Posted on 07/26/2008 5:59:32 AM PDT by kellynla
Anyone who wants to understand Barack Obama would do well to stay away from the radio and the TV. Obama is a theatrical presence. That's what it means to be "charismatic": To an unnerving degree his appeal relies on sight and sound rather than sense. Better, in my opinion, to stick to the printed word. On paper (or the computer screen) his words can be thought about and chewed over. You can understand him at your own pace, undistracted by that rich baritone, the regal bearing, the excellent drape of his Burberry suits.
The printed word has its problems too, of course. You really need to be on your toes if you're going to get anything out of a newspaper's election coverage. You've got to tune your ear to euphemism and translate as you go. So last Friday, having missed the television broadcasts of Obama's speech in Berlin the day before, I read the Washington Post with a cocked ear, and when I saw that the speech was described as "broadly thematic" and "sober and serious" I knew exactly what it meant: a boring speech full of blah blah blah.
And so it was. In the Post as elsewhere, as much coverage was devoted to the speech's setting--the sprawling crowds and the dramatic backdrop and the tingling sense of anticipation--as to the speech itself. The paper didn't even bother to print verbatim excerpts, as it usually does with a big-time address. The occasion had been taken as an invitation to deliver a summary of Obama's view of America's role in the world. When his handlers decided to schedule a speech in Berlin, they teed up comparisons with the portentous speeches that Presidents Kennedy and Reagan had delivered there.
Instead, in the heart of Europe, before 200,000 breathless admirers, Obama pulled himself up to his full height, lifted his chin, unlimbered those eloquent hands, and said nothing at all.
Obama's "nothing" is sometimes interesting anyway; there are pointers in the vacuousness, as I saw when I read the full text on his campaign's website. He began the speech, as he often does, with a summary of his own life history, which elided into a history of the Cold War--mixing the two together, with his customary grandiosity. The history was nicely written up but not news. And the lesson he drew from it was, to be kind, idiosyncratic: The West's victory in the Cold War, he said, proved that "there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."
This will come as a surprise to anyone who lived through the Cold War or has even read about it. The thing about wars, even cold ones, is that the world doesn't stand as one; that's why there's a war. And in the Cold War the Soviet side was as united as the West; more so, probably. Left out of Obama's history was any mention of the ferocious demonstrations against the United States in the streets of Paris and West Berlin during the 1960s and 1980s, when American presidents were routinely depicted as priapic cowboys and psychopaths. Probably a fair number of the older members of Obama's audience had been hoisting those banners themselves 25 years ago.
So if "standing as one" didn't win the Cold War, what did? Obama didn't stop to answer, since his own reading of history seems to deny the premise of the question. Instead he hustled on to the present moment. Now, he said, "we are called upon again." To do what? Presumably to stand as one all over again, in the face of "new promise and new peril." Included in the latter are terrorism, global warming, and nuclear proliferation. But those perils aren't the worst of it. "The greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another."
The sentence is the heart of the speech and an instance of Obama's big weakness--his preference for the rhetorical flourish over a realistic account of things as they are. Most politicians share the weakness, and the preference has proved wildly attractive to Obama's supporters. But think it through: "New walls to divide us" is just a metaphor, a trope. A trope can't be the "greatest danger of all." A terrorist setting off a nuclear bomb in London--that's a danger. A revolution in Islamabad--that's a danger. A figure of speech is just a figure of speech.
And what will Obama have us do to avoid those nonmetaphorical dangers? He declined to get specific, aside from urging us to "answer the call." Floating along on a cloud of metaphor and generality allows Obama to do what he wants to do, in the Berlin speech and elsewhere. As a public figure he means to rise above any hint of conflict, and to suggest that problems and dangers dissolve when we "come together." And coming together, "standing as one," is simply the logical outcome of every participant's correctly understanding his best interest. What could be more reasonable?
It doesn't matter that human affairs never work out this way, no more in domestic politics than in foreign policy. The assumption that they do is what lends so many of Obama's utterances their greeting-card simplicity and appeal. The effect is almost soporific: "America cannot turn inward," he says. Check. "Now is the time to build new bridges." All set to go. "We must defeat terror." True dat. "Every nation in Europe must have the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday." Roger. "We must help answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle East." Go ahead: Argue.
