Two-Time Grammy Award winner Obama

In commenting upon President Barak Obama's "Olympic ego trip" to Copenhagen, George Will noted that Obama used the personal pronoun 26 times in 46 sentences. (In his first 41 speeches he mentioned himself 1,400 times.)

Everyone needs to have a healthy ego if they assume they have the experience and competency to be president of the United States. But that ego needs to be coupled with a tinge of humility. And it helps to make a distinction between two forms of egomania, given the president's admitted lack of experience, which is even more obvious now.

As to the first form of egomania, let me quote other presidential figures to make the point. Those old enough to remember will recall the time Lyndon Johnson (no shrinking violet, he) was heading for the wrong helicopter when a young Air Force corporal pointed to the presidential helicopter: "This is your helicopter sir," to which Johnson replied," They're all my helicopters, son." This is the statement of a guy who exuded command authority from years of experience of being boss. Ludwig Erhard, German chancellor said to Johnson upon a visit to Texas, "I understand you where born in a log cabin," to which Johnson said, "No, no, no! You have me confused with Abe Lincoln. I was born in a manger." This was a quip by a seasoned totally self-confident Democratic political veteran with a healthy impression of himself.

But now that other sort of ego that was present in Charles De Gaulle who proclaimed, "When I want to know how France thinks, I ask myself." Or a surprising statement by President Woodrow Wilson who unsuccessfully championed our membership into the League of Nations: "Why has Jesus Christ so far not succeeded in inducing the world to follow His teachings in matters of world peace? It is because he taught the ideal ... That is why I am proposing a practical scheme to carry out His aims." (A strange Pope-like comment, coming from a progressive Democrat and former president of Princeton, whose racist views were hardly a secret.)

Obama's ego is more of the flavor of Wilson's and De Gaulle's. Nevertheless, these guys at least had lots of high level mileage that prompted their over-the-top egos. Obama's is more of an elitist chutzpah that comes from being extremely clever, and being a performance artist at the level of any of our great motivational speakers. More than 215,000 Germans attended his speech in Berlin before he was even elected president! ("People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time.") He won a Grammy for the Best Spoken Word for the CD version of his autobiography "Dreams from my father." He won his second Grammy award for Best Spoken Word album for "The Audacity of Hope." These were the credentials that qualified him for the presidency. Two books all about himself. (His Nobel prize came later.) There really was nothing else, because he started his campaign for the presidency the day he was elected to the U.S. Senate.

He may be more clever than smart. He has chosen not to release his SAT, LSAT, or his GPA scores. The Obama inner circle keeps these a closely guarded secret, not unlike the John Kerry people. In fact when Kerry refused to release his military records, Republicans assumed his military record was less than salutary. It turned out that his military records revealed his SAT scores, and they were less than George Bush's.

Obama projects himself as being absolutely convinced of his wisdom; not unlike German philosopher, George Hegel who intoned, "I may say with Christ that not only do I teach truth, but that I am myself truth." It is no accident that his political opponents dubbed Obama the "Messiah." And fortuitously, his first name comes from the word that means "blessed by Allah" in Arabic.

The flip side of an egoist is an ideologue. And by definition, an ideologue does not have an open mind, or finds compromise difficult. It is now clear that Obama has surrounded himself with authoritarian socialist ideologues - less compromising than European Democratic socialists. Many are czars or senior advisers who escaped the scrutiny of Senate confirmation. The problem is that the average Democrat is unaware of this because traditional media outlets avoid this unpleasant topic.

Let's just take one who made the news in the past few days because the White House was forced to reveal the names of the scores of liberal Illuminati who were visitors, outside or the usual suspects - Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Jesse Jackson and Andy Stern. Wait a minute - Andy Who? Well he's the guy who tops the list with 22 visits - the president of the Service Employees International Union, largest union in the AFL-CIO of whom Obama said, "Before debating health care I talked to Andy Stern and SEIU members ... Before immigration debates I talked to ... SEIU members." Stern came out of an academy formed by former SDS radicals to train socialist activist community organizers and infiltrate the labor movement. This is a guy who eulogized the co-founder of the Democratic Socialists of America. This leftist ideologue can be seen on a videotape interview calmly saying, "We prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn't work, we use the persuasion of power," (Hitler's Brown shirts? ACORN's Orange shirts?) and "Workers of the world unite is not a slogan anymore." (Why use a quotation from the Communist Manifesto and not one from a U.S. iconic labor leader?)

Obama's inner circle of socialists are ignored by reporters of the mainstream media They have already crafted regulations to curb the Internet and talk radio, much as we have seen in Venezuela, Iran and China. They are the ones who want a government-run health care system with millions of more federal employees (loyal Democratic voters), as in Great Britain.

And speaking of Hitler and ACORN, Obama announced in Colorado Springs on July 2, 2008, "We cannot continue to rely on our military ... We've got to have a Civilian National Security Force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded." (Referring to other U. S. organizations.) Does he want a police state? What's wrong with the National Guard?

Ideologues are scary and dangerous.

Americans do not like ideologues. They prefer leaders who say "Follow me" - not "Do as I say." We like our freedom the way it is, or at least was, until Obama and his crowd took over.

Irving Kristol, a liberal who morphed into the godfather of neoconservatism, wrote in 1980, that "nonideological politics cannot survive. For better or worse, ideology is now the vital element of organized political action."

While I don't agree, considering that neocons are the most hated conservatives by liberals, it is ironic that this philosophy is the essence of Obama's and his equally ego-laden inner circle of czars and advisers.

Well, these are the political leaders we wanted. Right? We voted for change.