Please enjoy the following excerpt from an article I read today. Barack Obama exhibits all of these traits to a rather large degree.
“A Narcissist’s Characteristics.
The reason for prefacing these comments with the foregoing precaution lies in the nature of the narcissist’s personality. A narcissist exhibits pervasive grandiosity — sometimes through behavior, sometimes in fantasy. A narcissist needs to be admired and shows little or no empathy or concern for the problems, difficulties, or even the interests, of other people.
Narcissists hold (perhaps “embrace” would be a better term) an exaggerated sense of self-importance. They overrate the significance of their achievements and talents. And they expect to receive accolades for what they believe are outstanding personal attributes and accomplishments. They tend to be totally absorbed in fantasies of success, power, brilliance, beauty, and other achievements and qualities. They believe they are special; as a result, they believe they can only be understood and appreciated by people who are — or organizations that are — also special. Consequently, narcissists have unreasonable expectations of people and situations. They feel they are entitled to favorable treatment and unquestioning compliance with their hopes and expectations. Other people are supposed to acquiesce to their wishes.
Further, they exploit friends, acquaintances, and associates, taking advantage of others to secure their own desires. They tend to be haughty and arrogant, convinced that others are, or should be, envious of them. While every narcissist does not display each and every one of these characteristics, every narcissist exhibits enough of them to be difficult to deal with.
Despite the difficulties, from time to time we all find ourselves having to interact with a person who is afflicted with narcissism. It may be a member of the family, a neighbor, someone with whom we work, or someone we dearly love. In cases where we must deal with them, it is a good idea to understand how best to do so.” -Bill Snow
Part 2 of 3 of this webblog will follow.
http://exemployee.wordpress.com/2008/08/02/part-2-definition-of-a-narcissist-barack-obama/
from the mind of…
August 2, 2008 at 5:44 am
….. This dumb ass shit. Really this says more about you than Obama. How dare you judge somebody when you don’t know him from a can of paint? Get a life and find a way to contribute to the world.
August 2, 2008 at 3:16 pm
silly brown eyed girl,
He can be critiqued without being know personally. Psychiatrists do that everyday with people they don’t know just by “listening” to them, “watching” them, and “analyzing” them.
So my question to you is this, “Why, if I can’t judge Barack Obama on something he said, did, or wrote because I don’t know him from a can of paint, do YOU get to judge me as a “dumb ass shit” because of something I wrote. You don’t know ME, either, yet you judged me. How dare YOU.
I’ll tell you why you think you can call me that, though. Because you are a Democrat and Democrats think they can speak out of both sides of their mouths at the same time. You’ve had a great teacher: Barack Obama.
August 2, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Looks like you have very intolerant, vulgar liberals commenting on your posts too, haha.
Good idea to remind people what narcissism is so that they can actually recognize it when they see it.
Keep up the good work.
August 2, 2008 at 3:58 pm
You too!
August 2, 2008 at 5:48 pm
>Further, they exploit friends, acquaintances, and associates, taking advantage of others to secure their own desires. They tend to be haughty and arrogant, convinced that others are, or should be, envious of them.<
The above is the real Barack Hussein Obama!
August 2, 2008 at 11:29 pm
As a psychologist myself, I wouldn’t say that Barack Obama is a narcissist w/ a capital N, but he has stronger than average narcissistic traits. In reality we all have some degree of narcissism or better called self-interest and healthy ambition, which are normal and even complimented as good qualities to have in a society like ours, that values achievement and individual success.
But what it sounds unfair is to stigmatize him or anybody else by looking in a manual of psychiatric disorders and give people a diagnosis just because we disagree with them.
August 3, 2008 at 2:59 am
Grace,
But, as a psychologist, you agree that he is stronger on the side of narcissim than the average bear. I am not “stigmatizing” him as much as pointing out that he has these traits. Isn’t that what you do in your profession? It is not that I don’t just disagree with him, I find his approach manipulative and him to be too self-interested and ambitious. That is slightly unnerving for me. Red Flags everywhere, sort of thing happening here.