To pump a little vigor into his limp sentiments, Obama attached them to a hypnotic refrain. "This is the moment," he said in Berlin, repeatedly. But where's the urgency come from? What's the rush? In the long train of platitudes he suggested no discrete, definable policy that needed to be adopted urgently, beyond his call to unity, which isn't a policy but an aspiration. You get the idea that the urgency doesn't arise from an assessment of reality but from a rhetorical need. He's got to keep the folks on their toes somehow.
Obama couldn't come to Berlin and deliver a speech full of portent, as Reagan and Kennedy did before him, and as his publicists suggested he might. For all the talk about this being our time and us being the people, Obama shows no sign of really believing we live in portentous times. This is surely part of his appeal. It's not surprising that when he came to Berlin and said nothing at all, none of his admirers seemed disappointed. After eight years of overheated history, nothing comes as a relief.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Obama didn’t need to say anything specific. His supporters already know what “unity” means: United in their mutual desire to live selfishly and to love nothing but happiness itself.
Most people don’t believe in anything and love nothing. They won’t even save their own children if given the chance.
The only thing that most people care about is being left alone in their selfish affairs and not bothered by anything.
Obama understands this and has established his political campaign upon this. If you want to score votes, appeal to the terrible sins of mankind.
"Obama and the media are mirror reflections of each other - both frivolous, both stupid, they both live off of scripts that are useless to them 24 hours later."
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I agree. This guy is all image and no substance. Turn off the TV and he dissipates like vapor.
I got absolutely nothing out of Obama’s speech, other than a vague promise to save the World. You realize this man has never run anything in his life, but he thinks he can run the federal government.
Obama is just the latest in a long line of poor JFK imitators. There’s nothing new about his rhetorical style. His stump speech and other speeches are more lacking in specifics, or any real substance, but he too is trying for some grand theme that will inspire his followers.
I think that our concern should be the psychological make-up of his followers, and how great their numbers will be once they’ve observed him over a longer period of time.
Unfortunately he has plenty of substance. Let him be POTUS and we will all find out just what he is really made of (as if we don’t know already)
He is even letting slip his real substance for the cameras on more than one occasion. He may be a lightweight, but he is a socialist/marxist lightweight who wants to redistribute our wealth not only within the country, but to the rest of the world as well.
I missed the whole Berlin circus, will someone tell me,did they play ‘Hail to the Chief” when he walked onstage? and why cant he keep his hands off the leaders of other countries?, its such a phony ‘best buds,see how close WE are’ thing, done only to impress the yokels back home.
His Berlin clichefest will be the Gold Standard in Bad Speeches. Where was Jackie??
Pray for W and Our Troops
I disagree...they're not stupid at all; Obama & the majority of the media have been indoctrinated in the anti-American Socialist/Marxist/Communist propaganda that has been taught for decades in colleges & universities across America by the likes of “fake Indians” like Ward Churchill !
In Obama's telling, it was the "Hope" of a united Berlin populace that kept the aircraft flying during the Berlin blockade. That gets things exactly backward. The only reason Berliners had hope was due to the efforts of the US Air Force and the Royal Air Force in creating and maintaining the Air Bridge for 18 months.
There was NO HOPE for Berlin without the Americans and Brits.
The surge had no effect, it was the switching of sides by the Sunni Sheikhs in Anbar and Mookie al Sadr's stand down. American troops had no role in victory in Iraq.
This guy, Obama, is so wrapped up in his Leftist, Marxism, Third World, Alinsky view of the world, he can't get out of it. His personal presentation as a friendly, caring, concerned person in a well-tailored conservative suit, speaking in a well-modulated, traditional way belies the radicalism of the content.
Blame America First is Obama's motto. Americans will only elect this guy, if McCain does not make it crystal clear to everyone, what Obama actually believes. If McCain runs an "honorable" campaign, he'll lose.
If McCain makes it clear what Obama believes and Americans still vote for Obama, this isn't the country I thought it was.
How does Obama gather these huge crowds?
By staging free rock concerts, widely publicized in the locality but not mentioned abroad, and then stepping onto the concert stage when everyone is in a mellow and cheerful mood. That's what he did to get all those young people sitting by the river in Oregon. That's what he did in Berlin.
The press knows this, of course, but they control the cameras. They only let us see and hear the footage that they carefully choose, and the camera angles that they choose.
A cheap trick, but effective. Leni Reifenstahl rediviva.
B. Hussein and fans: Shallow calling unto shallow.
I’d like that on a T-Shirt.
T-Shirts are a good idea. I think I may write and post an article on that thesis. And have updated my tag-line.
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