Etymology Online says this expression means a “remarkable person or thing…” and its origin was “…perhaps from an old song, ‘Dandy Jim of Caroline’ (1840s).” I was disappointed with the lackluster description of the origin, but decided to stick with it because “A Jim Dandy” was the headline of the sports report about Colorado State University’s victory in the “Mile High Showdown” football game over Colorado University September 1, 2012.
The Amateur
The subtitle of this book by Edward Klein is “Barrack Obama in the White House.” The book begins with a detailed discussion of what is supposed to have been a very private discussion between Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton. Bill is pleading with Hillary to run against Mr. Obama in the 2012 primary. Chelsea agrees with Bill, but Hillary refuses and wants to wait until 2016. The quoted conversation ends with Bill declaring that Barrack Obama “…is an amateur.” I wondered about the truth of the conversation, which wouldn’t likely be carried out in front of anyone the Clinton’s could not trust completely.
It is later pointed out that Americans love amateurs who succeed, and Barrack the candidate certainly did thrill his supporters. Unfortunately Barrack the skilled campaigner has been revealed to have few of the talents needed to lead and communicate with the country. Presidential historian Fred I. Greenstein observed, “With all of Obama’s rhetorical brilliance and flash, he went into the phone booth as Superman and came out as Clark Kent.”
There is considerable information about Michelle Obama, Oprah, Caroline Kennedy, and the people who are the key advisors to Mr. Obama. I’m more interested in Mr. Obama, so I don’t intend to say much more about the others.
There are an astonishing 862 reviews on Amazon, and the average rating is four and a half out of five stars. The half results from the one hundred one star reviews. One of those said “It is difficult to know where this author received his information. He does not use any quotes to substantiate his allegations.” However, I will say in defense much of the information in the book is based on public record and agrees with information in news reports.
I found the book easy to read and mostly interesting. Much of the public record about Mr. Obama in his youth continues to be thin. He apparently was nearly invisible in college, displayed no intellectual curiosity, and wrote no scholarly articles as a young law professor. However, he had written his autobiography by the time he was thirty. He was elected to the Illinois Senate and hardly showed up at all. (He voted “present” on most issues.) He demonstrated no interest the legislative process, but he did enjoy giving speeches.
Mr. Obama married Michelle Robinson at the age of thirty, and the most significant adult influence on him during that time and for many years to follow was the controversial Jeremiah Wright whose sermons “…encouraged a victimization mentality among his black parishioners.” When Mr. Obama says “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody, he is channeling Jeremiah Wright.” The media followed the same approach with the reporting about Wright that they followed with just about any potentially negative story about Mr. Obama. They did not report it. (It has been said the power of the press is not in what they report. It is in what they decide not to report.) The media was swooning over Mr. Obama, and they made little effort to vet him as he campaigned for the Presidency.
There is much information about Mr. Obama’s foreign policy, which begins with the ideas that American exceptionalism is misguided and that American power has done more harm than good. He very much wants the Muslim world to gain respect for at least him if not the country, and he thinks that Israel needs to bend to the Palestinians. He forbids the use of the term “Islamic extremism.” He much prefers to be travelling and speaking to adoring foreign crowds to governing or dealing with Congress in any manner. He was said to have commented that he did not want to waste precious hours talking with “congressmen from Palookaville.” He is described as a thin-skinned, haughty, and exceedingly proud man.
Perhaps the scariest part of the book is the description of a secret meeting with several presidential historians where it appeared the historians were being asked about the most admirable traits of great presidents. One of the attendees observed that Mr. Obama “…seemed to be looking for a presidential identity not his own…endlessly trying on new presidential masks.” The meeting was judged by the author to reveal Mr. Obama “…didn’t have the faintest idea 1) who he was; 2) why he had been elected president; and 3) how to be commander in chief and chief executive of the United States of American.” “In short, he didn’t know what he didn’t know.”
But he did and does have devout fans. Oprah Winfery encouraged his apparent messianic complex by referring to him as “The One,” which is a reference to both Jesus Christ and Neo from The Matrix. Joe Biden, in typical Joe Biden fashion, told a gathering that Barrack Obama had been unable to attend “…because he’s getting busy for Easter. He thinks it’s about him.” It is said his personality most closely matches Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was being asked about appointments, and made it clear that he owed no one anything. He explained “Remember that God ordained that I should be the next President of the United States.”
Mr. Obama has been so inept at so many aspects of being President that The Onion News Network broadcast a fake “…story that the real Barrack Obama had been kidnapped just hours after the election and replaced by an imposter.” The book asks whether the centrist, pragmatic, post-partisan leader vanished, or, “Did he ever exists? Was he a figment of his own imagination, or of our imagination—or both?”
