Posted on 01/26/2009 6:11:40 AM PST by Tolik
All of you readers have had this odd experience. Just remember a bit. Someone you know, even know well, whom you thought was reasonably conservative, if perhaps at least a centrist, who would have welcomed a McCain “moderate” campaign, rather than a hard-core conservative candidacy, suddenly, without warning in a conversation, perhaps over the phone, confesses that he was voting for Obama!
And he was not just voting for Obama, but doing so in almost teen-aged hysterical fashion. I’m not talking of a Colin Powell phenomenon, but someone who had no political interests or career concerns, or need for psychological remissions of sins, someone whose entire political philosophy was seemingly antithetical to Obamism.
It made no sense, you thought, given that the apostate’s previous protestations about being conservative, but not a Bush conservative, would have led naturally to an affinity for McCain. After that you had the weird feeling, perhaps as you remember in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that anyone at anytime could wake up and almost zombie like not seem like he was before, but apparently docile, happy, and eager to join an entirely new centrally-guided paradigm that would prove for us new automatons to be in our best interests.
This occurred to me on at least ten occasions, with long-time friends, some familiar pundits, and a few in government no less. So I came to appreciate the power of the Obama rhetoric. And there was power too in the desire for change after eight years, and an understandable yearning for our first African-American President.
I was writing a TMS column today on Obama’s soaring rhetoric and the impossible expectations that he imprisoned himself in, and began thinking back on the last two years. What explains his near miraculous rise, when pros had almost coronated Hillary and assured us she would trounce Giuliani?
I suppose Barack Obama made the nation giddy when he proclaimed there were no red and blue states, just Americans. He promised to unite us across political, racial, and religious lines. And for the age of cynicism there was something admirable to returning to the age of belief. For some in one fell swoop they were given exemption for all racial sins and now could continue to live as before-but relieved of white guilt. So we overlooked the racialist sermonizing from Michelle Obama, Barack’s occasional promises for reparations in deed not mere word, and the odd things that a Joseph Lowery said on Inauguration Day that were acceptable for a Civil Rights veteran but would have sent a white professor, journalist, or politician into the Don Imus stocks for a week or two.
Of course, during the campaign, some of us—dismissed as old and in the way, hoped and changed away white guys—suspected Obamania in part was a result of mere political rhetoric of the Huey Long or JFK sort. We remembered instead that his pastor Rev. Wright’s venom was not evidence of indiscretion but proof of clear serial hatred. We read carefully his platform and saw at best Carterism and at worse some half-baked European socialism that we now see imploding in Greece, Italy, or Spain.
Obama’s career in Chicago politics was all too familiar in such a landscape—friends acquired like convicted felon Tony Rezko and rival election candidates dropping out through law suits, or mysteriously being forced off the ballot due to leaks about their divorces. Only the genius of David Mamet could write its Chicago script.
And for all the talk of bipartisanship, candidate Obama had the most partisan record in the US Senate, and serially trashed right-wingers like Sean Hannety (and by extension his audience of 10 million) during the campaign. In fairness, I think he proved the nastier gutter fight than ambivalent Hamlet-like John McCain, who seemed at times he wished to lose nobly than sandbag the nation’s historic chance for a gifted African-American healer.
But then Obama was elected and as President promised, as most Presidents do, to bring us together. He met with conservative pundits, reappointed Bush’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and brought in scores of Clinton centrists to manage his administration. Bravo to all that.
Yet the old Obama is starting to appear as most of you astute readers knew he would. Not a word from him about what can, without hyperbole, be called a dishonest Charlie Rangel, a reprehensible Chris Dodd, and the inexplicable Barney Frank who goes barking from one mortgage/banking ethical lapse to another, confident that no Democrat will dare take him on (he enjoys the exemption accorded to the proverbial raving but glib street-corner prophet who accosts you, flips you off on the street, and shouts in your ear and in public all the way to the car before trying to mount the hood and grab the windshield wipers).
Obama loftily talked about a new ethics law outlawing lobbyists, even as he tried to get an exemption for Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn. The problems that surrounded Treasury-Secretary designate Timothy Geithner, or the “troubles” with Attorney General Eric Holder, and Gov. Bill Richardson border on old-style greed, careerism and conflict of interest—in other words, the normal sort of controversies that a politician routinely overcomes if he’s not a saint.
