George Will: Obama Went to Copenhagen to Speak About Himself

October 4th, 2009 12:10 PM

On Sunday, ABC's George Will uttered an inconvenient truth about Barack Obama that his adoring media have been ignoring since he first threw his hat into the presidential ring in February 2007: his rhetoric is filled with constant references to himself.

To prove the point on the most recent installment of "This Week," Will counted the number of times Mr. and Mrs. Obama used the words "I" and "me" during their speeches in Copenhagen Friday.

The numbers are shocking making it likely in Will's view that the word "vain" is going to eventually attach itself to Obama (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

What's alarming is whether it indicates a belief on the part of the President which is that there is no problem that will not melt before the sunshine of his charm. And this is evidence again that it's not so. The President and First Lady went to Copenhagen and gave little speeches about themselves. She, Mrs. Obama, used the first-person singular pronoun in some form or another, "I" or "me", sixteen, 34 times in sixteen paragraphs. He used it 23 times in thirteen paragraphs. It was all about them, and the danger is an adjective sooner or later attaches to presidents. Honest Abe, Tricky Dick Nixon. All kinds of adjectives. The danger to the President is that Vain is going to attach to him. 

Precisely.

The only question is when will other Obama-loving media members begin to realize this?

This seems especially important given the press's complicity in helping Obama create his Cult of Personality.

*****Update: The Business & Media Institute's Dan Gainor wrote about Obama's self-infatuation weeks ago --

Instead of adoring his own image, Obama loves to hear himself talk - about himself. In just 41 speeches this year, Obama has talked about himself nearly 1,200 times - 1,198 to be exact. (That breaks down to 1,121 "I"s and just 77 "me"s.) And that just includes 34 weekly addresses and his seven major speeches. Count the hundreds of other public speeches and he'd be off the charts. [...]

The best we can hope is that one day journalists will wise up and see Obama eye to I.

Hear, hear!!!