Who Is the Most Narcissistic and Self-Absorbed?

That band of high school dropouts called the Hollywood A list is drooling over the prospect of a return to the halcyon days of the Obama administration. Today, for this news cycle, they are hoping against hope that Oprah Winfrey—one of America’s great success stories—will rescue them from the horror that is Donald Trump. After all Oprah gave a rousing game-day sermon about Hope… and if you have no political accomplishments, why not go on about a man from Hope.

Oops… the man from Hope, you recall, was Bill Clinton, a world class sexual harasser… honored and idolized by the same high school dropouts who now believe that they are going to stop sexual harassment by wearing black dresses. Why do they do so? Because Black is the New Orange.

In any event Oprah played the nostalgia card at Sunday’s Golden Globes, and evoked the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama, her hero.

At a time when Donald Trump is under constant attack for bad behavior and his mental incapacity, many people yearn for a return to the good old days when our president was disrespected around the world. 

But then along came Steve Hilton, former political strategist for former British prime minister David Cameron, offering a candid view of what Cameron really thought of Obama. We recall that the press claimed that Cameron and Obama were best buddies.

Anyway, Hilton explains that that was not quite the truth. The Guardian reports:

David Cameron’s former director of strategy has said Cameron thought Barack Obama was one of the “most narcissistic, self-absorbed people” he had ever encountered, despite the pair’s once notorious “bromance”….

He went on to emphasise the shortcomings of Trump’s predecessors, adding: “My old boss, former British prime minister David Cameron, thought Obama was one of the most narcissistic, self-absorbed people he’d ever dealt with.

“Obama never listened to anyone, always thought he was smarter than every expert in the room, and treated every meeting as an opportunity to lecture everyone else. This led to real-world disasters, like Syria and the rise of Isis.”

But the real world did not matter to the elites, Hilton said. “For them, it’s all about style and tone, not substance and results. Donald Trump offends the elites aesthetically, like a piece of art that’s not to their taste.

Narcissistic, self-absorbed, unwilling or incapable of taking advice… this does not come as a great surprise. Of course, the Guardian concludes, a spokesman for Cameron has denied it all.

If you would like a better insider view of the Obama White House you will need to wait for the documentary, entitled “The Final Year.”

The Daily Mail, however, has seen the movie. It paints a picture of a White House in disarray:

Chaos, running rows and f-word confrontations over foreign policy are revealed in a new fly-on-the-wall documentary about the last days of the Obama White House.

Senior officials give the film unvarnished accounts of a 'whole drama' over how Syria was dealt with – and how there was nothing to force the Iranians to abide by their terms of the deal supposed to stop them from getting nuclear weapons. 

In 'The Final Year' Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, also says that it took 'too long' to get the measure of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Of course, the crack Obama foreign policy team had been working together for years. It’s hard to believe that they had not yet learned how to work together. 

We do accept that they understood that their famed nuclear deal could not prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. Everyone who was not a flack on the payroll knew as much. 

That the Obama team did not understand Vladimir Putin is also plausible. After all, one of their first gestures upon taking command of American foreign policy was to cancel an order for defensive missiles to Poland and Hungary… because Putin wanted them to cancel the order. And they all think that Donald Trump is Putin's bitch.

The most amusing part of the story, especially for those of us why like our Schadefreude served straight up, is this scene, from an election-night party:

  

The last scenes of The Final Year show the heartache among Obama advisers on election night.

Thinking that Hillary Clinton would win, Power invited some women, including Gloria Steinem and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, to watch with her in the West Wing.

Steinem says: 'I didn't think it would be this bad.'

Power can be seen sitting with her head in her hands, crying.

In an offhand remark she says: 'To think of them in control of the Senate, the House and the Presidency…'

Rhodes is shown sitting alone in the darkness and is so shell-shocked he cannot even speak when asked how he feels. 

Now, tell me that that picture does not brighten up your day. 

A footnote: read the last sentence and note that the Obama administration was all about feeling, about getting in touch with feelings, about feeling one's feelings. In the end Ben Rhodes was struck dumb and numb... at the extent of his failure.