Chapter 7 is titled “Bungler in Chief,” and lists many of Mr. Obama’s failures. He loves signing ceremonies, but has little interest in what is being signed. Perhaps his most embarrassing failure was his decision to go to Copenhagen to convince the Olympic committee to select Chicago as a site for future games. He had many friends in Chicago who would have had handsome profits if the city was chosen. He gave his speech, and Chicago came in fourth out of four. Of course that isn’t the only embarrassing failure, and the Solyndra fiasco immediately comes to mind.
There are interesting observations about the current presidential campaign. First, it is written that the Republican (who we now know to be Mitt Romney) will have to run against not only the Democratic campaign but the full force of the liberal media. They are already gearing up a campaign that Barrack has made mistakes, but he has learned so much he deserves a second term. Axelrod “…has ripped a page out of Harry Truman’s 1948 playbook …he demonizes his opponent and runs against a ‘Do-Nothing’ Republican Congress and its wealthy supporters.” The last pages of the book list all the things Mr. Obama does not want America to remember on Election Day.
George F. Will recently wrote about Barrack Obama, “…people who like the idea of him, but not the results of him.”
Hell-Bent for Election
The book “Hog On Ice & Other Curious Expressions” by Charles Earle Funk explains that “hell- bent” is an American term to meaning to go all out “regardless of consequences.” Edward Kent was campaigning to be governor of Maine in 1840 after serving one term and losing the next election. His Whig party used the campaign slogan “hell-bent for election.” Their victory song mentions “On, have you heard how old Maine went? She went hell-bent for Governor Kent.”
President Obama and Islam
I just saw the movie “2016 Obama’s America,” and there are references to actions Mr. Obama has taken to make people wonder how close he is to the Muslim religion. Snopes says Mr. Obama said during his Presidential campaign “…it is just wonderful to be back in Oregon, and over the last 15 months we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in fifty….seven states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii…” Mr. Obama and his staff explained that he was tired and “It’s a sign that my numeracy is getting a little, uh…” His defenders note the long pause between “fifty” and “seven.” Skeptics note that there are 57 member states of the Islamic Conference.
Mark Steyn notes in his book “After America: Get ready for Armageddon,” that the NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a conversation with Al Jazeera on June 30, 2010 that President Obama had given him some priorities. “One was he wanted me to re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with the dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering.”
I watched the entire video, which is over twenty-one minutes long, and Mr. Bolden articulately described much about what President Obama had done to change NASA. The curious comments about the priorities (mentioned in the movie “2016”) President Obama gave him came just after the one minute mark on the video. Mr. Bolden also mentions that the Al Jazeera appearance had been scheduled to commemorate the one year anniversary of the policy speech President Obama had given in Egypt.
Toby Harnden points out in an article in The Telegraph dated June 3, 2009 there were other curious comment made by President Obama during his Mideast visit to Riyadh and Cairo in 2009. Obama had resisted even using his middle name when he was a candidate for President After his election he said he wanted to “…create a better dialogue so that the Muslim world understands more effectively how the United States but also how the West thinks about many of these difficult issues like terrorism, like democracy…what’s happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and our outreach to Iran…” He also said, “And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” Debbie Schussel provided an update that a reputable survey puts the number of Muslims in the U.S at 1.8 million, which means there are 47 countries with more Muslims Indonesia has more than a hundred times more Muslims than the U.S.
Just another curious set of information about a man the media seems unwilling to vet.
Crazy Horse and Custer
The subtitle of this book by Stephen E. Ambrose is “The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors,” and it provides a wealth of information about the two main characters and details their similarities and differences. Crazy Horse lived a simple life and strived to do what was best for his people. Custer behaved outlandishly to attract attention and surrounded himself with an entourage that catered to him while his troopers lived a hard life with poor food. Custer’s actions were always designed to improve his reputation and status. Custer’s only military strategy was to attack regardless of the risk to the men under his command. His eventual defeat resulted from the fact Crazy Horse was a better strategist and had vastly superior forces that were well organized for one of the few times in the decades the Native Americans warred against the whites. (Note that Ambrose called them “Indians,” and I have a problem with that name because it derived from Columbus seeing natives in what he thought was Indies and that name has survived since that error was made. However, I will use the term the author uses in the remainder of this review.)
I began reading this book on the recommendation of a friend and with a warning from the librarian who declared the book was said by her husband, an Ambrose fan, to be his worst. More important to me is a negative review on Amazon by a Sioux that “What Mr. Ambrose states in his book is mostly fabrication about the Sioux Nation.” I found the descriptions of the Indians and Crazy Horse to be fascinating. It actually makes me sad that a member of the Sioux Nation was moved to give the book a one star ranking, because I had increased my admiration of that tribe from the reading of this book. The most remarkable observation Ambrose makes is that whites were amazed that the Indians could consume as much as ten pounds of meat in one meal.
