How did Obama pull that off? By riding one of the great non sequiturs of modern American politics. This raises an interesting aside. While Krauthammer is arguing on the premise that the majority of Obama supporters see him as transcending race, the reality is that an unseemly element of race has been injecting itself at regular intervals into his campaign. The Obama campaign has sent journalists eight pages of examples of his reaching across the aisle in the Senate. I am not the only one to note, however, that these are small-bore items of almost no controversy -- more help for war veterans, reducing loose nukes in the former Soviet Union, fighting avian flu and the like. Bipartisan support for apple pie is hardly a profile in courage. And as Krauthammer notes, it was Clinton's raising questions about Obama's character in her "phone call at the White House at 3 a.m." commercial" that has finally exposed a chink in Obama's heretofore teflon armor: Ostensibly the ad was about experience. It wasn't. It was about familiarity. After all, as Obama pointed out, what exactly is the experience that prepares Hillary to answer the red phone at 3 a.m.? Read the entire article. I am sure we will see much more of this focus on Obama between now and the Pennsylvania primary. We have already seen Obama lose his composure under tough questioning from the press. Now we will see how he holds up as Clinton mines his most obvious weakness.Charles Krauthammer puts on his psychiatrist's monocole to analyze the appeal of Obama, the reality of his promise of bi-partisanship, and how Clinton has been able to finally put a dent in Obamamania.
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Charles Krauthammer notes that Obama's rhetoric has led to a wide-spread impression that Obama would be the most likely of the candidates to be able to bridge the partisan political divide, uniting both Republicans and Democrats in a post-partisan nirvana:
It goes like this. Because Obama transcends race, it is therefore assumed that he will transcend everything else -- divisions of region, class, party, generation and ideology.
The premise here is true -- Obama does transcend race; he has not run as a candidate of minority grievance; his vision of America is unmistakably post-racial -- but the conclusion does not necessarily follow. It is merely suggested in Obama's rhetorically brilliant celebration of American unity: "young and old, rich and poor, black and white, Latino and Asian -- who are tired of a politics that divides us." Hence "the choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It's not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white. It's about the past versus the future."
The effect of such sweeping invocations of unity is electric, particularly because race is the deepest and most tragic of all American divisions, and this invocation is being delivered by a man who takes us powerfully beyond it. The implication is that he is therefore uniquely qualified to transcend all our other divisions. . . .
I have previously raised a concern that Obama was not above allowing the race card to be played against the Clintons earlier in the campaign. And I do not hear him stepping in to stop pressure being brought to bear on African American super delegates to switch to him on the basis of race. Likewise many who support Obama on identity politics grounds see any attack on Obama as a racial attack and are responding accordingly. While Krauthammer may analyze Obama's message as transcending race, I think the reality is that its going to require affirmative action (no joke intended) on the part of all candidates to keep race from becoming a central issue. And if it does, it could well backfire on Obama given that I do not think that McCain, who seems utterly focused on keeping his campaign message on issues, could be plausibly charged with any racial animus.
To continue with Krauhthammer, he notes that Obama's rhetoric does not have a basis in reality. Obama has not even attempted to reach across the partisan divide on any issue of contention. Indeed, as Krauthammer notes, the person Obama pretends to be meets reality in the person of John McCain:
On the difficult compromises that required the political courage to challenge one's own political constituency, Obama flinched: the "Gang of 14" compromise on judicial appointments, the immigration compromise to which Obama tried to append union-backed killer amendments and, just last month, the compromise on warrantless eavesdropping that garnered 68 votes in the Senate. But not Obama's.
Who, in fact, supported all of these bipartisan deals, was a central player in two of them and brokered the even more notorious McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform? John McCain, of course.
Yes, John McCain -- intemperate and rough-edged, of sharp elbows and even sharper tongue. Turns out that uniting is not a matter of rhetoric or manner, but of character and courage.
She was raising a deeper question: Do you really know who this guy is? After a whirlwind courtship with this elegant man who rode into town just yesterday, are you really prepared to entrust him with your children, the major props in the ad?
After months of fruitlessly shadowboxing an ethereal opponent made up of equal parts hope, rhetoric and enthusiasm, Clinton had finally made contact with the enemy. The doubts she raised created just enough buyer's remorse to persuade Democrats on Tuesday to not yet close the sale on the mysterious stranger.
The only way either Clinton or John McCain can defeat an opponent as dazzlingly new and fresh as Obama is to ask: Do you really know this guy?
Or the corollary: Is he really who he says he is? I'm not talking about scurrilous innuendo about his origins, religion or upbringing. I'm talking about the full-fledged man who presents himself to the country in remarkably grandiose terms as a healer, a conciliator, a uniter. . . .
Showing posts with label Obamamania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obamamania. Show all posts
Friday, March 7, 2008
Of Rhetoric & Reality
Friday, February 15, 2008
Obama's Secular Revival & Charles Krauthammer et. al.
There's no better path to success than getting people to buy a free commodity. Like the genius who figured out how to get people to pay for water: bottle it. . . . Read the entire article. You can also find some more thoughts on the nature of the cult of Obama: I am not saying that Obama is Hitler. I am saying, however, that both his speaking style and the audience reaction to that style are typical of the connection between a demagogue and his audience. It’s not new, it’s been around for a while, but in an age of inarticulate politicians, we’re unused to it and have no resistance. Read the entire post. She also sites to article by Daniel Henninger, deconstructing Obama's message and speaking style, and Dean Barnett, at the Weekly Standard, who compares the Obamamania effect of a full on teleprompter driven speech with the much less elevating permformance Obama gives when off the teleprompter. . . . Obama's speeches remind me of the sermons given by a preacher at one of those mega churches. They give feel good sermons using words like change and hope. Now a lot of conservatives go to church on a regular basis and they hear oratory like Obama gives all the time and they wonder what all the fuss is about. A lot of liberals on the other hand don't go to church and they have never heard "sermons" like this before and it really affects them emotionally. . . . Read the entire article.
