Posted on 12/14/2006 11:14:46 PM PST by Zakeet
We are getting very excited. Barack Obama is brilliant, eloquent and fresh. He is "exciting" (David Brooks), "charming" (Bob Schieffer), "my favorite guy" (Oprah Winfrey), has "charisma" (Donna Brazile), and should run now for president (George Will). Our political and media establishments, on the rebound from bad history, are sounding like Marlene Dietrich in her little top hat. Falling in luff again, vot am I to do, vot am I to do, kont hellllllp eet.
Well, down from your tippy toes, establishment.
He is obviously planning to run. This week he was in New Hampshire--rapturous reviews, sold-out fund-raisers--and before that, Iowa. His second book is his second best seller and the biggest-selling nonfiction title in the nation. The intro he taped for "Monday Night Football"--in an Aaron Sorkin-like setting of gleaming desk and important lighting--showed he is an actor who can absorb the script and knows by nature what a camera is. This is a compliment. All the great presidents of the media age, FDR, JFK and Reagan, were great actors of the presidency. (The one non-great president who was their equal in this, Bill Clinton, proved that acting is not enough.)
He has obvious appeal. I asked a Young Democrat college student why he liked him. After all, I said, he has little experience. That's part of what I like, he said. "He's not an insider, he's not just a D.C. politician."
He is uncompromised by a past, it is true. He is also unburdened by a record, unworn by achievement, unwearied by long labors.
What does he believe? What does he stand for? This is, after all, the central question.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Tagline quality statement! Excellent.
You read a different article than I did, I guess.
You nailed it. This guy is another Bill Clinton, though without the baggage (as far as we know). He's young, sharp, charismatic, and articulate - the perfect TV star for whom the average, inattentive Joe American might easily fall. The fact that he's a mile wide and an inch deep - not to mention your garden-variety leftist - will escape a lot of people.
Whatever happened to the need for gravitas that the pundits were all all over Pres. Bush for?
He has real substance as he cruises Illinois in the Obamamobile fighting for "World Peace" and against "Economic Injustice!"
Also because I love Peggy Noonan. 8-)
bfl
What we should be intensely and relentlessly concerned about for this man obviously seeking the Presidency is a latent, maybe hidden, connection to Islam. After all, his father was a Muslim, so Obama is, by Muslim Law, automatically a Muslim as well.
Obama must clear up this mystery and undeniably and publicly "recant" of any connection to Islam, allegiance to Allah, and adherance to the Koran and it's Sharia Law. He should be considered a potential mortal threat to America until he does so - rather than just another cutie, puffcake buffoon for whom the emotionally retarded among us swoon as they dream of coronating another hottie, like Bubba.
The danger is not about demogoguery, it's about a possible fox running the henhouse.
Noonan captures Obama thus far. Substantively, I see (thus far) little difference between the policies he would follow and the policies of Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy. He would follow their politics with a communication ability and a smoothness all but unmatched on the scene today. But in the end that won't make up for another radical leftist, if indeed that is what he is.
I can answer that question in 2 words:
Barack Obama
Just like most craven, empty suit, say nothing, know nothing, platitude belching dimwits reading from an approved script.
This is another squish from Peggy...she doesn't understand how Obama has taken a page from Reagan's book and spoke directly to America. Obama understands how to do that. The folks on FR are misunderestimating him.
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.