For all the talk of bipartisanship, Obama like Lord Xerxes on his throne nevertheless has got down and dirty and trashed Rush Limbaugh (and by extension his 20 million listeners) and boasted to the Republican opposition. “I won. I am the President”—in braggadocio that exceeded the “decider” George Bush’s. I suspect if the Blago tapes are ever released in their entirety Rahm Emanuel will sound more like Nixon to Halderman than earnestly discussing the rising oceans with St. Obama.
The problem with all this is not that Obama’s trying to wheel and deal and talk out of both sides of his mouth like Bill Clinton and others, but, far worse, is staring to appear ridiculous like Jimmy Carter, divinely talking down to us as mere mortals as he acts like a mere mortal.
So what for others might be written off as the usual hypocrisy and small-mildness—No More Lobbyists in Government—Just One More in Mine! / I’m Zeus on Olympos above mortal cares—but Sean and Rush really piss me off and I want to get even with both! /I’m a radical egalitarian, but please appoint Caroline Kennedy who endorsed me but otherwise seems dyslexic—proves toxic even if it comes out as hexameter verse from St. Obama. The wages of prophethood are heavy, and those who walk on water, and proclaim Vero Possumus! can endure no mortal sin. Will the media that was made to look foolish with tingling legs and tearing cheeks get fooled twice, as Obama the Saint and Obama the Chicago Politician begin to bifurcate?
You readers remember that sometime around mid 2007, Obama made a Faustian bargain. Without much national name, without a legislative record in Illinois or the US Senate, but with quite a lot of Chicago baggage, Obama gambled on the hope and change new persona (soon to be followed with the soaring FDR/MLK/JFK prose, Latinate seal, Greek architraves, Victory Column /Sermon on the Mount speeches, Father Abraham’s arrival to DC by slow-moving rail car (after flying back to Illinois by jet)). For much of the campaign, he either hoped that Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, Father Pfleger and the other assorted Dailey/Blago baggage would not surface, or, if it did, he could hope and change them all away. And he did—brilliantly . And now they are history and those who dredge them up little more cranky sore-losing has-beens.
But as President, no matter how historic a candidacy (more astounding than any in American history), no matter how calm in the face of continuous pressure, no matter how brilliant in prepared and set oratory, one can’t get away with that disconnect forever. There is a reason why a plodding Ike and blunt Harry Truman were greater Presidents than even JFK—and why in 2-3 years even George Bush will begin to seem in retrospect honest, sober, and straight-talking rather than word-mangling.
As a novice politician without an Arkansas, or Plains, or Crawford mafia, even, or rather especially, Obama, had to import the hardest of the hard core Clintonistas—Emanuel, Podesta, Panetta, Hillary herself—and he had to pay off some overdue IOU’s to the left with symbolic gestures and appointments (more rhetoric and symbolism and task forces to come on Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, Gay Marriage, Cap and Trade, Kyoto redux, etc.).
Again, the backtracking on the issues, the tough centrist appointments, and the seeming continuance of a Bush (III?) foreign policy, once demonized now quietly embraced, are fine for Bill Clinton, Al Gore or Harry Reid, but in aggregate ever so insidiously they become finally problematic for the redeemer. As stated, even the Left-wing media won’t like looking foolish twice. And even the smug Europeans will turn on those who prod them to be reasonable and honest after serenading them with prose set to Mozart. Yes, he can halt the messiah act and we will forgive him for not being a messiah—or continue it in lieu of honest governance and I assure you in time even Newsweek and NPR will turn on him, in fear that they are not merely gullible, but looking ridiculous.
So even now, Obama need not play any longer the hypocrite and can recover if he mans up to the past hypnosis of the campaign, cools the Lincoln talk, reads about Nemesis, and admits that he is a mere mortal, an inexperienced one at that, matches his deeds with honest words, and seeks to govern in human rather than divine fashion from on high. That way a William Lynn or Timothy Geithner are just political landmines that one steps over rather than proof that the Wizard turns out to be a little man with levers and dials behind the curtain.
Americans can and will forgive almost anything other than hypocrisy.
