Pirate's Cove

Over at The Politico, Glenn Thrush discusses the newly released ebook “The Last Stand”

President Barack Obama’s campaign team, celebrated four years ago for its exceptional cohesion and eyes-on-the-prize strategic focus, has been shadowed this time by a succession of political disagreements and personal rivalries that haunted the effort at the outset. (big snip)

The e-book, produced as part of a two-month reporting project that included interviews with two dozen current and former members of Obama’s team, illuminates how the mood and character of the 2012 reelection effort is flowing from the top — with Obama’s own personality and values shaping his campaign just as powerfully as he did four years ago.

And what are those values?

Obama’s trash-talking competitiveness, a trait that has defined him since his days on the court as a basketball-obsessed teenager in Hawaii, was on display one night last February, when the president spotted a woman he knew was close to Sen. Marco Rubio in a Florida hotel lobby. “Is your boy going to go for [vice president]?” the president asked her. Maybe, she replied.

“Well,” he said, chuckling, according to a person who witnessed the encounter. “Tell your boy to watch it. He might get his ass kicked.”

We all know what he meant, but, if a Republican had referred to a minority as “boy”, there would have been massive charges of racism and/or bigotry.

Anyhow, what the article, and ebook, show is a petty, petulant, nasty man who takes everything intensely personal. He’s snappy, angry, and rude. He personally hates Mitt Romney. And he surrounds himself with petty, petulant, and nasty people. Welcome to Hope and Change.