Messy Desk

Via Chris Hayes, Barack Obama makes jokes:

“Because I’m like, an ordinary person, I thought that they meant what’s your biggest weakness?” Mr. Obama said. “So I said, ‘Well, I don’t handle paper that well. You know, my desk is a mess. I need somebody to help me file and stuff all the time.’ So the other two they say uh, they say well my biggest weakness is ‘I’m just too passionate about helping poor people. I am just too impatient to bring about change in America.”

As the room erupts in laughter, he continues: “If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. I could have said, ‘Well you know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped. It’s terrible.’”

My biggest weakness is that I'm bad at chess. Otherwise, I'm a stellar human being.

Photo by Flickr user Elliottcable used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

Hillary's attempt to capitalize on this seems ridiculous. Is she saying she'll do her own filing and maintain her own appointment book as president?

Posted by KCinDC | January 18, 2008 4:11 PM

Seriously, those were some lame answers by Clinton and Edwards. That won't even work when interviewing for a job at Dunder Mifflin, much less the White House.

Posted by Mike | January 18, 2008 4:12 PM

Like the joke, but I bet it's wine vs. beer track. I have to think that some set of people think the answers--"I'm too awesome, and it makes people sad when I'm not there"--are accurate in some way. Otherwise, that idiot question should have died long ago.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 18, 2008 4:13 PM

My biggest weakness is that my penis is too large. At least that's what I tell all the ladies. It doesn't seem to help much.

Posted by blah | January 18, 2008 4:25 PM

Honestly, Obama's answer to this question and the other two's lame answers and his subsequent jokes about it has put him as the front-runner in my personal primary.

Perhaps this is a stupid reason to choose to vote for the nominee but it was at this moment that I felt I could really relate to the guy. After being asked this question in countless school applications and job interviews in the recent past, I truly appreciated Obama actually saying he wasn't good at something. And guess what, it's the same thing I'm not good at but never felt like I could say in my interviews.

God bless you Obama for shining some much needed light on this ridiculous question. You are my hero!

Posted by djslippyb | January 18, 2008 4:28 PM

Every interview guideline says that you have to turn this question into a positive about yourself. Of course, they also warn that your weakness can't be that you're just too good :)

Posted by JordanT | January 18, 2008 4:31 PM

Why the fuck would I vote for an ordinary person to be president? Obama is not one of the guys, he has been in 16 debates and knows what the game is and it is phony as hell for him to pretend otherwise.

He said paperwork because Obama is convince he is perfect.

Posted by TK MAX | January 18, 2008 4:34 PM

Eh, TK? How is Obama's response more an indication that he thinks he's perfect than Clinton's or Edwards's is?

Posted by KCinDC | January 18, 2008 4:45 PM

You see, Obama's fake because he was very calculated and knew what the "stock" answer to such a question was and made a calculated "phony" decision to give the real answer to the question, rather than the natural, fake answer that a more authentic person would have given. Or something like that.

I think the last time I was asked this question in an interview, I was a little more subtle about the "weakness that's really a strength" answer: I said something along the lines of how I can come across as impatient and intolerant of people who lag and/or aren't quick on the uptake in work situations.

Posted by Tyro | January 18, 2008 4:55 PM

"I said something along the lines of how I can come across as impatient and intolerant of people who lag and/or aren't quick on the uptake in work situations."

HR drone reviews Tyro's responses: "Admits to impatience and intolerance..."

Posted by cmholm | January 18, 2008 5:03 PM

It's just another round in the ongoing game of convolutions.
Obama was one convolution ahead of Clinton and Edwards, so he won this round.

Posted by Xboy | January 18, 2008 5:31 PM

One of the things that defines Obama and Huckabee is that, whatever you think of their politics, they seem to still be ordinary people on some level. Modern politics forces candidates to cultivate an artificial persona to such an extent that the real person is lost or forgotten. That's why the media and a lot of the public never seemed that concerned about GWB's shallow and disconnected public performances in 2000 and why they didn't make an even bigger deal about his awesomely bad debate performances against Kerry in 2004. They assumed that was just the face Bush put on for the public, and he was just really bad at that kind of performance. It never occured to them that it was the Real Bush they were seeing.

