[goldstategop]

The deluded crowds who adore Obama turn out for him precisely because he's an empty suit. They hear what they want to hear. The mass overwhelms reason and common sense. We've seen that in Germany on the eve of Hitler's ascension to power and in various Third World societies. This is what is on display: people reading all their hopes and dreams into Obama because they want to believe he can fulfill them. No man can do that and has never done it in history. It will be no different in America.

"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

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Something in American culture has made them that deluded though. People are driven or conditioned into a state of dementia and hysteria that makes them look for cult leaders and false messiahs. That part needs deeper analysis and explanation. I think it's like in the late 1960s and early 1970s, during the Vietnam era and hippie drug counter-culture when people got involved with New Age mind control cults. Something makes people vulnerable to mind control and authoritarian mass movements. Like in the '20s and '30s in Germany.

[SweetCaroline]

*

[dervish]

Ajami is a wonderful writer. A great supporter of the Iraq war.

Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation’s Odyssey

http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Palace-Arabs-Generations-Odyssey/dp/0375704744/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225411183&sr=1-2

[VOA]

I don’t get to listen to much of Rush (darned job!).
But I did catch him reading this story.
It was one heck of an opinion piece.

I’ve made sure my family read it in The Wall Street Journal.

[Nateman]

Original article here

[Upstate NY Guy]

Excellent post. Thanks. I missed most of Rush today. Fouad Ajami's WSJ analysis is deep.

In a few days we will know if America has traded it's belief in the power of the individual for a belief in the power of The One.

[RecallMoran]

I blame the fact that people have ceased to read. The public schools suck, the catholic schools almost suck, the TV absorbs any intellect the masses had and the internet conquers the rest. The masses are no longer even remotely in touch with history, economic theory, religion, or philosophy. That is why these morons resemble third world crowds; the sheer stupidity. They are fools led by a plastic idol who promises them bread for their adoration as they lock themselves in chains. Idiots.

[lentulusgracchus]

[Rush] "So the imagination, the faith: he's a blank slate. You don't listen to what he says. You don't listen to what he says he's going to do. You ignore all of that, because the crowd has made of Obama what they want him to be."

Rush has put his finger on exactly what the Obama campaign is. Frontline quoted Tom Daschle right on camera (it will be rebroadcast this weekend, check PBS's schedule) -- I was surprised Daschle would admit this on camera -- about the central strategy of Obama's entire campaign, going back years to when he was first talking with Daschle, his principal strategist and long-range advisor.

The strategy is, as Ajami and Rush say, to mesmerize the voters by being a blank slate, a projection screen, and (fraudulently) letting them project all their hopes onto Obama while actually saying as little as possible.

Pretty slick, deeply sick stuff from little Tommy Dasschole, and some very shrewd calls by Ajami and Rush.

Obama is, after all, an East African, mostly Arab by descent. It would be Ajami, or someone like him, who'd figure him out first.

Good job.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

This will be proven to have been true.