I’m sorry, but to those who are saluting the allegedly classiness of our 44th President, I say “Fool me once, shame on him, fool me 2,576 times, he can bite me.”
Now make no mistake: Obama know how to fake virtues he doesn’t have, and that’s an important leadership skill. Most Americans probably think he really was trying to be a “President for all Americans,” when he was in fact one most disastrously divisive Presidents in our history. He knew how to act Presidential: if only Donald Trump had that skill (or wanted to have it), he might be far more effective. On the other hand, enough people figured out Obama’s act (and Hillary’s, and Biden’s, and Bill Clinton’s, and Joe Biden’s, and Kamala Harris’s…) that they decided that an open vulgarian that didn’t pretend to be something he isn’t (like nice, kind, respectful, dignified, civil, even-tempered…well, ethical, frankly).
There are several tells in the statement, which, of course, is being fawned over as if Michelle and BO didn’t attack Trump personally when they played cavalry to Kamala’s ill-fated metaphorical wagon train to the White House. Obama suggested that Trump was senile, which takes quite a bit of gall for any Democrat, considering that they pretended that Joe Biden was solving Rubik’s Cube blindfolded for years when he really belonged in a home with a drool cup. I don’t call that “good faith and grace.”
But my favorites were the words he used on Kamala and her pathetic campaign.
In the theater world, a constant ethical dilemma is what to say when you go to a friend’s show and the show, or the friend’s performance, stinks on ice. Books have been written about this problem. “I’ve never seen you better!” is a classic response; pure deceit, of course, but effective. “That was memorable!” is another. Obama chooses his words carefully, and the carefully chosen deceitful word he used for Harris’s disastrous campaign was “remarkable.” It was remarkable all right: remarkably inept and ineffective. Before that, Obama calls Knucklehead and Harris “extraordinary.” Same trick. Actually, in theater circles, using more than one of these deliberately two-edged superlatives is considered risky, but I don’t think Obama cares: he has plausible deniability.
Finally, he says, “he couldn’t be more proud.” That one’s a version of the theater classic, “I couldn’t have enjoyed the show/your performance more!” (My personal favorite variation, “I’ve never seen you better!”)
Oh yeah, this guy’s good.
Ethics Alarms 
A line from The Shawshank Redemption comes to mind.
Captain Hadley : Drink up while it’s cold, ladies.
Red : [narrating] The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous.
Obama is trying to resurrect his image as a great orator and statesman. It must have been a real gut punch to know that your influence has waned to such a degree that your puppets have screwed the pooch making you irrelevant. Why else would he even feel it necessary to weigh in unless he felt he was running the show. His words will fall on a lot of deaf ears.
Thanks Chris…THAT hit the spot!
PWS
Smarmy…đź¤
Reminds me of this compilation:
The British Military requires annual officer performance reviews. These are actual excerpts taken from people’s reviews…..
His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity.
This Officer is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definitely-won’t-be.
When she opens her mouth, it seems that this is only to change whichever foot was previously in there.
He has carried out each and every one of his duties to his entire satisfaction.
He would be out of his depth in a car park puddle.
Technically sound, but socially impossible.
This Officer reminds me very much of a gyroscope – always spinning around at a frantic pace, but not really going anywhere.
This young lady has delusions of adequacy.
When he joined my ship, this Officer was something of a granny; since then he has aged considerably.
This Medical Officer has used my ship to carry his genitals from port to port, and my officers to carry him from bar to bar.
Since my last report he has reached rock bottom, and has started to dig.
She sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.
He has the wisdom of youth, and the energy of old age.
This Officer should go far – and the sooner he starts, the better.
In my opinion, this pilot should not be authorized to fly below 250 feet.
This man is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.
https://www.militaryimages.net/threads/officer-performance-reveiws.2109/
Highfreakin’larious, and with the desert dry/passive aggressive delivery only Brits can muster.
PWS
It’s magnanimous enough for my purposes. He reminds people to listen to each other, extend good faith, and use peaceful means to express themselves. If it keeps Democrats from going into an emotional death spiral, I’ll take it. It makes my job that much easier. With all sincerity, thanks Obama.
I read President Obama’s words with more than a little skepticism. His desire to “extend good faith and grace” is probably going to need to start with those on HIS side of the ideological spectrum. It’s they that have spent the last eight years demonizing us, labeling us as fascists, calling us tools of Hitler, shunning us at holidays, terminating friendships with us, screaming at our children in strollers, shouting down our lectures on campuses, throwing chemicals on our speakers, burning down our homes and businesses, sacking and pillaging and looting our stores, lying about what we say, taking up guns and trying to assassinate the former President, and then lamenting when the attempts were unsuccessful.
Good faith and grace, Barak? I’ll believe you’re serious when you tell those on your side more than just a generic “get along.” Demand that they drop their rhetoric, their tools of destruction, their cancellations, their torches, and their guns…and they begin interacting with us as friends and neighbors, rather than an evil that needs to be wiped from the face of the earth.
Otherwise, your platitudes are meaningless.
I think he should have used the Education world’s favorite word, ‘exceptional’. What is an ‘exceptional’ student? Harris was an ‘exceptional’ presidential candidate. Yeah, the condescension and cynicism of this is nauseating.