Mr. Pecksniff Meets the Press

Peck·sniff·i·an adj. Hypocritically benevolent; sanctimonious.

Is it my imagination or is Robert Gibbs now so out-front arrogant and condescending that even the whores of the White House Press Corps are beginning to feel insulted every time he opens his mouth?

More and more Gibbs, as can certainly be seen here, is proving to be the very model of that modern Obama apparatchik; a model updated for our era into the very glass and form of a Little Hitler reigning secure in the White House Dwarf Cavern.

We all know the contemporary type of "Little Hitlers." We meet them whenever we have to interact with people whose positions do not rest upon doing a good job but upon pleasing some master above them. Most often we see them in Government bureaucracies where rules are not announced to you until you break them. At which point you are instructed, in the patient smarmy tones reserved for pre-schoolers, to "fill out the proper form" or "obtain the proper documents," and then come back to wait in the longer line in the next building.

This is essentially what we see oozing out of the Gibbs creature in this clip. The same sort of small bureaucrat smarm packaged in one who has ascended to a status far beyond anything he hoped for while pleasuring himself to pictures of Janet and/or Michael Jackson in his adolescence. Instead he can now pleasure himself by

instructing the bought and paid for members of the White House Press Corps to go fuck themselves with any questions he doesn't feel like answering. He knows they aren't going anywhere and so he can just mellow them like a cat playing with a freshly pithed mouse.

At the same time, his posture, expressions, and general body language reveal a man innately convinced of his own self-worth and his position in the heavenly host of anointed Obamaites. There are many of these at all levels of the government now and the only things that can even hope to dissuade or dislodge them are high levels of ruin and rubble.

Behold. The wan and pityingly patronizing smile that flickers and fades. Observe the slight tinge of sanctimony with the tilt of the head. Watch for the momentary lapse into irritation masked by the lidded beagle eyes. Listen if you can to the parrying banter and recall the man who "oozing charm from every pore / oiled his way across the floor."

All of these bespeak the man who knows he is leading whores on a merry chase and is determined that if anyone is put at bay it shall not be him. Gibbs is, as these men go, a serviceable dog; one who has been carefully vetted and trained to be loyal to his masters. He has what it takes -- a willingness to do say anything, to do anything, to perform any service asked of him and to eat any offal that his masters put before him.

Charles Dickens had the measure of these Gibbsian phonies long, long ago. Here is his description of Seth Pecksniff, the "treacherous and hypocritical architect" in Martin Chuzzlewit. when he described this most odious man:

It has been remarked that Mr Pecksniff was a moral man. So he was. Perhaps there never was a more moral man than Mr Pecksniff, especially in his conversation and correspondence. It was once said of him by a homely admirer, that he had a Fortunatus's purse of good sentiments in his inside. In this particular he was like the girl in the fairy tale, except that if they were not actual diamonds which fell from his lips, they were the very brightest paste, and shone prodigiously. He was a most exemplary man; fuller of virtuous precept than a copy book. Some people likened him to a direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there; but these were his enemies, the shadows cast by his brightness; that was all.

His very throat was moral. You saw a good deal of it. You looked over a very low fence of white cravat (whereof no man had ever beheld the tie for he fastened it behind), and there it lay, a valley between two jutting heights of collar, serene and whiskerless before you. It seemed to say, on the part of Mr Pecksniff, 'There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen, all is peace, a holy calm pervades me.' So did his hair, just grizzled with an iron-grey which was all brushed off his forehead, and stood bolt upright, or slightly drooped in kindred action with his heavy eyelids. So did his person, which was sleek though free from corpulency. So did his manner, which was soft and oily. In a word, even his plain black suit, and state of widower and dangling double eye-glass, all tended to the same purpose, and cried aloud, 'Behold the moral Pecksniff!' [Emphasis added]

All of these Pecksniffian elements can be spread as wide as a peacock's ass in the above clip. They are there to such a degree that you almost feel sorry for the hapless whores of the press corps as they struggle to deal with his vainglory, his vanity, and his now not-so-sly tone of contempt whenever he deigns to speak with them. Almost. But then you recall that for "journalists" like these they have long since sold their right to say "No." And once you've given up the right of refusal you are doomed, like all whores, to just sit still and let anybody in Gibbs' position use you. If you are really committed you'll feign enthusiasm and laugh at his little jokes in the hopes he'll choose to use you more frequently than the other whores. It'll be "good for your book."

When you've sold your bed, you can't complain about who's lying to you in it.

Posted by Vanderleun at July 2, 2009 5:07 PM