Being president of the United States isn’t a job for someone that is more interested in themselves than their country.
And by the way, who writes an autiobiography at the ripe old age of 38. What could he have done in 38 short years that warrants such a self-absorbed ambition?
An Apple is an Apple.
August 5, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I don’t get it. You define narcissism without explaining what Obama has done to fit that description. You could call this piece “Definition of a Narcissist: John McCain” or “Definition of a Narcissist: Bugs Bunny” and it would be every bit as a valid.
Do I think Obama has a big ego? You bet. Do I think John McCain has every bit as big an ego? You bet.
How could you want to rule the free world and not. The point is policy and capabilities, not name-calling. People get upset that Obama ‘thinks he’s so smart’. He was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review–you know what? He’s probably pretty freakin’ smart.
The republicans are great at name calling, not so great with solutions. Maybe you guys should take a shot at the solution side sometime.
August 5, 2008 at 6:57 pm
“I am the ONE”….”A light will shine down and you will have an ephiphany…I must vote for Barack”
Is that enough for ya?
August 5, 2008 at 8:51 pm
You are commenting on labels that other people have attached to him. Rush Limbaugh also jokingly calls him “The Messiah” Would you also like to ascribe that comment to Obama?
I have said that McCain is woefully underinformed about world events and cultures. Can I now claim that he has said that about himself? (though he has actually said that about his understanding of economics which is why “he assembled a crack economic team”–the head of which he then later had to dismiss for saying there was no recession and that Americans were just a bunch of whiners.)
August 6, 2008 at 2:30 am
See my latest post for my comment back to jdinsmore
August 6, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I read your post. Apparently you did not.
Barack said “My job is to be so persuasive you will have an epiphany. . ” That was obviously a sarcastic remark using hyperbole. It would be the same as you saying “My job as a janitor is to make the crack house I live in so clean a germophobe would eat off the floors.”
Obviously, no germophobe would eat off any floor, but the statement still makes a point.
Don’t look now, but your boy McCain appears to violating the very campaign laws he was supposed to be championing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/05/AR2008080503502.html
August 9, 2008 at 3:46 am
jdinsmore,
apparently you didn’t read my post…sarcasism aside
August 9, 2008 at 3:52 am
“He was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review–you know what? He’s probably pretty freakin’ smart.”
Have you examined that situation, how/why he was appointed to that position, what he achieved while in that position, and if he followed the highly successful editors that preceded him?
Maybe you should. Not only was he the first black (why does his black half trump his white half?) at HLR he was the first not to publish any opinions, and the first not to clerk for a judge after – in other words he didn’t do much.
“Until the 1970’s the editors were picked on the basis of grades, and the president of the Law Review was the student with the highest academic rank. Among these were Elliot L. Richardson, the former Attorney General, and Irwin Griswold, a dean of the Harvard Law School and Solicitor General under Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon.
That system came under attack in the 1970’s and was replaced by a program in which about half the editors are chosen for their grades and the other half are chosen by fellow students after a special writing competition. The new system, disputed when it began, was meant to help insure that minority students became editors of The Law Review …..Well, it is clear the committee choosing the President of the Review did ‘factor in’ affirmative action. And it is just as clear they didn’t factor in his grades. Nor did they cite his papers written. In fact, there was not a mention of either. Instead, the committee abandoned them altogether and went to something completely unrelated – politics. In citing Obama’s qualifications, they pointed out that he had worked the political wards in Chicago before he came to Harvard. You may well ask – what does this have to do with grades or legal acumen? The answer is – nothing. And the answer gets even more troubling when one then realizes that after Obama was elected to President of the Law Review, he wrote no papers. That’s totally unheard of. Writing no papers for the Law Review is like taking a class in gymnastics without even putting on your leotards to work out. The whole reason for existence of the Review is to write a paper. And yet the very President of it writes none.
