Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.
Unfortunately, this person is not kidding. How he thinks Obama could, in the 68 days until inaugeration (or even during his first four year term) come close to the number of gaffes and blunders made by Bush is well beyond my powers to discern. The word “Bushism” didn’t come into common usage because the man is a wonder with words, after all.
These people, (mostly white guys) are the ones who, in high school, were not very good in athletics, math, science, languages, literature, band or girls. Their fathers didn’t do anything that captured their imagination, but one day they found out that they could still go to college and get a degree in Business, all the while not needing any particular skills. They then landed a dismal job chasing sales quotas and associating with other no talent losers. But even with their salaries they can’t make themselves happy, so they amuse themselves criticizing others they’ll never meet, especially others with talents they don’t have. When they run into like-minded others they sense community and it makes them feel better, temporarily. They eventually become alcoholics, get divorced, go broke and then blame everyone else for their predicament. The country has millions of these types, in various stages of evolution/devolution.
People with anything worthwhile going on don’t waste their time advertising their frustrated narcissism on the internet.
I remember back in college, my adviser and mentor (head of the English department) also taught a few business classes, mostly relating to business communications. I thought knowing how to write reports and presentations might be a good thing to know, so I signed up for one of his classes. On the first day of class, he saw me sitting in the front row and told me, in front of everyone (gee, thanks) to leave, never return, and he’d give me an A in the class, because there wasn’t anything for me to learn there (which I did and he did).
He was right, of course. I was already writing far more complicated “papers” in my advanced English classes and would have been bored to tears AND had to put up with business majors on top of it. My gods, some of them were insufferable. No, many of them were insufferable.
I know people just like your description. Many of them. It’s kind of sad, because some of them could have done something else and been happier, but they took an easier path and one they thought was going to pay off big. Sure, silly little liberal arts major me isn’t as financially wealthy as they are, but I think my life is significantly happier and richer in other ways. It took me a while in the business world to figure out that money isn’t the be all and end all, but figure that out I most certainly did.