Obama's "Freudian slips"

This piece has only a partial list of Obama's "slips," but these slips show the Obama that I knew at the University of Chicago. The guy is a left winger, a socialist. An comprehensive list would include his claim that the market caused the recession, that profits increase the cost of insurance because they have to be added on top of other costs, his micromanaging of what companies can invest in, etc..

But Obama’s effort to overhaul his image is encumbered by conflicting impressions of who he is that have been engraved in voters’ minds by his own words.

During unguarded and even some staged — but inadvertently revealing — moments, Obama has allowed unintended glimpses into his thinking. At various times, his offhand comments have led critics, and many voters, to view him as an ardent leftist or an elitist or — most recently — a partisan Democrat.

These Freudian slips, uncovering the man beneath the spin and the speeches, are embedded in Americans’ subconscious, if you will, because they seem to come directly from the president’s inner self. Obama can change his policies, but he cannot easily erase these perceptions. And because of his cool opaqueness — noted even by his own staff — and his relatively brief track record on the national stage, voters have little else to go on. . . .

His surprising self-revelations began during the presidential campaign. They were harmful but did not create major problems.

First, there was his condescension toward blue-collar Midwestern voters. At a San Francisco fundraiser, he said, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” . . .