(3) clerkship with a judge
This is a shocking failure of Obama’s that he did not clerk with a judge after graduation. The fact that it is a shocking failure is evidenced by the embarrassed committee admitting it up front so as to beat others to it.:
“The president of the law review usually goes on to serve as a clerk for a judge on the Federal Court of Appeals for a year, and then as a clerk for an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Mr. Obama said he planned to spend two or three years in private law practice and then return to Chicago to re-enter community work, either in politics or in local organizing.”
“..usually goes on to serve as a clerk”. This polite sentence means ALL Harvard Law Review presidents serve for judges after graduation. Even Obama’s predecessor, Mr. Yu, did that. Indeed, Yu cited his clerkship with a judge so fast you almost thought it was part of his name. ”
Of course, spouting off a title or position you heard on the radio or read online without providing any context is all that’s needed in a sound byte society…
August 9, 2008 at 4:20 am
Obama never said he was the “one.” I believe that was Oprah that said that in here speech that day she endorsed him.
August 9, 2008 at 4:11 pm
The DSM-IV Diagnostic Criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder are: (don’t try this at home, folks):
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy, as indicated by at least five of the following:
1. a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is “special” and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy and is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes
December 15, 2008 at 1:30 am
This looks more like a simple attack from a pseudo-science conservative, mixing real scientific observations of patients made by real doctors with their own personal bias, and projecting it on Barack.
Obama behaves professionally, looks clean cut, acts presidential, has few, if any obvious personal flaws and so he’s called a narcissist, which is purely a subjective assesment. The original article goes on to pretty much say (with no irony and only a thin camouflage) that all people with the minds of progressives, radicals, liberals, leftists, anarchists, democrats (moderate or otherwise) and socialist are narcissistic, are dangerous, evil, degenerate, perverted, etc.
The original author was barred from Wikipedia for being a crank. The exact same thing has been done to Bill Clinton – call him a narcissist or “slick” because he looks and behaves professionally and presidentially – but really it’s an easy way to tar people with a few opposing political views with the “Mark of Cain” and try to make them pariahs. This is simply silly. If people who disagree with your ideological position are all denounced as mentally ill, it all comes down to being a witch-hunt – a return to the barbarism and the elitism of the past with a social caste of people blocked from having a say in anything, barred from participating in the process of liberty and democracy that is supposed to be a foundation of the American Republic.
Nowhere in this original authors work is sympathy for those who really do have mental problems, nowhere is there suggestions for treatment, all there is to be offered is fear and damnation. When we see web pages about narcissism with images of Obama or Clinton, it shoudl right away set off warning bells – it’s simply a politically partison smear-job.
December 21, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Skeptical,
The definition of narcissist is the same no matter where you look for it. If you would have read the rest of Part 2 and Part 3 of these blogs you would have found the authors suggested treatment for this mental condition. Most narcissists are dangerous. For instance, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin…and Obama.
They all, I repeat, all showed the same self-centered, self-important attitude. This is obvious to anyone, except Obama supporters. And why? Because it suits the Obama followers purpose to ignore the obvious, just as it did Napolean supporters, Hitler supporters, and Stalin supporters.
I am not saying that Barack Obama will not be able to overcome these self-grandiose attributes, I truly hope he does. In fact, I pray that he can overcome it. I would love for him to prove me wrong and succeed in the role that was in some aspects just given to him. The media did not report honestly and unbiasly during this last election. Because of this people did not hear the full truth unless they were listening to FoxNews or talk radio.
I am giving President-Elect Barack Obama a chance to prove me wrong. I am big enough to admit it if it happens. We will see. Afterall, I wasn’t really hyped up about either candidates we had to choose from this year. However, I was overjoyed by McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin. I hope to see her on someone’s ticket in the next presidential election.
But for retracking or agreeing with your opinion on Obama and narcissism, I choose to stay with my original opinion until otherwise proved wrong.
Have a Happy Holiday.
til later,
from the mind of….
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/2162/napoleon.html
http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/personality_disorders/narcissism/archive_1_1.html