Kudos to Andrew Ferguson of The Weekly Standard for two things:
First, for alerting us to a very annoying POTUS verbal tic.
And also for having the fortitude and strong stomach for actually listening to Obama’s vapid mind-numbingly boring speeches.
Via Weekly Standard: Obama Negativa
….The little clump of words about who we are as Americans pops out of the president’s mouth so often it’s easy to miss it, even when he says it twice on the same occasion, a few sentences apart, as he sometimes does. It’s not necessarily annoying. Often when he tells us who we are the phrase has a nice, friendly lilt to it, as though the president were giving us a pat on the back. You hear him at the 9/11 museum saying, “Nothing can ever break us. Nothing can change who we are as Americans,” and you think, Thanks, Obama!
Unfortunately, Americans might also get confused about who we are, assuming we’re paying attention to our president. It’s easy to lose track.
“That’s who the American people are—determined, and not to be messed with,” the president said again last summer. So, number one, we’re bad ass…. But make no mistake: We have a gentler side. All the Christmas parties, Seders, and Muslim religious ceremonies the president hosts at the White House “are an affirmation of who we are as Americans.” So, number two, we’re religious, without overdoing it.
“Values,” he said on another occasion last year, “make us who we are as Americans.” He decided not to get too specific about which values make us, so we may conclude simply that, unlike other people, we are people with values. That’s number three. “National monuments,” he said a few years ago, “tell the story of who we are as Americans.” Number four: We’re monumental. The Bowe Bergdahl affair, from last summer, does the same thing that national monuments do. It shows that “an ironclad commitment to bring our prisoners of war home” is what “makes us who we are as Americans.”
“We shape our destiny . . . that’s who we are.” So, number five, we are destiny shapers who always go get our prisoners of war, even if we have to let loose a bunch of Taliban first. Remember the underwear bomber? He proved that “we will be guided by our hopes, our unity, and our deeply held values. That’s who we are as Americans.” So we’re hopeful, united, and festooned with those values, unspecified. Extending unemployment benefits past 99 weeks is “who we are as Americans.” We’re big spenders when it comes to public funds. Income inequality “challenges the very essence of who we are as a people.” We can all make lots of money, as Americans, but not too much.
Sometimes the president teams up with his wife, who uses the word clump when she’s talking about her national exercise and diet programs. She has talked about “the many cultures and faith traditions that make us who we are as Americans.” When they set about to decorate the White House for Christmas, Mrs. Obama said last year, “We tried to tell a story about who we are as Americans.”
And, not only does Obama want to make sure we know who we are and who we are not:
He also wants us to know who he really is:
And so he hears the people who didn’t vote in 2014. May be the only Obama refrain that doesn’t include I, me, or myself. His view of the Constitution’s We the People, as long as he gets to tell everyone what that means, and everything below it doesn’t matter.
On the flip side, it drives me crazy when he utters another word clump favorite of his: “That is not who we are”. Pardon me for saying this but, What an ass! Love the portrait, Shifra 🙂
Well, pamelarice, the portrait “is *not* who he is,” #JustSayin’
Shifra, in another place and time he would be one of the Pharisees or their elite scribes. He envisions himself as a god (little “g”) in his own demented mind. His kind have populated the earth since the beginning of time, lording it over every one else. He too will answer for his deeds when the grim reaper arrives for him, and his maker will ask him, ‘What have you done with the gifts I have bestowed upon you? Did you use it for good, or did you just enrich yourself to the detriment of others?”
I agree, AW. BO had the opportunity to use his position of power to do incredibly good things. However, his lack of character compels him to do things that are only good for him. That’s what makes Shifra’s pic so spot on. His perception of himself is that only he is good. #Twisted
Horse before cart moment: I just finished reading the full Weekly Standard article and Mr. Furguson does indeed address this particular word clump in his piece.
Drop in the cost of energy must have flipped his lid. Or he can’t stop with the attempts to divide and isolate people into smaller groups. He and many of the people he gathers around are predatory in that way.
The most racist people in the country now are BO and Shelly. Neither one of them has ever served anyone but themselves nor sacrificed anything for America. They both are prejudiced against the USA.
Well, apparently his daughter Malia is heading in the direction of who we are not. In her selfie that was recently posted on Instagram, she is wearing a t-shirt with the logo of the hip-hop group, Pro Era (Progressive Era). Formed in Brooklyn in 2009, its ‘entertainment’ has the usual lyrics; n-word, kill the police, F the government, etc. Teenage girls admiring musicians is normal, but Joey Badass of Pro Era is not Paul of the Beatles. http://www.bet.com/news/music/2015/01/05/malia-obama-rocks-pro-era-t-shirt.html