What It Reveals About The Man...

In a remarkable display of something, Barack Obama once again manages to make friends in Nevada, enrage the mayor of Las Vegas, and make Harry Reid's political life all that more difficult:

President Barack Obama on Tuesday responded to criticism from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) regarding comments he made that Reid deemed derisive of Las Vegas. 

In a letter to addressed "Dear Harry," Obama said he "wasn't saying negative about Las Vegas" but was instead trying to make "the simple point that families use vacation dollars, not tuition money, to have fun.

"There is no better place to have fun than Vegas, one of our country's great destinations," wrote the president.

Reid told Obama to "lay off Las Vegas" after the president appeared to make light of the city's many gambling outlets while speaking at a New Hampshire town hall event Tuesday. 

"When times are tough, you tighten your belts," Obama said at the forum." You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college."

Obama's remarks could have come at a better time; he is due to visit Nevada this month to campaign for Reid; who faces a tough reelection bid. 

Nevada's other senator, John Ensign (R), demanded that Obama apologize earlier on Tuesday. Obama did not appear to apologize in the letter.

The outcry from Nevada lawmakers comes almost exactly a year after Obama first took a shot at Las Vegas while discussing corporate behavior at a town hall event in Indiana.

Then, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman insisted that Obama apologize, but later withdrew his request.

Goodman criticized Obama again today, calling him a "slow learner."

Certainly you can accuse Obama and his staff of rank amateurism on this one, but calling Obama a "slow learner" seems, at least to me, to miss the point of this particular episode. Not only that, it misses pointing up an essential feature of Barack Obama's intellectual makeup: 

Barack Obama isn't a slow learner; he's a non-learner.

One of the most striking intellectual characteristics we've seen out of Obama over the past year is his repeated inability to process information and adapt the formulas he bases his politics upon. This latest gaffe is a perfect example of that trait. Last year he got nailed by all of Nevada for criticism of Las Vegas, and it should have taught him a lesson. It obviously didn't. That isn't because he lacks the native intelligence to do so, it's because he lacks intellectual flexibility.

What Obama seems to lack is the ability to do anything other than repeat his own personal dogma. Clearly Las Vegas taps a Puritan wellspring in the man. Las Vegas ain't his kind of town. That's fine, but when you're the President of the United States, it's probably best to keep those feeling under wraps. But he just flat out refuses to do so. Last year's gaffe simply didn't register. The man just doesn't seem to be able to process and learn. 

Note: In a very real way, Barack Obama reminds me a lot of John Cleese's Basil Fawlty of Fawlty Towers. When I read of this cock-up, the first thing that went through my mind was Sybil proclaiming "You never learn, do you?" after they discover O'Reilly had compromised a supporting wall by cutting corners on putting in a new door. Basil's inability to learn anything was, in fact, the overriding theme of the whole series.

Comments

[Jane2]

Boy talk about someone needing to get out more. Obama needs to make a trip to Vegas to realize that a)just how bad the city (and thus the state) is suffering in this economy; and b) it's not all about white middle class folks having a good time at the expense of their children's future. I admit to taking my extremely favourable Canuckian dollar and spending liberally there, but no child was left behind in college funds and I'm sure my spending and tipping contributed to someone's bank account...and to someone's future (or at least rent and food).

I was shocked when I visited because as a resident of the prairie provinces/states, the economy hasn't hit us as badly as other areas of North America. But Vegas and other similarly suffering locations need no Presidential flippancy....they need a plan.

[Simon]

Obama also has a bit of this - "You're either crawling all over them, licking their boots, or spitting poison at them like some Benzedrine puff adder."

[wombat]

Maybe O identifies more with Shaft instead of Viva Las Vegas

[David]

"after they discover O'Reilly had compromised a supporting wall by cutting corners on putting in a new door"

"Are you Mr. Orally?"

I didn't realize until just now (when I youtubed the episode) that O'Reilly was played by the same actor who played Ned Devine.

[Person of Choler]

You are right that Obama is a non-learner. The SLOW learner is the guy who programs his teleprompter.

[Mike C.]

John Cleese was at least funny. There's no humor in this presidential stuff.

[Lefty]

Stimulus cash for that high speed maglev train from "Sodom to Gomorrah" i.e. Anaheim to Vegas so many wingnuts were convinced Harry Reid earmarked in the Recovery Act would have come in handy right about now wouldn't it?

Please ignore Obama's advice. Take off for Vegas this weekend. Blow a lot of cash at the tables, chow down at the buffets, drink til you puke, marry a hooker if you like. Only you can prevent forest fires and only you, the American consumer can bring the economy back. And a chunk of that economy is in Las Vegas, the party capitol of the world. So c'mon guys party like it's 1999. It's fitting that the rightwing voters who put the gamblers in office that damn near bankrupted the nation should lift Sin City from it's morass. Do your patriotic duty, go to Vegas and piss away all you've got on the longest of long shots. Hell, lay it all on the under in the Super Bowl. It's the last you can do.

[Earl T]

Nope! Non-learner is inaccurate. Damned speech was pre-written and vetted before given, this was no extemporanous, Uh...Uh...Oh-bamy ism, this was deliberate, an expresion of his Muslim heritage railing against the excesses exemplified by "Lost Wages"!

