Victor Davis Hanson: Our European Candidate [Obama]

The Real Obama?

The problem with the Obama Marin County speech, inter alia, is that it invites comparison to himself—as all condescension does, being the nursemaid to hypocrisy. So if religion is a crutch for the embittered of Middle America, what is the creepy Rev. Wright for Obama? So the frustrated protectionists of Middle America are “anti-trade”, what then does that mean for the Harvard-educated NAFTA-trashing Obama? If Middle America can distinguish illegal from legal immigration, why can’t Obama in remarks to sophisticated Marin county elites? If jobs “have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them” why then is the Pennsylvania unemployment rate around 5%? And does small-town America cling to “antipathy to people who aren’t like them” any more than does Rev. Wright, Rev. Meeks, Rev. Lee, or all the others that gravitate to Obama, but who are spared the condescending “they” write-off?

I used to think the clumsy partial explanations for Rev. Wright or Michelle Obama’s speeches or the slips like “typical white person” were due to inexperience, and too much trust in the persuasive powers of his own rhetoric. But his inability to simply apologize for the stupid remarks and move on suggests that he may well think he has said nothing wrong. His memoirs prove that he was aware of Wright’s anti-American and anti-white venom; Michelle gave the “pride” speech and expressed similar sentiments in interviews on more than one occasion, and he never really apologized for his Pennsylvania remarks, but simply reissued them in a Bowdlerized form. The problem in his eyes is not the message, but either the message was not quite polished enough, or foolishly was issued in its uncensored form.

In some sense, this is all as it should be. America will have a clear option to vote for someone who has a European view of the United States—as a rather primordial mean and backward society, salvageable only when run by cosmopolitan Ivy-League elites who can somehow stomach their own contempt long enough to delude and get a pass from the yokels they must help.

Where Does that Leave Us?

As I keep saying ad nauseam—about where McGovern was in September 1972, when the initial anti-war, anti-Nixon hysteria led to a messianic nomination that embarrassed Democrats by the fall and led to their destruction.

There are simply too many ticking bombs in the Obama campaign: Rev. Wright was at it again, defaming the Founding Fathers while praising that far better statesman Louis Farrakhan. Michelle will say something outrageous in the next month or so. Rev. Meeks and Rev. Lee are the tips of the iceberg. There will be more quips like ‘typical white person’ and neat explanations for Middle American stupidity.

Why? All one has to do is to read the two Obama memoirs, review the careers of his mother and father and the views they promulgated, wade through the Wright corpus, remember the message that is conveyed in black liberation theology, remember even more the world view that predominates at Harvard Law School and Columbia, collate all that with the benefits that accrue to someone that goes into the industry of racial grievance, remediation, and white guilt and recompense, and, presto, if you didn’t have Barack Obama you would have to invent him.

Note the furor on the left at the latest gaffe. Obama is so close to being nominated and elected! And with that reality, almost all dreams are finally realized: white guilt is alleviated in a stroke, the United States transmogrifies into a hip, revolutionary society in the eyes of those abroad, with entirely new attitudes toward Hamas, the Iranians, Chavez, Castro, and others. We get a young charismatic icon who can wow those abroad. The possibilities are endless!

And yet, and yet—it all can go up in flames by a silly innocent (but also sincere and courageous) remark by Obama, one that will be hyped, snippeted, looped and beat to death by those right-wing zealots and flaks for capitalists, racists, and imperialists. They always “steal” a sure thing with their “Rovian” tactics.

No sense of Sophoclean tragedy here—that Obama has several hamartia, that due to hubris keep growing and growing, until at the opportune moment they bring on nemesis and with it atê.

The Real Tragedy

What is really tragic is that successful African-Americans, who have had it far rougher than the Obamas—a Condoleeza Rice, Colin Power, Clarence Thomas, Tiger Woods—excel in American society and really do transcend race. And yet white elite leftish America senses that such talents don’t need liberals’ permission and ratification, and so don’t do anything for their own left-wing guilt. The elite liberal wants to be told that HE did something for a poor African-American and therefore in recompense deserves to be finally free of guilt—and yet also wants to forever be in a position of condescension and being owed some sort of perennial thanks. With the successful, independent thinking minority race become secondary, and therefore a Thomas or Powell is of little psychological use to the liberal—or the army in the race industry that they have helped to create.

You can almost see the furor on television when a moderate or conservative African-American analyst offers brilliant commentary and refutes the white liberal, who stammers and sees red, thinking “How dare her! Who does he think he is? After all I did for them, and now they think they can talk to me that way!”

On the Orwellian nature of Obama’s “clarification” I posted this at NRO’s corner:

Why Orwell Matters
Here is what Sen. Obama said:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Here is what Sen. Obama now says he said:

“So I said, ‘Well, you know, when you’re bitter you turn to what you can count on,’ ” he continued. “So people they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country or they get frustrated about, you know, how things are changing. That’s a natural response.”

1. Note how version #1’s “cling” becomes version #2’s “vote about” and “take comfort from”—as the condescending dismissal becomes empathetic understanding.

2. Note how version #1’s “religion” and “antipathy to people who aren’t like them” become version #2’s “faith” and “their family and community” —as fundamentalist xenophobes now become beleaguered folks who band together against the unfairness.

3 Note how version #1’s “anti-immigrant” becomes version #2’s “mad about illegal immigrants” —as the nativist who opposes all immigrants, legal and illegal, now becomes understandably angry only about those coming here illegally.

4. Note how version #1’s “as a way to explain their frustrations” becomes version #2’s “they get frustrated about” as the misguided scape-goaters become those who react understandably to adversity.

5. Note no explanation in version #2 for version #1’s “anti-trade sentiment”—and no wonder since Obama himself is embarrassed that so far he’ has voiced far more “anti-trade sentiment” than those he caricatured.

6. Note how version #1’s “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter” becomes version #2’s “your’e” and “you” and “Thats a natural response”, as the condescending use of the embittered and distant “they” now morphs into a kindred “you” and the quip “not surprising” becomes the sympathetic “natural.”

7. Note how version #1’s idiotic logic that Middle-America has only become religious or pro-gun in the last 25 years as a result of job loss is simply omitted.

8. Note how there is suddenly no “context” for the landscape of version #1: an elite Bay-area audience that is told stories about those Pennsylvanian gun-toting zealots.

With Obama, the clarifications (cf. the Wright and Michelle contextualizations) are always more interesting than the original lapse.

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