nakedcapitalism | Jokes reveal truths, which is why the best way to appreciate the real
Obama, not the fabled character of hope and change, is how he tells
jokes. He’s good at, no, great at telling jokes. He kills at comedic
performances, and his sense of timing is magnificent. Jokes, though,
show how someone really sees the world, and the joke I’m thinking of is
one he made during a speech in March 2009, when the revelations of AIG’s
massive retention bonuses became public. It had been less than two
months since Obama’s inauguration, but the major policy framework of the
administration – the bailouts – had been laid down. The AIG bonus
scandal was outrageous to the public, a symbol of tens of billions of
taxpayer dollars being funneled to an arrogant corporation that had
helped destroy the economy.
Barack Obama had stepped up to the lectern to deliver a stern rebuke
to AIG executives who had taken bonuses with taxpayer money. Obama
talked of the outrage of an irresponsible company, and how his
administration would do everything within its power to get the money
back. But a few minutes in, he coughed, slightly, choking a bit, as his
mouth was a bit dry. But after he coughed, he stopped, and reflected
on the gesture with a joke. “I’m choked, choked with anger”, he said.
Obama chuckled. Reporters laughed. And it was funny, really funny.
Because everyone in the room knew that Obama wasn’t actually angry
about the AIG bonuses, and never intended to do anything about it. No
one there was angry about the bonuses, and everyone knew nothing would
happen to AIG executives. The House would pass bills, which would die
in the Senate. The only people angry were Americans at large, who could
not believe that their government worked for Wall Street. So the joke
was funny, ironic, cool. But the moment wasn’t right for it, because
this was a serious time for outrage – so Obama quickly reverted to form,
and the teleprompter took over.
Pundits didn’t reflect on this “joke”. No one really noted it. It
was very much like George Bush’s comment to reporters that was only
later highlighted by Michael Moore, when Bush was on a golf course and
perfunctorily said “we must find these terrorist killers….” and then
turned to swing a golf club. “Now watch this drive.” Obama had risen
to that level of duplicity, not a lie in the conventional sense of
saying something that wasn’t true, but an entirely constructed false
persona.
He had polished the tools of the Presidency – the utter
banality of PR, the constipated talking points, the routine abuse of
power – and taken them to a new level with a self-aware sense of irony
about his own narcissistic dishonesty. His challenge was so outrageous –
I dare you to call me on what a liar I am as I joke about how much I am
lying to you right now – that he turned an obnoxious bluff into art.
Obama had shown this breathtaking tendency to con people as they knew
they were being conned before, the most public time during the campaign
being his cynical answer
when he was asked about his promise to renegotiate NAFTA. He had said,
when fighting for union votes with Clinton, “I will make sure we
renegotiate (NAFTA).” Even as he said this, it turns out that campaign
advisor Austan Goolsbee had gone to Canada to assure them this was a lie
(sure enough, Obama’s trade policies are identical to Bush’s, or
worse). And once the election ended, and Obama was asked about his
broken promise by a reporter, he gave the following answer.
“This is fun for the press to try to stir up whatever quotes were generated during the course of the campaign,” President Obama said during his Transition in early December, when a reporter asked him about criticisms he and now-Secretary of State Clinton had made about each other’s foreign policy views.
“They’re your quotes, sir,” said the reporter, Peter Baker of the New York Times.
“No, I understand. And you’re having fun,” Obama continued. “And there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not faulting it.”
This is cynicism as art. It’s literally a Presidential candidate
running on hope and change saying that campaign promises are a joke and a
ruse. His comments on AIG were similarly dishonest.