Mike

Posted by MBunge | January 18, 2008 5:56 PM

The phoniness is in the little gray box above.

Obama is not an ordinary person, Obama knows what the game is/how debates work, Obama's biggest weakness is not a messy desk yet he pretends otherwise in order to spin his lame answer.

Posted by TK MAX | January 18, 2008 6:11 PM

"Obama is not an ordinary person, Obama knows what the game is/how debates work, Obama's biggest weakness is not a messy desk yet he pretends otherwise in order to spin his lame answer."

What did you expect him to say? "My biggest weakness is that when I get mad I kick my dog"?

The fact is that Obama felt comfortable enough with himself to claim a real, in very minor, flaw. As opposed to Clinton and Edwards, who couldn't stop being on message for 30 seconds.

Mike

Posted by MBunge | January 18, 2008 6:23 PM

My biggest weakness is that I care too much!

When it comes to people like TK MAX, though, I'm really trying to quit.

But I can't! I'm just too good a person!

Posted by Woody Bombay | January 18, 2008 6:36 PM

Obama's answer was as much B.S. as the others' were. He has a hard time keeping track of paperwork - that's his BIGGEST weakness? Seriously? What is his second-biggest weakness, leaving the toilet seat up?

I mean, even Jesus Christ himself was short with the money changers and smarted off to his parents.

Posted by Jason C. | January 18, 2008 7:12 PM

Re Matthew's comment "My biggest weakness is that I'm bad at chess "
----------
ha ha ha
I suspect watching Matthew attempt to pick up girls reminds one of The American in Murray Head's "One Night In Bangkok"

-------
"Time flies -- doesn't seem a minute
Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it
All change -- don't you know that when you
Play at this level there's no ordinary venue

It's Iceland -- or the Philippines -- or Hastings -- or --
or this place!

COMPANY:

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you're lucky then the god's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me

THE AMERICAN:

One town's very like another
When your head's down over your pieces, brother

COMPANY:

It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity
To be looking at the board, not looking at the city

THE AMERICAN:

Whaddya mean? Ya seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town --

COMPANY:

Tea, girls, warm, sweet
Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham suite

THE AMERICAN:

Get Thai'd! You're talking to a tourist
Whose every move's among the purest
I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine

-------

Rest of lyrics at http://www.afn.org/~afn30091/songs/h/head-one.htm

Song's at http://www.esnips.com/doc/eb9698cb-7ae2-4d88-8c6a-7df1ad4728fb/One-Night-In-Bangkok---Murray-Head
(drag bar about 1/3 of way to right to start at lyrics)

Posted by Don Williams | January 18, 2008 7:16 PM

Pace XBoy and TK MAX, I'd love to hear a candidate say to a debate moderator, "You know, Tim, that's a really fucking stupid question you just asked."

For our campaign system to improve, someone with a public voice needs to actually publically say how broken it is. And this is the first time I've even seen a tentative teeny-tiny step in this direction. I find Obama's response enormously inspiring.

Posted by James Gary | January 18, 2008 7:25 PM

When idiot HR people take that line out of job questionnaires and interviews, people will stop coming up with 'my positive weakness' answers.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | January 18, 2008 7:27 PM

The other method of deflecting this question, as opposed to the "I love/work/think-about-my-job too much", is to come up with a really minor issue. E.g., "I haven't kept up with my college French skills" or "my desk is a bit messy."

This was a stupid question, and Obama's answer is good only because he didn't resort to sounding like a drone and was able to joke about it later.

Posted by Tyro | January 18, 2008 7:39 PM

"The fact is that Obama felt comfortable enough with himself to claim a real, in very minor, flaw."

To be a bit blunt for a second, neither you, nor almost all of the posters here, have a friggin clue whether Obama's answer demonstrates that he is more comfortable with himself than Edwards or Clinton.

Can we, just for a second, stop talking as if

1) anyone ambitious, egotistical, and successful enough to run for office could possibly be a "regular guy" or "regular gal";

2) that (likely) rehearsed answers in a debate would signal much about about a candidate's essential psychology, or, for that matter, how "regular" he or she is;

3) that being a regular person is a *qualification* for the President?

