Comments at Steve Sailer:
* I was wondering why, if it was such an open secret, no bothered to tell Obama that Harvey Weinstein might not be the best person for his daughter Malia to intern with over the summer.
* You’re assuming Obama cares.
Almost everything strange or weirdly anodyne or detached that Obama does is explained by the fact that Obama just doesn’t care that much.
Obama is a lazy man. He’s perhaps the laziest man who ever got into the presidency. He’s lazy because he just doesn’t care about others—only himself and his own pleasure.
During his presidency his underlings called him “No drama, Obama” because nothing seemed to ruffle him. Now, that could be a sign of a good leader keeping a cool head to fix the problem going on—an Eisenhower type.
But look at how many problems Obama didn’t do anything to solve—no attempts to calm the race rioting, the attack on our embassy, natural disasters, etc. He did nothing—he went golfing, went to a personal concert, or went on vacation.
Keeping cool in a drama could also be a sign that you just don’t give a crap about it. It bores you. You just don’t care. So you get lazy about them.
Most people have noticed how extremely narcissistic Obama seemed, even for a president. He put the word “I” into speeches and referenced himself more than any president before. Narcissists are narcissistic to everyone—even family, even their own children. Obama doesn’t really care about them, at least to the degree a normal healthy father will, they were just tools to election. Please a rich donor by making his daughter an intern with the donor? Why not? Who cares, it’ll help me get re-elected and run defense against attacks.
* Steve Sailer writes: A weird thing about Obama as President was he didn’t really know many people. He had this tiny circle of wealthy black friends from Chicago, and he avoided socializing with people who might know stuff and tell him gossip. For example, he played golf more than 300 times as President, but typically chose low level staffers to fill out his foursome, like his ski bum body man Marvin Somebody. Obama even played dozens of rounds of golf with Marvin the Ski Bum’s brother, a complete nobody. Presumably, Obama liked golfing with guys who wouldn’t try to tell him anything important.
Marvin Nicholson is this 6’8″ slacker in his 30s, a ski bum type with not much in the way of career ambitions, whom John Kerry found working in a sailboarding shop. Kerry wanted to hire him to work on his staff, but Nicholson instead went off to caddy at Augusta National golf club for a year. Eventually, Nicholson became Kerry’s “body man,” which is kind of like being a Jeeves-like valet, on Kerry’s 2004 campaign.
Obama inherited Nicholson from Kerry and Nicholson became his quasi-valet as well, replacing Reggie Love. Nicholson is an excellent golfer and has caddied at the most prestigious country club in the U.S., so he knows all about how to behave on a golf course.
When Obama had a foursome of others, Nicholson would switch over to caddying for the president. But much of the time he was one of the golfing foursome with Obama.
And powerful men just seem to like having the guy around. Presumably he’s very chill. In an environment where everybody wants something from Kerry or Obama, Nicholson was refreshing because he was just doing his current gig as the President’s caddy and golf partner as another in a long line of interesting experiences he’s had without putting much long-term planning into what he’d be doing in five years.
Obama played something like 150 rounds of golf with Nicholson and several dozen rounds of golf with Nicholson’s brother. I have no idea who Nicholson’s brother is, presumably somebody who could show up whenever the President wanted to fill out a foursome. In other words, Obama chose for his primary golf partners a couple of nobodies with, I’m guessing, calm, unobtrusive personalities who will talk about whatever Obama felt like talking about — probably what was on Sports Center last night.
But all that time spent with the Nicholson brothers, as relaxing as no doubt they are, was a huge amount of time Obama didn’t spend with anybody who could tell him anything he didn’t know.
In contrast, Dwight Eisenhower played golf with big timers so he could get to know them better.
I mean, Marvin Nicholson would seem like a pretty useful guy to have around as a subordinate who is also kind of a friend, but a friend you can ignore or send away when you are busy without him sulking about it, and who isn’t wheedling you for favors. He has, I’m guessing, kind of a sidekick personality, like the hero of a cowboy movie’s pal.
On the other hand, if you are president it would probably be better for you to use your time on the golf course getting to know important people who work for you or are in Congress or have interesting ideas and let Marvin caddy. Making him your playing partner for 500 or 1000 hours of your White House years is not very productive use of your time.
My guess is the story is the lack of a story: Marvin Nicholson is a low-stress kind of guy and probably his brother is similar. Obama doesn’t like meeting new people, so playing golf over and over with two guys with congenial low key personalities was relaxing for him, even if it the opportunity cost of Obama not playing golf with more interesting and important people was high.
