Sir Nigel traces the ambition of Mr Obama, 47, to reach the White House right back to his 20s or before. “He has talked at least since the 1980s about a shot at the Presidency.”
He also identifies several political vulnerabilities that Sen McCain will seek to exploit in the last month of his campaign against the Illinois senator. The leaked letter will provide him with welcome ammunition.
Mr Obama “can seem to sit on the fence, assiduously balancing pros and cons”, Sir Nigel wrote, and “does betray a highly educated and upper middle class mindset”. Charges of elitism “are not entirely unfair” and he is “maybe aloof, insensitive” at times.
“He can talk too dispassionately for a national campaign about issues which touch people personally, eg his notorious San Francisco comments [in April] about small-town Pennsylvanians ‘clinging’ to guns and religion.”
Mr Obama’s Democratic primary victory over the former First Lady showed that “he is tough and competitive. This is of course the Chicago school.
You don’t beat Clinton without being resilient” but “his energy levels do dip and he can be uninspiring e.g. in debates”.
You know… when The British Ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald calls you aloof… you have some serious issues.
He also indicates that Obama is weakest when challenged on the issues… AWESOME. (yes, that is snark)
It is also interesting to note that Sir Nigel also commented on Obama’s likely policy stances once in office…
Sir Nigel concludes that searching for a deal between Israel and the Palestinians is “unlikely to be a top priority for Obama” and he expresses concern about his protectionist trade policy….
So… weak on Israel and a protectionist to boot.
Super.
I am thrilled, let me tell ya.
Filed under: Barack Obama Tagged: | aloof, ambassador, british, insensitive, Letter, Obama, sir nigel
I posted about Obama’s visit to Downing Street. The report from The Independent was that Obama had walked in cocky, but departed “looking shaken” and didn’t speak to the media.
I agree that Obama is stiff – maybe even from a Brit’s standpoint. But he is no elitist. It is more cultural. I have known a handful of black, ummm African American kids (most of the black people I know say black, btw) raised by white people who act like this.
It’s not an easy role assignment in life. To be sure, McCain’s growing instability is far more worrisome. It is hard to debate the issues without considering the characters of the candidates. One of them is a cartoon character – guess which one? McCain is not the same guy who ran last time, and this worries me. As well, his wife is an addict. Let’s face it, part of the package is the wife. She would be a felon had she been convicted of using a doctor’s DEA number. One thing we all should agree upon is terms like “white trash” don’t belong in a campaign. This is as ugly as the “n” word. No human being is trash. Cheers.
Yeah! Exactly! I could not agree more that some guy who came from harsh, tough, difficult beginnings and ended up going to Harvard is an elitist. So elitist, in fact, that instead of using his Harvard degree to become a corporate attorney became a community organizer for people struggling to make ends meet.
Seriously…THAT is so elitist!
(Sorry about using the term ‘community organizer’. I know that’s probably a four letter word in your world. Kind of like ‘care’ or ‘help’ or…you get the picture)
mongoliangirl….
yeah… harsh beginnings like the best prep school in hawaii…
he must have had such a difficult time in that dangerous neighborhood.
Hey, THC, get with the narrative. Obama was born to a single mother on food stamps. He grew up in the projects. He got beaten and kicked and called the “n-word” by rich, white, Republican kids on a daily basis. They stole his meager lunch money. He never hit back, though, always staggering to his feet to deliver a learned treatise on human rights and constitutional law. (Remember that his mother, despite her disadvantages, read him the Constitution in his cardboard box cradle. )
He survived the ghetto schools by studying till 3 am by the light of a candle. Once he was accepted to Harvard, he worked four jobs to pay his tuition. He went for days without sleep to keep up with his studies and still made straight A’s while singing in the church choir and volunteering at the soup kitchen. He once dived in front of a speeding MG, driven by a white elitist frat boy, to save a kitten from certain death.
He never did drugs. His assertion that he did is merely an attempt to try to reach underprivilged youth on a common level. He was a virgin when he married. He gives away all but 5% of his income to the poor. In fact, there’s a movement in the Vatican right now to promote him to sainthood without even waiting for him to die.
Didn’t you know all that?
The English have made no secret of their desire to distance themselves from American politics. I could tell months ago from interviews of those who met with Obama they were less than impressed.
I think the Brits will vote conservative this time around.
BTW okasha – hilarious!
[...] Fer Palin, Genuises With Like Totally Smart Genius IQ’s Fer Obama (Wait, is that redununundint?), British Ambassador: Obama Is Elitist, Aloof, Insensitive, America In McCain And “Other”, “Maverick” A Noun, How Middle Class are the [...]
Please let’s have an “elitist” leader if elitist means educated and intelligent, and then let’s get busy on creating an elitist nation.
We’re in 19th to 24th place, worldwide, compared to our economic competitors, in everything from problem solving skills to reading, math and science.
The USA does not have the basic education and thinking skills to create and hold well paid, secure jobs in the 21st century. We also don’t have the education system to fix the problem.
http://c-psolutions.com/2008/10/who-will-have-well-paid-secure-work-in-the-new-global-economy/
Yes the links take you to the numbers and some have 130 something slides – but they show where we are vis a vis other developed nations – and frankly we’re not shaping up.
While people fuss about stupid short term rubbish, like whether the City of Chicago should have named Bill Ayers Chicago’s Citizen of the Year in 1997… we are forgetting the main issue.
If we do not, as a nation, have the skills to create sustainable work for our people for the next 50+ years, none of the Citizen of the Year awards will matter a damn.