Posted by Dan Nexon | January 18, 2008 7:44 PM

It's a bullshit question. Only the Death Star could answer it meaningfully.

Interviewer: So, you are a killing machine the size of a small moon. What's your biggest weakness?
Death Star: You mean, besides my deep, abiding affection for small puppies?
Interviewer: Ah, cute widdle puppies. I have that weakness too. You got anything else?
Death Star: Well, there is this small thermal exhaust port that leads directly to my power core. But only a Jedi could target that!
Interviewer: It's a good thing all the Jedi are dead, isn't it?
Death Star: Also, I guess I should add it takes me a good long while to warm up.

What is your biggest weakness, dear reader? I mean, come on-even MY's answer is stupid. Unless he gets into one of those duels with Death, it's unlikely that his atrocious chess game is really going to manifest into a real issue for him.

Posted by gerontion | January 18, 2008 7:55 PM

My biggest weakness is that I hate chimpanzees, whereas I really should just dispassionately kill their fucking asses.

As Bruce Lee once said, "I said 'emotional content' - NOT anger!" (That was before he went berserk, of course, at the end of the movie.)

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 18, 2008 8:22 PM

Props to gerontion for the good Death Star dialogue. Is it original, or sourced?

I think too much could be made of the differences among the answers - it was a monumentally stupid question, after all - but Obama's was less cloyingly absurd than the others, and his subsequent use of that small difference has been entertaining. And Hillary's attempts to crucify Obama because he said that he would, if lacking a staff, be less organized than he'd like, are just ridiculous.

Posted by Warren Terra | January 18, 2008 8:27 PM

What do we expect to hear from any political or job candidate on such a dangerous yet banal question?

"Hmmm. My biggest weakness? Hmmm. Well, I guess I'd have to say a frequent yet unpredictable recurrence of a really nasty venereal disease involving lots of pain and seeping pus. Takes me out for about 3 weeks. But, yeah, that's probably my biggest weakness."

Posted by El Cid | January 18, 2008 8:27 PM

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/01/18/sot.obama.hillary.experience.cnn

Here is the video clip of Obama talking about the candidates' biggest weaknesses. Its really pretty funny -- best part is when he talks about Hillary's bankruptcy bill vote.

Posted by donna L. | January 18, 2008 8:58 PM

Obama's answer was a white lie, while Clinton's and Edward's were obviously big lies. My problem with Obama is not a lame answer to a lame question it is the spin about why he said 'messy desk.'

Obama's spiel above is phony and that is what I called it.

My two weaknesses are expecting to find honesty, truth and rationale thought in the comments section of the MY blog and perhaps a small over reliance on snark.

Posted by TK MAX | January 18, 2008 9:29 PM

TX MAX, Obama's spiel about the question and answers is funny but not in itself important. However, Obama has been using it to highlight the Clinton campaign's repugnant attempt to use his initial response to smear him. What's your take on that issue?

Posted by Warren Terra | January 18, 2008 9:37 PM

TK, of course you're right - Obama's answer was as much of a meaningless calculation as those of the other candidates. Nevertheless, I do think he deserves some small credit for giving an answer that essentially pointed up a bullshit question as bullshit, even if it was done out of pure self-interest.

Posted by Toadmonster | January 18, 2008 10:57 PM

My problem with Obama is not a lame answer to a lame question it is the spin about why he said 'messy desk.'

Actually, I think it's clear that your problem with Obama is that he engaged in some good-hearted mockery of your preferred candidate, and that's what is making you all pissy.

Posted by Tyro | January 19, 2008 12:32 AM

Well, I'm going to use the Death Star answer in my next interview. Thanks!

Posted by kvenlander | January 19, 2008 2:23 AM

Smithers: What would each of you say is your worst quality?

Man 1: Well, I a workaholic.

Man 2: I push myself too hard.

Homer: Well, it takes me a long time to learn anything, I'm kind of a goof-off...

Smithers: Okay, that'll do.

Homer: ... a little stuff starts disappearing from the workplace...

Smithers: That's enough!

Posted by some other matt | January 19, 2008 10:12 AM

The best answer to that question is clearly "I'm very eager to please, and when I mess something up or disappoint it really upsets me."

Posted by Lesbia's Sparrow | January 19, 2008 12:28 PM