Back together again. Dream team?
Posted on 11/21/2008 1:08:32 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In an attempt to dial down expectations for his administration, President-elect Barack Obama's supporters have dropped much of the "messiah" talk.
No more talk of him being The One (Oprah), or a Jedi Knight (George Lucas), or a "Lightworker" (the San Francisco Chronicle), or a "quantum leap in American consciousness" (Deepak Chopra). Instead we have more humble and circumspect conversation about the man. Now he's merely Abraham Lincoln and FDR and Martin Luther King, combined.
It's a step down from divine redeemer, but you have to start somewhere.
Newsweek, Time, the Washington Post, "60 Minutes" and, of course, The O Network (formerly known as MSNBC) have all run wild with this stuff. Depicting Obama as FDR or Lincoln has become a staple of the self-proclaimed "objective" media.
I was on Fox News the other night to throw some cold water on this Obama-as-Lincoln stuff. Alan Colmes of "Hannity & Colmes" chastised me, asking if we shouldn't give Obama "a chance to actually spread his wings and fly a little bit" before disparaging him.
Fine. I actually agree with that. Conservatives should not denounce Obama's performance before he's had a chance to, you know, perform.
But, shouldn't we also hold off on comparing the guy to FDR and Lincoln before he's done anything?
Obama hasn't even taken the oath of office yet, and it's already an unfair right-wing attack to say that Obama isn't on par with Lincoln and FDR. What's next? Will it be slander to say Obama's a carbon-based life form? Will the Secret Service investigate you if you're overheard saying you think Obama's merely "OK"?
While such sycophancy from the national press is lamentable, at this point it's hardly news.
What I find fascinating, however, is not so much the Obama hagiography, but the burning desire for another FDR or Lincoln that underlies it.
According to the various Obama-as-Lincoln narratives, including those from the president-elect himself, Obama is a new Lincoln because he is a "uniter." In several of his most famous speeches, Obama insinuates that he wants to bring the country together the way Honest Abe did. Newsweek and others tout his fondness for Doris Kearns Goodwin's book "Team of Rivals," in which Goodwin argues that Lincoln displayed his political genius by inviting adversaries into his Cabinet.
There are real problems with this model; it didn't work too well for Lincoln. Moreover, who looks at how Lincoln staffed his Cabinet as the defining feature of his presidency? Saying Obama is the next Lincoln because the two men share staffing styles is like saying George Bush is Thomas Jefferson because they both liked chicken soup. If I wear a pointy hat, can I call myself John Paul II?
Lincoln was Lincoln because he fought and won the Civil War and freed the slaves. News flash: That ain't what America is like today -- and thank God for it.
I think Lincoln was just about the greatest president in American history, but I sure don't want to need another Lincoln. Six hundred thousand Americans died at the hands of other Americans during Lincoln's presidency. Lincoln unified the country at gunpoint and curtailed civil liberties in a way that makes President Bush look like an ACLU zealot. The partisan success of the GOP in the aftermath of the war Obama thinks so highly of was forged in blood.
Likewise with FDR. Listening to liberals gush over a "new New Deal" and Obama's call for us to emulate the "Greatest Generation," you'd think they want another Great Depression and World War.
Indeed, liberals have long idolized the 1930s as a decade of great unity. It wasn't. The 1930s was a miserable decade of poverty, domestic unrest, labor strife, violations of civil liberties and widespread fear. If liberals really loved peace, prosperity and national cohesion, they'd remember the 1920s or 1950s more fondly. And yet they don't. Why? Because liberals didn't get to impose their schemes and dreams on the country in those decades. Behind all the talk of unity and bipartisanship and shared sacrifice lies an uglier ambition: power. The audacity of hope behind all this Lincoln-FDR-Obama blather is the dream of riding roughshod over the opposition, of having their way, of total victory.