Don't miss the post # 4 there:
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/
NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Pajamasmedia: http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/
There is a reason why a plodding Ike and blunt Harry Truman were greater Presidents than even JFK—
What the heck did Harry Truman ever do than fire MacArthur (and shame on the Joint Cheifs for letting him get away with that BTW) and force men to “die for a tie” in Korea. Yeah, I know, he ordered the A-bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but FDR would have done the same if he were still alive.
—Our political system is binary. You get one of two choices. Unless one is what you really want, you are probably voting against what you don’t want. —
As the esteemed political scientist Beaver Cleaver would say, “sorta kinda.” Actually, what we have is a de-facto one party with two wings that call themselves “democrat” and “republican”. Rather like a huge, old, bark beetle-ridden shade tree, it prevents other saplings (i.e. new political parties) from growing in its vicinity.
Interesting points.
No one can explain what Obama has actually ACCOMPLISHED that merits this mass hysteria.
Another extraordinary assessment of the situation by VDH.
With the media as his cheerleader; nearly untouchable unless you want to be labeled as racist, xenophobic, homophobic and mean spirited; good looking with his six pack, tall slim figure, nice big white teeth; well spoken with poise, always looking calm, cool, and even a “pimp limp” at times; willing to say anything to anyone, even if these things contradict one another; and most importantly well financed and surrounded by highly media and politically savvy folks (The Clinton political apparatus) Obama will do fine.
Obama will do fine, even if Americans live in Hooverville’s. I've seen this before even in Germany where with a media in his pocket, a well spoken and elegant Schroeder said sweet nothings to the Volk, which reelected him despite 12% unemployment, declining real incomes, loss of German political influence, a net decrease in GDP (inflation adjusted)............. It's all about form, not function.
He'd have to jettison his unbalanced psyche to accomplish this; it'll never happen.
In fact, I think he'll become more arrogant as the walls start to close in on him.
1 - I didn’t meet anyone I suspected of conservative leanings who voted for Obama.
2 - Everything that needed to be known about Obama was there for anyone who had eyes to see or ears to listen. He was elected by people who want freebies, and by those seeking racial absolution - that subset of whites who define good as being black.
It didn’t help that the GOP ran a candidate who promised to be Obama with a snarl. We might have gotten better judges with McCain, and maybe a BIT less expensive government. But overall, McCain was Obama with pasty white skin & wrinkles.
"It made no sense, you thought, given that the apostate’s previous protestations about being conservative, but not a Bush conservative, would have led naturally to an affinity for McCain. After that you had the weird feeling, perhaps as you remember in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that anyone at anytime could wake up and almost zombie like not seem like he was before, but apparently docile, happy, and eager to join an entirely new centrally-guided paradigm that would prove for us new automatons to be in our best interests."
Anyone remember streaking, pet rocks, the Rocky Horror Picture Show craze, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, the Disco craze, est, Primal Scream Therapy, The Moonies, Hare Krishnas, Jim Jones, or the movement to elect Jimmy Carter in the 1970s? Same type of thing. A lack of meaning and constant absurdity in people's lives triggers irrational behavior, the desire for escape, dissociation, ritualized madness, depersonalization. The Obama Messiah Cult is a classic schizophrenic dissociation fugue state cult movement of the most embarrassing and ridiculous kind. It is Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
"Run for your LIVES!"
You left out mood rings.
That too. Mark Fidrych talking to his baseball. Burt Campbell abducted by a UFO and replaced with an alien. Hamilton Jordan and Geraldo partying at Studio 54 as major news. The beginnings of the "Oprah" therapeutic TV style with Phil Donahue's shockumentary show.
They are replaying nonsense from the 1960s and 1970s. Only most of the victims don't know because they weren't alive then. The main theme is Liberal Guilt 101. Obama is even replaying the mind control bummer of Jimmy Carter's malaise speech - preaching ToughLove while raising taxes and increasing spending. These are all clichés from the 1970s. It's like a Woody Allen movie with Diane Keaton (or Louise Lasser) as Secretary of State.
You mean, aside from standing up to the Soviets? He had his "Neville Chamberlain" test, and passed it with flying colors.
than fire MacArthur (and shame on the Joint Cheifs for letting him get away with that BTW)
MacArthur forgot -- and you seem to have forgotten -- the principle of civilian control of the military. MacArthur was directly insubordinate: Truman was right to fire him, and well within his rights as Commander in Chief to do so.
and force men to “die for a tie” in Korea. Yeah, I know, he ordered the A-bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but FDR would have done the same if he were still alive.
