · December 13, 2009, 01:28 PM

Re: Obama's response to Janszen, Taibbi, et. al.

it was like flipping the bird at the Fuehrer at the Nuremburg rally.

Can I borrow this one?

People need to remember (though they won't) that charisma is a sign of psychological deformity on the part of the charismatic. If someone is making you feel too good then that is a sign of manipulation. I see these guys like Joel Olsteen filling crystal cathedrals and the like and I KNOW it's just a matter of time before they're found in the back of limos with a hooker.

People, the truth is dry, dull and unpalatable. If you can come away from a purportedly serious political speech 'feeling happy' then someone failed to explain the reality to the situation to you. Chances are they failed to explain it intentionally. You got duped.

Amen! And I thought I was the only one who thought this way.

**we_are_toast** · December 13, 2009, 01:39 PM

Re: Obama's response to Janszen, Taibbi, et. al.

Let's see, Obama and Dems try to reform insurance; FIRE

Conservative votes in favor? 0 Conservatives continue to fight for the insurance companies with attempted filibuster.

Obama and Progressives in the house pass a Finance Regulatory reform bill, Fire
Conservative votes in favor? 0 Conservatives continue to fight for the big investment banks with a threatened filibuster in the Senate.

Next up; Conservative's fighting for the Real Estate Industry.

When Conservatives held the presidency and congress, numbers of reform bills passed? 0

**bcassill** · December 13, 2009, 03:32 PM

Re: Obama's response to Janszen, Taibbi, et. al.

Both parties are bankrupt morally and ideologically. Obama, Palin, and any of the other populist figures are merely diversions while the great heist transpires under our very noses. Much like a good magician can manipulate the crowd's attention to one part of the stage while he performs his "magic" on another, the powers behind the scenes use a Roman Carnival of issues like gay marriage amendments, health care debates, foreign wars, and feigned outrage at executive compensation as theater for the masses. Meanwhile, it is business as usual in the pursuit of power and greed particularly when there is still money left in the public coffers. Over the years, there has been a sickeningly array of giveaways to Pharma (i.e Medicare prescription plan), military support services (Halliburton and Blackwater), as well as the normal Wall Street suspects like Goldman and JP Morgan.

People are justifiably upset. They just aren't as upset as they should be because they don't understand the magnitude of what has happened to their country. In a way, the Great Recession is a blessing in disguise. Perhaps, just perhaps, the exposure of malfeasance will finally be the impetus for some badly needed reform.

**World Traveler** · December 13, 2009, 04:35 PM

Mess created 2001-2008 during BUSH's presidency

The derivatives and huge real estate casinos, with loose lending standards and almost no regulation, expanded exponentially and blew up in the period 2001 to 2008, when GEORGE BUSH was president.

From 2001 to Jan 2007, REPUBLICAN consevatives controlled the House and Senate. Did they do anything to pur the brakes on the casino??? I don't think so..they were too busy extolling the free market.

It blew up in fall 2008, when GEORGE BUSH was president.

I don't agree with some of his policies, but the TRUTH is that Obama is the CLEAN-UP man, he didn't create the mess, he just gets to try to clean it up.

**Starving Steve** · December 13, 2009, 07:07 PM

Re: Mess created 2001-2008 during BUSH's presidency

Originally posted by World Traveler View Post

The derivatives and huge real estate casinos, with loose lending standards and almost no regulation, expanded exponentially and blew up in the period 2001 to 2008, when GEORGE BUSH was president.

From 2001 to Jan 2007, REPUBLICAN consevatives controlled the House and Senate. Did they do anything to pur the brakes on the casino??? I don't think so..they were too busy extolling the free market.

It blew up in fall 2008, when GEORGE BUSH was president.

I don't agree with some of his policies, but the TRUTH is that Obama is the CLEAN-UP man, he didn't create the mess, he just gets to try to clean it up.

If Obama is just "the clean-up man", why did he re-appoint Bernanke to head the Fed. (Bernanke was Bush's man.)