The Chinese curse and cliche "may you live in interesting times" is on point. Liberals (and a few conservatives as well, alas) seem desperate to live in interesting times. Not me.
You know what I hope? I hope Obama is another Coolidge or Eisenhower. But I'm not holding my breath.
Thank goodness for National Review and FreeRepublic!
Kennedy was working against a semi-rational, readily identifiable enemy against whom America could have and would have easily retaliated, with the knowledge that his enemy would exercise prior restraint.
When 0bama gets to step up to that plate, we will have already been severely damaged, with no clear enemy to retaliate against, and with 50% of the population crying real tears of anger that we brought it on ourselves.
Well, I am sure that you have read that these “changes” will not (can not) take place immediately and may not for 10 years or so. So what the h did those 63mil folks vote for?
It is interesting to note that both Lincoln and MLK were Republicans. I will bet the vast majority of Obama voters, including those in the media, do not know that.
No doubt it would be gauche to suggest that before evaluating his presidency, he might actually be expected to DO something first other than simply flapping his gums and promising everything to everyone, something at which politicians - all of them crooks equal to Capone - are masterful.
FDR was a fraud who tried to bring Mussolini and Hitler type government controlled economy to the USA via his NRA program
Good thing SCOTUS stopped that
Read the book “The Roosevelt Myth” by John Flynn—make you see just what a failure FDR was
BTW here is an interesting quote presented in the book
It was uttered by a Rabbi Rosenblum
“We see in him a God-like messenger , the darling of destiny, the MESSIAH OF AMERICA’s TOMORROW”
MY MY things don’t really change that much
Give it two years and you won’t be able to find anyone who will admit to voting for Obama.
This guy is going to be the worst of the worst.
God help me, I’ve found myself in the last week, wishing Hillary had won-never thought I’d do that.
Hell I’d vote for Carrot Top as President rather than Obumble if they were my only two choices.
Seriously.
Like I said, if America felt it had to atone and send a symbolic message like all the bleeding heart idiots insisted-why not vote in Gary Coleman?-he wouldn’t be any worse-—and at least he’d be entertaining.
“Democracy is the school of thought maintaining that the public knows what it wants, and deserves to get it-good and hard”.
H.L. Mencken
[Political] Marketing: the Dems are becoming the best at it.
Because it’s all they have to offer.
You may be right. A scary thought. The U.S. continues to decline becoming a Third World Banana Republic. The Obammunists exploit the planned crisis model for statist expansion of government power. Orwellian and nightmarish.
Historians will want to understand how this happened, how the U.S. abandoned Christian culture and embraced totalitarianism.
Yes, he’s leading a new generation of Americans into global healing with the old clinton administration. LOL
The world is laughing their @$$ off at the USA!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kenya Ambassador Confirms
Obama BORN IN KENYA
11-21-8
Kenyan Ambassador plainly admits Obama was born in Kenya and that the location of his birth is “already an attraction” and that a monument may be built there by the government.
Listen beginning at 12:15 into the MP3 File on this page...
http://my.wrif.com/mim/?p=916
*****
.
Yeah, Hussein could very well be another lincoln/fdr!!!!!
Ref
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo-arch.html
Nothing in politics happens by accident
-fdr
Semper Remember
Dick G
~~~~~
Back together again. Dream team?
I expect Obama to follow the example of FDR: In the beginning FDR continued Hoover’s programs, later He
nationalized the economy (NRA)per the advice of his
communist friends (Wallace, Perkins and others).
BTT
Bill Clinton was president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 and although he made significant progress toward fiscal responsibility, he did not balance the budget. If you don’t believe me, (that means you CNN!), then kindly point out two consecutive years in the table above where the total US debt actually decreased from year to year.
I wanted everyone to see this so thank you!!! I am amazed about this. Do you know that even conservatives believe that President Clinton balanced the budget during his presidency....I do understand that he did have some help from congress, but he gets all the credit regardless of what congress does...every president does....good and bad.
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