In retrospect, the Korean War was a crucial test for the Free World. Not particularly well led, perhaps, but it was fought, rather than surrendered.
This insight deserves attention. Abortion, homosexuality, pandering to enemies, enslaving millions to government handouts, these and more are evils based in sin. 0's election is the fulfillment of decades of war against morality. He is the victor over righteousness.
I'd just wish it would've been somebody of Thomas Sowell/Walter Williams mold than Obama's
That's funny. I saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers a few weeks ago, the old Kevin McCarthy version, and I had the same reaction Hanson did. I expect that many people have.
I felt like I was Kevin, standing in the midst of traffic, shouting to everyone: "You're in danger! They're everywhere! Help! Stop!" as an army of zombies looms over the surrounding hills!
DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE! You will only be more panic-stricken than you are now!
The Jews who voted for Obama are like Woody Allens who want to be good Democrats and “fit in” to the culture rather than live their Jewish traditions. Woody mocks his birthright and so do liberal Jews who vote Obama knowing full well how the left hates Israel and will side with terrorists. Jon Stewart comes to mind as "Mr. false conscience" himself and perhaps all of the Hollywood Jews can be lumped in.
Everything that needed to be known about Obama was there -- if you were a member of FreeRepublic or listened to talk radio.
Problem is, several hundred million people don't do either. As a consequence, they knew nothing about Rev. Wright, Fr. Pfleger, Frank Marshall Davis, William Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Tony Rezko, the Chicago Way, etc. -- because their sources of information (the MSM) didn't bother to inform them.
Outside conservative circles, there is almost no awareness that Obama is an anti-American socialist with pronounced racist tendencies.
Shocking. But true.
HYPOCRISY?????
Oh, don't be silly, Vic. The American political stage buckles under the weight of hypocrits. If all the hypocrits were thrown out of Washington, there wouldn't be anybody there. The Left is hypocrisy itself. Leftists are its personification. Do you think the so-called "news reporters" are anything but hypocrits? What about college professors??? What about HOLLYWOOD?!?!?!?
To Americans--certainly to the millions who elected Obama--hypocrisy will not even show up on the radar screen.
Obama can be as hypocritical as he wants! F'cryin out loud!
Yet him for this his worshipers' love no whit disdaineth!
He hath shined with all triumphant splendor on their brows.
Obama is heaven's sun itself or himself or Himself (the sonnet is multilayered)!
Hypocrisy! The Sun of Heaven can get by with a helluvalot more than hypocrisy! (And probably will)
I wish that were true. But it isn't. The majority of Americans have no problem with hypocrisy in their leaders.
-—”I suspect if the Blago tapes are ever released in their entirety Rahm Emanuel will sound more like Nixon to Halderman than earnestly discussing the rising oceans with St. Obama.”
Does anyone know why Emanuel’s participation in this seems to be relegated to the back burner and will probably be hushed?
Have Obama’s Chicago Thugs threatened the people involved in the investigation? The lack of any news on this recently is rather strange...
Anybody else have any theories?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
Our political system is binary. You get one of two choices. Unless one is what you really want, you are probably voting against what you don’t want.
In 2006 the voters decided they didn’t want more Tom DeLay and Mark Foley. Who can blame them? It’s hard to argue that your opponents are bad because they are sex scandal plagued, big spending for donors rats when you are that. May as well give other rats a shot at it!
In 2008 the voters decided they didn’t want more George Bush. Who can blame them? It’s hard to argue your opponents are bad because they are going to give away hundreds of billions to the politically connected when you’re doing the same thing. May as well give the racket to a fresh face.
The real father of the Obama presidency I think will prove to be Henry Paulson. He threw out any pretense of prudent, targeted spending with the threat of total economic collapse. Now nobody can say no to anything.
Obama is a phenomenon of mass psychology and eventually will be studied that way. Obama is the last wave of the bubble. Obama is the last shot people have at maintaining the status quo of the last 25 years, *not* of change as he claims. People will realize soon enough he is not a magician and then it will really hit the fan.