House of Eratosthenes

I came to that conclusion early this morning as I opened up a Starbucks. After I got hold of my morning cup of hot strong black stuff, when I caught up on the headlines from last night’s debate, I realized this went soaring over my li’l head:

[President Obama:] You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.

See, I have this belief about assholes: We can disagree about whether or not a specific person is one, or is behaving like one within a defined setting as we evaluate some defined behavior of his, with reasonable points presented on both sides of such a disagreement. Right up until the individual is trying to be one. Asshole-ish-ness gets an automatic A for effort; if you’re working at it, it really doesn’t matter what the achievement is. People manage to do asshole things all the time without characteristically behaving like assholes, or without the personality deficiencies of assholes, but you don’t apply yourself toward asshole effort unless you’re an asshole.

Yes, that applies to sitting United States Presidents. What an asshole! “We have these things called aircraft carriers…”

I have a dream. It is one fraught with reckless optimism, but not altogether disconnected from reality…that this statement made a bigger impression on people at the time than it did on me. I have a dream that as soon as President Obama got to the “z” sound in “carriers,” millions upon millions of people in the battleground states made up their minds once and for all that we’ve reached the zero with Experiment O. Mull this statement over in your mind a minute or two, and it becomes clear: Some teenager at heart, having successfully used elaborate Marxist rhetoric to get out of garbage-hauling duty for the entirety of his young, snot-nosed existence, managed to bullshit His way into the White House. That is a problem, and by no means a small one.

The Oval Office is infected with a case of CBTA Disease:

CBTA: Can’t Be Told Anything. Applied to an individual who might actually be quite intelligent, but barring some drastic change in mindset, can never know any more than he knows right now.

Right. See, here’s the problem — you should never presume someone is stupid just because you personally don’t like them. That’s a trap. However, CBTA Disease is another trap. The damage done by CBTA Disease can be summed up in a single statement, and here it is: People who have it make better foes than friends. You don’t want these people on your side, you see, because by the very definition of their class, they can’t be told anything. And they tend to think, tragically, that they have managed to “win” every single argument that comes their way…which is quite a few, since they attract conflict like shit drawing flies…simply by demonstrating that they can’t be told anything.

Quoting myself, on some other matter on which I was invited to expound in written form,

[I]t might be summed up as “you’ll never get me to come around to your point of view, so you may as well save yourself some trouble and come around to mine.”

There’s a lot of that going around, lately. I last recall it with…uh, let’s see…oh yeah right, that veep debate with Joe Biden. Do I need to list examples? It would take a lot less time and space to list examples of when Joe Biden was not doing this.

Oh and one other little thing: Who is the knucklehead who thought it was a great idea to use this as a campaign promotion photo?

Just WOW. You can see the intransigence sort of leap right out of the photo, grab you by the neck and shake you. The caption practically writes itself. “Vote for us, we’re rude, boorish assholes who interrupt constantly and can’t be told anything.”

“We have these things called aircraft carriers.” Hey President Obama, your mom’s dead. I’m sure she had some challenges bringing you up right, that’s been made abundantly clear in a lot of little ways now. How about, let the dead rest a bit easier, sort of tone down on her failings in proper parenthood, let us forget about it a little bit. Because when I hear You saying stuff like this, first thing I have to do is envision someone age-appropriate saying it, which would put them somewhere around fourteen, fifteen…second thing I have to do is envision the proper parent mid-course correction, which would in some way concern a split lip. Which, it’s plain to see, and this is exceptionally unfortunate, You didn’t get when You needed it most.

Big Bird But I’m not worried about Barack Obama being a proper and polite teenager. I’m worried about Barack Obama being my President. Even disregarding the ideological spectrum, this is precisely what I do not want to see in the Oval Office, this swaggering hipster can’t-be-told-anything mentality. What’s the matter Obama, You’re really that sensitive when You encounter someone who doesn’t agree with You on everything? It’s that much of a new experience for You? Because that would be a problem. A real problem. You can’t reconcile it all in that head of Yours, except to imagine that Gov. Romney doesn’t know what an aircraft carrier is?

And, unfortunately, we know the culture is in our nation’s highest office; it surrounds it on the outside and permeates it within. We know Biden is no better. Biden worked long and hard, after all, to make sure we knew.

CBTA Disease; when it rears its head, it’s always an ugly thing.

Let’s see, what’s the absolute highest station in life I think someone should be able to attain, when they’re infected with CBTA. Can’t Be Told Anything…well that would be a good thing to have, if you’re something like, um, say, a driver’s ed instructor in a high school. A prison guard. A collection agent? Those guys might be more effective in their jobs if they can’t be told things. But not President of the United freakin’ States.

Just look at that photo one more time. There is a constituency out there — which might prevail, in this election coming up — that wants these two guys to be this way. Time comes for President Obama and Vice President Biden to reach out to their constituents, and we get this image. It’s like they stepped out of a movie directed by the Coen Brothers, or Quentin Tarantino.

