Obama as a hustler
Wonderful rant at
Velociworld:
The Confidence Man
As I continue to take the measure of our president I've become convinced that he is nothing more than the ultimate manifestation of the gaffler, the swindler. He is the urbane confidence man, exploiting both our weaknesses and our virtues. His immeasurable genius is in his ability to employ the tactics of the carnival barker to hustle us, yet leave us feeling somehow noble afterwards (videlicet Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels).
The tactics are classic:
1) The false sense of urgency: they don't call them hustlers for nothing. Everything with President O'Bunko had to be done yesterday! Crises impel us to act rashly, lest we miss out on a supposedly fleeting window of opportunity. One doesn't really have to have their weight guessed that very moment at the Coastal Empire Fair, but one is often impelled by the exhortation to act Now!Now!Now! Just as we were told the stimulus bill had to be passed immediately. The economy was melting before our eyes, like an ice cream cone in the sun.
Why, they didn't even have time to read it first. That urgent.
2) Misdirection: Just as the carny misdirects your attention in the shell game, so President O'Flimflam misdirects us with assaults upon Rush Limbaugh, or AIG employees, or "speculators", or whatever other daemon he can summon, in case our attentions are drawn to his disastrous economic policies. Staff support is key here.
3) The "inside man": The next level up from the shell game is three-card monte, wherein the grifter uses an inside man to "conspire" with the mark to take the game. This is misdirection taken to a new level. The inside man boosts the confidence of the mark, and convinces the mark he can win. Psychic hucksters and televangelists are reknowned masters of the inside man. President O'Barker is very fortunate in this area, as he has an entire media-industrial complex proactively fomenting false issues in order to misdirect the public. They also pen slippery tributes intended to instill in us, the marks, confidence in the Grifter-In-Chief.
The true measure of a confidence artist is his ability to play upon our greed if we are so inclined, or our virtue if we are not. Hence the greedy amongst us are warned to take the deal now. Before the others. The pie is only so big. The TARP recipients are the greedy marks here. Of course, it's like any deal with the devil. Trying to renege is blasphemy. And verboten. Nein!
One of the better writers out there -- doesn't post very often but when he does, it deserves a slow savoring.
Posted by DaveH at May 8, 2009 7:36 PM