Speaking on Saturday in Germany, former president Barack Obama may have set a new record for narcissism, reportedly mentioning himself almost 400 times in a 90 minute speech. Obama’s reported 392 references in 90 minutes would average out to roughly 4.4 times a minute, or referring to himself roughly once every fifteen seconds.
As noted by Tom Elliott at Grabien, here is the breakdown of Obama’s self-absorption and his use of various references to himself:
“I” — 274
“Me” — 25
“My” — 31
“I’d” — 9
“I’m” — 41
“Myself” — 7
“Obama” — 5
Obama’s remarks began with him getting off to a running start on his way to a new personal best:
It’s been over ten years since I spoke to a slightly larger crowd in front of the Victory Column when I was running for president. I had a little less gray hair then. And since then I’ve been back to Germany I think at least ten times. I’ve been to Europe countless times. But I’m as excited to be here with you as I have been ever when I’ve come to Europe…
When I left office, or maybe a few months before I left office, I had to make some decisions about what I would do after the end of my presidency and I knew that I wanted to catch up on my sleep — I had to take Michelle on vacation. She deserved it, putting up with me for that long. But we also knew that our service wasn’t yet done. I was one of the youngest presidents to be elected, which meant I was one of the youngest ex-presidents. And I asked myself, “All right, what’s the next thing that I can do to make the biggest impact, the most difference?” And there were a whole range of issues that I cared deeply about, many of which you work on.”
Elliott noted that Obama even threw in a Freudian slip when it came to the Paris Climate Accord, starting, “When I passed the Paris climate,” then correcting, “Or, when I helped get the Paris agreement on climate accomplished, I was the first one to say what we’ve done here is not adequate to meet the demands of climate science.”
As The Telegraph reported in January 2018, Steve Hilton, who served as British Prime Minister David Cameron’s director of strategy, said Cameron felt Obama was one of the “most narcissistic, self-absorbed people” he had ever worked with. He said, “As for Obama, all I can tell you is my old boss, former British prime minister David Cameron, thought Obama was one of the most narcissistic, self-absorbed people he’d ever dealt with. Obama never listened to anyone, always thought he was smarter than every expert in the room and treated every meeting as an opportunity to lecture everyone else.”
As far back as 2014. Columnist Charles Krauthammer, who was also a psychiatrist, wrote, “So I decided when I left psychiatry never to use my authority. But let me just say as a layman, without invoking any expertise, Obama is clearly a narcissist in the non-scientific use of the word. He is so self-involved, you see it from his rise … I think he’s extremely self-involved. He sees himself in very world historical terms, which means A) because he’s an amateur, he doesn’t know very much, and B) because he’s a narcissist, he doesn’t listen.”
In Germany, Obama even treated the audience to ruminations about his personal fitness regimen, intoning: “You know, I was — I was a pretty busy guy. I’ve got to say. But I worked out every morning. I mean, I was pretty religious about it. I was in the gym. And people knew, unless there was an actual literal emergency, that you had to block out that time in the morning when I was going to be working out. And if I did not have a workout, I was going to be cranky. But I knew that if I was going to be able to sustain the pace I was sustaining over the course of eight years, I needed to have at least that.”