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Barack Obama As Benjamin Franklin: Eating Humble Pie?

One definition of ?eat humble pie? is to ?[a]ct submissively and apologetically, especially in admitting error.? In recognizing the ?shellacking? did Obama eat humble pie in his press conference yesterday? If he did, was his act and act or the real thing?

Many in the mainstream media were persuaded they had witnessed a newly humble Obama. David Herszenshorn, in the New York Times, for example, pointed to the president?s statement that, ?You know, some election nights are more fun than others.... Some are exhilarating; some are humbling.? And in the Washington Post Obama tankster Greg Sargent was mightily impressed with the president?s acknowledgement, in an interview with the National Journal, that ?Democrats will need to show an "appropriate sense of humility about what we can accomplish? and his pledge to ?spend more time building consensus.?

Peggy Noonan, as usual, was much closer to the mark. His press conference presentation, she wrote, ?was like hearing the audiobook of Volume I of his presidential memoirs.? (Since his brief stint in the Senate consisted primarily of his, or someone, writing the second volume of his autobiography, maybe it was.)

?Obama was frustrated. He honestly didn?t understand what the country was doing. It was as if they had compulsive hand-washing disorder. In ?08 they washed off Bush. Now they?re washing off Obama. There he is, swirling down the drain! It?s all too dramatic, too polar. The morning after the election it occurred to him: maybe he should take strong action. Maybe he should fire America! They did well in 2008, but since then they?ve been slipping. They weren?t giving him the followership he needed. But that wouldn?t work, they?d only complain. He had to keep his cool. His aides kept telling him, ?Show humility.? But they never told him what humility looked like. What was he supposed to do, burst into tears and say hit me? Not knowing how to feel humility or therefore show humility he decided to announce humility: He found the election ?humbling,? he said.?

If humility is as foreign to you as the strange habits and values of the American people, then of course acting humble will be an act.

But for the most astute insight into this rare Obamian encounter with humility, there is no better place to look than that famous primer on self-improvement, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. At one point, Franklin wrote,

I conceiv?d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish?d to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I bad imagined. While my care was employ?d in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct.

Franklin then proceeded to list thirteen virtues he would seek to achieve, with ?a short precept? after each one, such as ?9. MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.?

The thirteenth and I think most interesting virtue, and the reason for my excursion into Franklin, was HUMILITY, with its brief precept: ?Imitate Jesus and Socrates.? And here is the passage our president and his sycophants in the media would do well to ponder:

My list of virtues contain?d at first but twelve; but a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride show?d itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, of which he convinc?d me by mentioning several instances; I determined endeavouring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my list) giving an extensive meaning to the word.

I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it....

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.

I don?t think that Obama has, or ever will, achieve as much success as Franklin at appearing humble, but I have no doubt that he will both feel pride and continue to receive media acclaim for his acting humble.

Full post as published by Discriminations on November 05, 2010 (boomark / email).