Why did Obama let the bankers be bailed-out? Why Geithner at the Treasury Department?

And why is Obama continuing to putz-around with windmills and solar panels, AGW, and photo appearances in Europe at climate conferences? This especially smells now in hindsight when it has been revealed that all of the data about global warming was faked.

And why is Obama not being frank with the American people about the need for austerity and new taxes to cut the budget deficit?

Why the escalation of a failed war-strategy in Afganistan? Obama, after all, promised to end Bush's nation-building adventures abroad.

And why is Obama not in Congress demanding a clean-up of the Congress, including demanding legislation to make influence-pedalling a crime in Congress?

And why the lack of progress on national health insurance? Two thousand pages of bill-writing later, and still no bill. Nothing passed. And why isn't Obama in the Congress every day demanding a clean-up (and clean-out) of the corruption that has passed as "business-as-usual" for decades? Why isn't Obama playing hard-ball with the lack of action by the corrupt Congress?

And then on education reform, nothing from Obama either...... Not even a proposal.

But the news conferences and photo opportunities go on, day after day, as if something was being done in Washington.

**ThePythonicCow** · December 13, 2009, 07:29 PM

Re: Mess created 2001-2008 during BUSH's presidency

Originally posted by Starving Steve View Post

If Obama is just "the clean-up man", why did he re-appoint Bernanke to head the Fed. (Bernanke was Bush's man.)

Oh, Obama's the clean-up man alright. Just not for our team. He's pitching for the other team -- BIS, IMF, Goldman, JPMorgan, ...

**jacobdcoates** · December 13, 2009, 07:39 PM

Re: Obama's response to Janszen, Taibbi, et. al.

Amen Brothers!!!!!!!!!, and that coming from an atheist.;

**Rajiv** · December 13, 2009, 07:48 PM

Re: Obama's response to Janszen, Taibbi, et. al.

Look at Carrie Keating's work on charisma

In my research, I pursue an understanding of the elusive quality of charisma by investigating the skills, traits, and motives associated with social dominance and leadership in children and adults.

Together with colleagues and student collaborators, I have discovered that humans convey dominance through facial expressions akin to those of other primates; that facial features which make people appear powerful also make them seem untrustworthy; that people who are socially powerful have unusually good acting skills; and that persuasive performances begin with kidding yourself.

Dominance and Deception in Children and Adults: Are Leaders the Best Misleaders?

Relationships between dominance and nonverbal deception skill were investigated in preschool children (Study 1) and in under-graduate men and women (Study 2). Subjects were assessed for dominance during peer group interactions. Later, they encoded and decoded deceptive messages. Raters assessed the credibility of each subject's encoded message using nonverbal cues alone. Ability to encode credible, deceptive messages predicted dominance in preschool children and men but not women. Decoding deception accurately from nonverbal cues was unrelated to dominance. Videotapes of subjects' performances were examined for nonverbal behaviors predictive of deception success. Very young children successfully masked their deception by smiling. Successful adult deceivers made eye contact with the listener and inhibited smiling while delivering deceptive messages. Overall, results were generally consistent with a social skills approach to dominance in which manipulative ability is believed to be integral to achieving and maintaining social power.

Self-Deception and Its Relationship to Success in Competition

We investigated the relationship between self-deception and success in competition. Self-deception has been associated with stress reduction, a positive self-bias, and increased pain tolerance, all of which could enhance motivation and performance during competitive tasks. We selected athletic competition as a model and predicted that swimmers who successfully qualified for a national championship would engage in more self-deception than swimmers who did not qualify. Self-deception was measured by the Self-Deception Questionnaire (SDQ) and by subjects' performance on a binocular-rivalry task. For the latter measure, subjects' tendency to perceive words with neutral rather than negative associations was construed as self-deception. As predicted, successful swimmers scored higher on the SDQ and reported fewer negative words on the binocular-rivalry task than did unsuccessful swimmers. The tendency to perceive words with positive rather than neutral associations was not clearly related to competitive success, to SDQ scores, or to performance on the negative binocular-rivalry trials. Overall, the results were consistent with the proposition that self-deception enhances motivation and performance during competition.

jk · December 13, 2009, 07:57 PM

Re: Obama's response to Janszen, Taibbi, et. al.

dominance is not equivalent to charisma.

