Posted on 09/15/2008 2:00:31 AM PDT by markomalley
It is difficult to screw up an appearance at Ground Zero on September 11th. You have to be either completely oblivious or completely indifferent. It is a signal feat of idiocy.
And yet Barack Obama accomplished it.
John McCain and Obama visited Ground Zero together. Obama and McCain entered the site. But while McCain took the time to shake hands with uniformed firefighters and a construction worker with an American flag helmet, Obama ignored them and stood around.
But he wasn’t done yet. Both McCain and Obama brought roses to place on the makeshift 9/11 memorial. Obama casually tossed his rose on the memorial, looking somewhat like Don Barzini tossing a rose on Don Corleone’s grave near the end of Godfather I. McCain and his wife, by contrast, approached the memorial gingerly, then placed the roses with care on the memorial. In case you were wondering, Michelle Obama was back in Chicago tending to the children – she somehow has time to accompany Barack to the DNC, but not to Ground Zero on September 11th.
Small gestures matter in large campaigns. That’s why Obama reversed himself on wearing an American flag pin. That’s why John McCain takes care with how he hugs Sarah Palin. In a campaign, everything is analyzed, re-analyzed, and over-analyzed.
And that’s why Obama’s flower-tossing exhibition matters. It demonstrates a lack of concentration, a lack of respect. Most of all, it displays no reverence. Perhaps Obama feels reverence. But his behavior at Ground Zero didn’t show that. Instead, it showed a man so concerned with himself that he wasn’t willing to take the time to shake hands with the “little people” or bend down to lay a rose on a monument.
That self-concern is at the center of Obama’s polling free fall. He has ranged far afield, away from policy and toward personal combat. He has done that because he cannot stand being personally affronted.
Sarah Palin attacked Obama’s community organizing. Obama responded by sending out his minions to talk about how Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate a governor. Meanwhile, he blundered into the “lipstick on a pig” controversy.
Obama attacked McCain on education. McCain responded with an ad accusing Obama of supporting comprehensive sex education for kindergarteners in Illinois. Obama came back with an ad talking about how McCain is old and doesn’t use e-mail.
The common thread is this: when attacked substantively, Obama counters personally. He gets angry, and he gets mean. He has read his own press clippings, and he believes them. He is The One. No one is allowed to attack him.
There are only two problems with such hubris. One is that Americans don’t like it. Arrogance bugs us. Ask John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.
The other problem is that when you believe yourself to be a messianic figure, you have to live up to that image – and you are bound to fail. Presidential politics is a game of attacks and counter-attacks, feints and bluffs, insults and retorts. It cannot be won up in the clouds – it has to be won in the mud. Even if your image demands that you remain the clouds, you will be brought down into the mud.
And so we see the new Barack Obama. The new Obama is no longer the “united we stand,” rhetoric-blowing giant. He is now the street-smart Chicago politician willing to unsheathe the knife on occasion. Only he’s not that street-smart, and it shows. Obama vowed to bring a gun to a knife-fight. Americans are beginning to realize that Obama’s gun is filled with water.
Obama’s behavior at the 9/11 memorial, then, represented two impulses. First, there was the anger of walking down to the memorial with the man who was sinking his highfalutin’ aspiration’. Second, there was the inability to bend down, even for a memorial.
And that betrays a disturbing lack of self-knowledge and self-restraint.
Thanks for the link
I hope they made that huge pile of flowers into bouquets and took them to a hospital or nursing home at the end of the day.
Did anyone notice a pair of fire fighters in the hole, remove badges from their uniforms and pin one each on John Mc Cain and then Cindy Mc Cain ?
I don’t believe noBama received one.
“and a light will shine down upon you and you will have an epiphany and you will say I should vote for Obama”. Something like that.
All of it-GAG!
Soros? Was he a fan of Hillary?
What do you expect from a Cultural Marxist Muslim?
Good one, PING for later read...
Wife and I spent the weekend in Livingston County, Michigan at my cousin's house. We had occasion to pass thru the county to and from this place and that. We were not surprised at the number of Osama yard signs and bumper stickers in evidence. There're lots of transplanted Ann Arbor elites there now. They obviously don't believe that the Osamaites who compute the top 5% to be economically processed (i.e. have the hell taxed out of them) really can't perform basic math functions. "I worked harder than I ever have and I just caint do them thar tax cuts."
I saw that pin exchange also , 0bama was offered none and did not recieved any . He had his flag pin on though .
Regarding Obama’s use of the “bring a gun to a knife fight” comment, I hated it. It reminded me of a street mongrel, a gangster, NOT a Presidential candidate.
It also reminded me of an interview I saw with a black gang member, I think in L.A. In response to a question, the gang banger told the interviewer that “it's survival of the fittest”, referring to himself. I marveled. Here was this person, claiming to be the “fittest” and he made his living off the hard work of others, via his drug sales, thievery, and bullying. He probably never finished school or held a REAL job, yet he is the “fittest” of our species? I could easily imagine him bringing a gun to a knife fight.
“In case you were wondering, Michelle Obama was back in Chicago tending to the children –”
Wrong. She gave two speeches in Indiana and Ohio on 9/11/08..
I agree that Obama tossed the flower with a lack of care and looked a bit bored with the proceedings. It has to be said, however, that he shook hands and exchanged greetings with the individuals lined up along his path, as did the McCains. I can't fault him on that. I also think Michelle should have made the effort to be there.
By himself, Obama could have gotten away with what he did. Bloomberg apparently did the same thing. But when he’s next to McCain in public, Obama should be taking his lead from the grown-ups. That’s his arrogance showing.
Pray for W, Mccuda and Our Troops
Yes. I was wondering what that reminded me of.
Obama was already wearing one.......he didn't need a second one.
I was casually watching the 9/11 visit with the sound off and I noticed that Michelle wasn’t there. Of all the places one would want to see a First Lady, a place of national tragedy is one of them. The whole scene just looked bad. Michelle is no Laura Bush.
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.