Crazy Horse began life as “Curly” and Custer began as “Autie.” Crazy Horse was raised in the tradition that led him to want to be a Sioux warrior, and Custer became known as “a born soldier” as a little boy. Crazy Horse and his people had no use for the concept of private property while the whites believed that the concept of private property was the key to economic freedom. Autie learned early that currying favor with the politically powerful gained advantage, and that is how he made it into West Point. Crazy Horse learned that bravery of actions and outcome was all that was important to a warrior.
Custer finished last in his West Point class, and seemed to be able to curtail his lack of discipline in both actions and dress just in time to prevent expulsion. He loved attention and was an expert at getting it. He went from long flowing hair to shaving his head and wearing a toupee. As his hair grew back he acquired the nickname of “Curly,” which was the name first given to Crazy Horse.
Custer attracted attention of superiors in the Civil War because he was the opposite of cautious. Custer ordered and led charges while others held back. He often lost large numbers of soldiers killed, but seemed impervious to injury himself. He led a headlong charge into Jeb Stuart’s Confederate cavalry at Gettysburg and might have changed history. Stuart was to hit the Union lines from the rear to coincide with Picket’s charge from the front. Custer’s undermanned charge sent horses and men crashing into the Confederate calvary, and disrupted what probably would have been devastating to the Union soldiers lined up to repel Picket to the front. Custer lost 481 men killed, wounded, or captured of his 1,700 man force, but he was promoted to Major General and Jeb Stuart was mortally wounded. Custer lost more than a third of his men at the Wilderness. His aggressive “tactics” stopped Lee’s flight and was a key in forcing the Confederate surrender at Appomattox despite the loss of 377 men. His successes in battle were always brutal and bloody. Custer’s younger brother Tom was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in the battles that led to Appomattox. His brother would follow him and die with all the other selected staff members at the hands of the Sioux.
On a personal family note, one of Custer’s competitors for senior military attention was Judson Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick, or “Little Kil,” was the commanding general of the “mounted calvary” unit in Sherman’s army that included Elijah Tilton, my Great Uncle by marriage to my Great Aunt Rachael Brooke, and two of their sons. The two sons survived, but Elijah did not.
Custer led the Grand Review in Washington to celebrate the defeat of the Confederacy. The end of the Civil War left only the Indian wars for Custer to gain the military recognition he craved, and there was little positive recognition due for the U.S. army and calvary in those wars. The book observes that, “…no campaign the Army ever undertook matched the Hancock campaign of 1867 for sheer stupidity.” The soldiers spent years chasing the Indians, and many of them never saw a hostile Indian in the field except in the rare instances that the Indians believed they had a strategic advantage. Custer and his troops unsuccessfully pursued Indians in the central U.S. while the Indians “…had a fine time…” striking mail stations, wagon trains, and railroad workers. The whites defeated Indians not by direct conflict but by killing the buffalo herds that provided the Indians food.
There is detailed information about Libbie (Elizabeth) Custer and her relationship with Custer. Custer did everything to be in her company, and once was even court martialed for abandoning his post to reach her. Libbie was completely loyal to him, and used her beauty and charming personality to advance his career. She accepted the fact that Custer ordered that she be killed if threatened to become an Indian hostage. She dedicated her life to advocating that he was a hero who died in the service of the country.
There is an interesting comment by Sitting Bull who became part of the Wild Bill Cody show and was later shot in the back and killed by an Indian policeman that “…the white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it.” Annie Oakley observed that the money Sitting Bull made “…went into the pocket of small, ragged boys.” Sitting Bull was eventually shot in the back and killed by an Indian policeman.
There are details about Custer positioning himself in politics. There are implications that he pushed his soldiers and their mounts to exhaustion and ordered the fatal attack on a Crazy Horse’s massively superior force because he hoped to have a major combat victory would earn himself a nomination in the Democratic convention. He was said to have laughed just before his death, and one has to wonder whether his brother, the hand-picked staff, and the others in his command thought it was all that funny.
Crazy Horse eventually agreed to come in to a reservation, but tried to resist when he realized he was going to be locked in a small cage with no toilet. He was stabbed with bayonets, and died within a few days. Not a great story in our historical legacy, but a worthwhile book to consider.
Out of Pocket
Word Detective (per the Phrase Finder) doesn’t seem to be certain about the origin of this expression except to say it began “around 1974” and indicated “out of touch or unavailable.” A more common phrase, which I might use in the future, is “out of the loop.”