But they’re not in a movie, they’re real people. Running everything. Can’t Be Told Anything…will never know any more than they know right now…incapable of learning anything new. And they’re proud of that.

November 6 can’t come soon enough.

Update: As of today, Oct. 23, it seems Chris Matthews had the opinion that anyone who doesn’t agree the Benghazi attack was about “the video,” needed to “read a newspaper.” Just another example of what I’m talking about…

Update: Just realized the video clip auto-plays, sometimes at least…wonder why it didn’t do that to me before? I am absolutely not in favor of such web shenanigans and will not knowingly be a party to them…certainly not so that my readers can be regaled with the dulcet tones of Mr. Matthews. So you can click the link if you want to view.

Cross-posted at Brutally Honest.

And if we’re picking nits – which I am – he’s dead wrong about bayonets, anyway. But I don’t expect a fella who never spent any time in the military to realize that bayonets are still very much standard issue, and there are a hell of a lot more of them around now than there were in 1916.

Bur he said “horses and bayonets,” so probably he meant horses with bayonets somewhere on them, in which case he’s right. Again. As always.

And I must say (not that having me say it really means much of anything) that the utter, shitty, smarminess of his tone in that statement absolutely smoked me. I mean, I never liked the guy, but I never expected ANYONE elected to the office of President of the United States to stoop to that kind of crap. I still don’t, and I hope it never happens again. Total. Friggin. Prick.
- Andy | 10/23/2012 @ 14:57
Right you are. Unpresidential as unpresidential gets.
- mkfreeberg | 10/23/2012 @ 16:18
Like one of the articles said–if you’re going to school someone, be sure you know what you are talking about.

What we need in office, right now, are grownups. Grownups take stuff seriously. They get in and work on problems. They don’t have desks full of toys. They get stuff done. The reason Romney is so boring is that he is a grownup. Obama is not. I’m taking election day off to see what I can do to help. I’m in one of the few solid Obama states and we vote by mail, but still….
- teripittman | 10/23/2012 @ 18:58
Well, mister President, we have these things called elections and you’re about to get smoked worse than Jimmy Carter.
- tim | 10/24/2012 @ 06:41
Teripittman, you sound like a fellow Washingtonian.
- Andy | 10/24/2012 @ 08:05
What we see is a contest between credentialed, uncredentialed, and falsely credentialed people. There was a time, even recently, when an uncredentialed man was more likely than a credentialed man to be great, or could be President as Truman last was. Now everything is about credentials, and the great increase in them has not added to the value of anything–quite the contrary. Obama is an excellent example of the talented faux leading the untalented credentialed and uncredentialed. People who are not very good at anything are exited, not outraged, that he had gamed his credentials. Who needs to really know anything? I’m as good as the next man! Here’s proof! Four years of this administration has worn the r from proof, although never for true believers.

FRANCOIS RENE DE CHATEAUBRIAND There are fits of forgetfulness or deceit which terrify; you open your ears, you rub your eyes, not knowing whether you are awake or asleep. When the imperturbable individual to whom you owe such assertions descends from the rostrum and takes his seat impassively, you follow him with your gaze, suspended as you are, between a kind of astonishment and a sort of admiration; you are unsure whether the man has not received some authority from nature giving him the power to recreate or annihilate the truth.
- xlibrl | 10/24/2012 @ 10:13
It doesn’t matter that we have carriers and subs now. Having fewer ships than we did in 1916 is still a bad thing. The world has become exponentially more interconnected than it was a century or so ago, and a large navy is more important than ever if the US is to maintain its influence around the world. The Army and Air Force play significant roles, but the Navy is absolutely critical to the US’ military’s ability to project force onto other continents.

Note the number of countries that have huge armies and a decent air force….and still have no impact outsider their own neighborhoods. There’s a reason for that. Nobody else besides us (except for the UK and to a lesser extent, France) can afford a large navy. The Navy is the backbone of the US military. In addition to its ships (many of which can launch missiles, as well as the more familiar tasks), it also includes its own ground forces (USMC) and air strike capability. Carriers, in turn, are the backbone of the Navy. Just one of them can win a war against most foreign countries.

The US is the only nation who fields a large carrier force, which is a major reason we’re still on top. They’re so expensive that even the Soviets didn’t really bother with them. (The Red Navy consisted largely of subs.)

The question is, do we have enough of them – and do we have enough subs, and do we have enough smaller combat vessels and support ships? Romney wants a bigger navy. Obama is trying to cut defense spending. That right there makes the president’s statement all the more high-handed.
- cylarz | 10/25/2012 @ 00:51

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Can Barack Obama or Joe Biden Be Told Anything?Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012

Can Barack Obama or Joe Biden Be Told Anything?
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012