We cannot keep giving this guy a pass on all this ----"Oh, its just a mistake"....He's a slow learner"...He apologized".....HIS SCHTICK IS ALL DELIBERATE!

We are whistling past the graveyard when we continue to give him a pass, until finally: "Oh those aren't REAL guns, are they?......Uh, what do you mean, Kneel down?"

[just passin by]

Lefty is funny. Is it a program you run, Dennis? The Chomskybot must have been a great inspiration! http://rubberducky.org/cgi-bin/chomsky.pl

[David]

"piss away all you've got on the longest of long shots"

That would currently be Obama's re-election bid.

[Mike Myers]

Lefty Doofus (that's got to be your last name). It is true that only the American consumer and American small businesses can bring the economy back. Right now with Captain Zero at the helm driving the economy into every damned iceberg that he can see, whilst simultaneously screaming hard aport, full astern, full forward, nobody is taking any chances. Who knows what new governmental program he'll come up with next to steal your lunch money, your kid's lunch money, your grandkid's lunch money etc. ad infinitum. Best to hunker down until this crazy fool leaves the bridge and turns the ship over to someone else in 2012.

[richard mcenroe]

Thinking of Barry and where the garden gnome was headed in that episode warmed the cockles of my eeeeevile conservative heart. Thanks for the image.

[Randy Rager]

"It's fitting that the rightwing voters who put the gamblers in office that damn near bankrupted the nation"

Lord knows it won't be any of the tree hugging retards of the Left. Judging by the few I've seen lately, their parents aren't giving them enough to cover decent clothing, much less disposable income to recover this year's trillion plus dollar deficit.

Quite aside from that sweet sweet snark I love so much, this is yet more projection from our Projector In Chief. How many times did the Bush Administration ask Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and yes, Barack Obama to rein in Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac? More than once. More than five times. More even than ten times. I've seen quotes as high as "17 times in 7 years".

Sorry pal. Democrats OWN this sorry mess, lock stock and barrel.

Average yearly deficit under the Bush administration: 107 billion.

Average monthly deficit under the Obama administration: 93 billion.

[Lefty]

The Muslims are coming! The Muslims are coming!!! LOL

[ThomasD]

Clearly Las Vegas taps a Puritan wellspring in the man. Las Vegas ain't his kind of town.

You nailed it.

Mencken's definition of puritanism was 'the haunting fear that somewhere someone was happy.' In Obie's mind Las Vegas is filled with middlebrow white people doing middlebrow white person things. So not only is that not Obie's kind of town, it's just the sort he doesn't want to see happy.

[just passin by]

Your chomskybot must be programmed to dodge any comment that doesn't challenge it's feeble routines...

...maybe it's an AI and has learned the traditional liberal cowardice, to fit in better with it's real life peers.

[just passin by]

Thomas,

best bumper sticker I have ever ran across

"Annoy a Liberal; Work Hard and Enjoy Life"

[Randy Rager]

"The Muslims are coming! The Muslims are coming!!! LOL"

Oh goody. I don't have enough pictures of O'Bumblefuck bowing to everydamnbody he can find. Let me load the Mamiya with some Astia, this should be good.

[Dennis The Peasant]

Lefty-

You're sounding a bit puritanical yourself. Isn't the whole Obama/Pelosi/Reid/Krugman argument that everything will be wonderful once consumers start buying Buick SUVs and Gucci bags again?

[Lefty]

"Annoy a Liberal; Work Hard and Enjoy Life"

How does this square with going Galt? Remember that little temper tantrum on the right last year? Weren't a bunch of you going to refuse to do any productive work?

I've never been to Vegas but if it's anything like Atlantic City I'll pass. I prefer real cities or real wilderness for my vacations. Why not go to Paris and get sneered at by a real Frenchman in the shadow of the real Eiffel Tower? Or go to New Orleans for some real American music and exotic food? Life is enough of a gamble, I get no thrill from wasting money on games I have little interest in learning and never was much for Wayne Newton.

Please don't tell the Chinese but as near as I can tell Buick SUVS and Gucci bags are for fat people who are trying to stand out in the crowd. But to each his own. Don't go my opinion, I'm no trendsetter.

[Randy Rager]

It was a temper tantrum? Really? Say, how's the economy doing? Oh, it's still in the crapper despite the best efforts of the Democrat Party?

How about that?

[David]

If Obambi's so smart, but a non-learner, um, how again is he so smart?

If he's so proud of his smarts, what were his grades and SAT scores? Or was he just another affirmative action star, promoted up to his highest level of incompetence.

He possesses no original thoughts, no learning capability, his one talent is the ability to read a TelePrompTer. Period. he couldn't even be bothered to learn the Constitution while being a "Constitutional law professor" (which he really wasn't).

[Randy Rager]

But he is mighty purty with a wonderfully resonate rolling voice.

That's plenty for some people. The rest of them were in the tank as soon as their limited intellect figured out that he wasn't Bush.

[Uncle Fester]

"promoted up to his highest level of incompetence" - David, referring to The Zero.

Nah, he got blown way past his highest level of incompetence. He's the embodiment of the Peter Principle on steroids.