**Rajiv** · December 13, 2009, 08:35 PM

Re: Obama's response to Janszen, Taibbi, et. al.

There was another study (and I can't locate that right now) that showed that in children and teens, children who were the best liars were the most popular. That study I believe has shown parallels in adult behavior.

I believe that the combination of popularity and the ability to dominate a situation is used by politicians to get elected. Whether or not it is charisma is besides the point, but rather that "lying" is percieved as crucial to becoming popular -- which is essential to getting elected.

**goodrich4bk** · December 14, 2009, 02:12 AM

Re: Mess created 2001-2008 during BUSH's presidency

Originally posted by Starving Steve View Post

If Obama is just "the clean-up man", why did he re-appoint Bernanke to head the Fed. (Bernanke was Bush's man.)

Why did Obama let the bankers be bailed-out? Why Geithner at the Treasury Department?

And why is Obama continuing to putz-around with windmills and solar panels, AGW, and photo appearances in Europe at climate conferences? This especially smells now in hindsight when it has been revealed that all of the data about global warming was faked.

And why is Obama not being frank with the American people about the need for austerity and new taxes to cut the budget deficit?

Why the escalation of a failed war-strategy in Afganistan? Obama, after all, promised to end Bush's nation-building adventures abroad.

And why is Obama not in Congress demanding a clean-up of the Congress, including demanding legislation to make influence-pedalling a crime in Congress?

And why the lack of progress on national health insurance? Two thousand pages of bill-writing later, and still no bill. Nothing passed. And why isn't Obama in the Congress every day demanding a clean-up (and clean-out) of the corruption that has passed as "business-as-usual" for decades? Why isn't Obama playing hard-ball with the lack of action by the corrupt Congress?

And then on education reform, nothing from Obama either...... Not even a proposal.

But the news conferences and photo opportunities go on, day after day, as if something was being done in Washington.

1. O didn't bailout the bankers; the bank bailout was last year (Bush and Co). O used TARP for GM, AIG and Chrysler.

2. Geithner was a vote for "continuity". As EJ and others make clear, we are at the mercy of our creditors, most of whom are foreign and likely demanded no significant changes in the TBTF policy started by Bush. We can all speculate whether anything would be different with a different man in Treasury, but Geithner was not unqualified, even though I opposed his appointment and believe his policies are mistaken.

3. "All of the data" on global warming has NOT been faked. Where do you get this stuff? I think the jury is out on the extent and causes of the problem and whether it is even a problem that needs immediate attention. But for god's sake, just look at the polar ice, Bolivia's glaciers, Mt. Kilamenjaro and the ice core studies, none of which is the subject of the emails. As for the emails, you're surprised that "group think" is prevalent on all sides of an issue? It's an embarrassment to that UK research team, but they are otherwise a red herring.

4. O has given several speeches expressing the dangers of deficits and the need for austerity. Last time I checked, though, Congress has the power of the purse.

5. He campaigned on the promise of a troop increase in Afghanistan. Or would you rather he break that promise so you could call him a liar?

6. Why lack of progress on a health care bill? Do you really not know the answer? Hint: FIRE owns Congress. At least he is trying and he has not yet given up.

7. What specific proposals do you have for "cleaning up" Congress? If, as you say, it's a problem that has gone on for decades, why is he now responsible for solving it? Isn't it more reasonable that he first address the problems he campaigned on, ie., Afghanistan, health care, the environment and winding down the Iraq war? You may not like his solutions, but from I can tell, he's just doing what the majority elected him to do.