Obamamania is sweeping the secular left in the form of a messianic cult. Here is a round-up and some thoughts.
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Charles Krauthammer weighs in today on the hopemongerer in chief:
And now, in the most amazing trick of all, a silver-tongued freshman senator has found a way to sell hope. To get it, you need only give him your vote. Barack Obama is getting millions.
This kind of sale is hardly new. Organized religion has been offering a similar commodity -- salvation -- for millennia. Which is why the Obama campaign has the feel of a religious revival with, as writer James Wolcott observed, a "salvational fervor" and "idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria."
"We are the hope of the future," sayeth Obama. We can "remake this world as it should be." Believe in me and I shall redeem not just you but your country -- nay, we can become "a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest."
. . . Interestingly, Obama has been able to win these electoral victories and dazzle crowds in one new jurisdiction after another, even as his mesmeric power has begun to arouse skepticism and misgivings among the mainstream media.
ABC's Jake Tapper notes the "Helter-Skelter cult-ish qualities" of "Obama worshipers," what Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times calls "the Cult of Obama." Obama's Super Tuesday victory speech was a classic of the genre. Its effect was electric, eliciting a rhythmic fervor in the audience -- to such rhetorical nonsense as "We are the ones we've been waiting for. (Cheers, applause.) We are the change that we seek."
That was too much for Time's Joe Klein. "There was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism," he wrote. "The message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is."
You might dismiss as hyperbole the complaint by the New York Times's Paul Krugman that "the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality." Until you hear Chris Matthews, who no longer has the excuse of youth, react to Obama's Potomac primary victory speech with "My, I felt this thrill going up my leg." When his MSNBC co-hosts tried to bail him out, he refused to recant. Not surprising for an acolyte who said that Obama "comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament." . . .
. . . Obama has an astonishingly empty paper trail. He's going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can't possibly redeem. Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Promises to transcend the conundrums of entitlement reform that require real and painful trade-offs and that have eluded solution for a generation. Promises to fund his other promises by a rapid withdrawal from an unpopular war -- with the hope, I suppose, that the (presumed) resulting increase in American prestige would compensate for the chaos to follow.
Democrats are worried that the Obama spell will break between the time of his nomination and the time of the election, and deny them the White House. My guess is that he can maintain the spell just past Inauguration Day. After which will come the awakening. It will be rude.
Soccer Dad - Hope is Like Bottled Water
American Thinker - Obama's Politics of Collective Redemption
If you wish to see just how truly cultish and messianic the Obama campaign is becoming, do read through the thread on this forum discussing Obama and why the individuals on that site are for him.
Bookworm Room has a thoughtful post on this messianic effect Obama is having on his crowds:
(A little historical note: my father, who escaped Hitler’s Germany in 1935, heard Hitler speak at a public rally. And my father, who was Jewish and therefore unlikely to be swayed by Hitler’s words, noticed exactly what Hillary’s friend said: His speeches were commonplace. It was his connection with his audience that was out of the ordinary.)
As to the point Bookwormroom makes in her first paragraph, at the American Thinker blog, one individual wrote:
Part of the problem in dealing with Obama - a large part actually - is that he is an "identity politics" candidate. Thus, to criticize him or question him on any grounds whatsoever is to be challenged by his acolytes as an unfair attack on his identity.
Cheat Seeking Missiles - The Most Ridiculous Story of 2008? Part 2
American Thinker - The Audacity of Questioning Obama's Commitment to Israel
I find myself more than a bit concerned at Krauthammer's prediction. Everything about Obama - from his plan to withdraw from Iraq, take pressure off Iran and engage in talks, his economic ideas, etc. - seem a disaster in the making. There are several people out there who seem to think the Obama cult cannot survive the reality of a campaign against McCain. I am nowhere near as sanguine on that issue. I think that the realities of that campaign would weigh not at all on the secular converts to the religion of Obama. He will outraise McCain by tons of cash, his meaningless speeches will be saturating television and radio in one minute sound bites, and I think there is a real chance McCain could lose the coming election to Obama.
Some people disagree with me, and make very reasonable arguments in the process. For example, you can see Richard Baehr at American Thinker, who has some contrary thoughts on how this will play out. Rick Moran thinks that Obamimania is more like the Crusades than a cult, and that it can be successfully challenged. Big Lizards thinks that the Obama campaign will be unable to compete with the reality of McCain, writing in How the Democrats Will Attack McCain... and Fail Miserably.
There is some additional information being posted dealing with Obamanomics. WaPo tells us today that Clinton and Obama share a similar economic vision. Given Clinton's radical economic views, I find that distressing. The NY Post discusses the questionable tax policies Obama is advocating. PJM writes on Obama's hard left socialist economic tendencies. Rick Moran has an excellent post out on both Clinton and Obama's health care proposals - Mandate me, baby. And The QandO Blog has an interesting post on Obama, Exxon Mobil, Economics and Populism.
Update: And see this very good round-up at Right Truth, that includes a look at relative tax rates proposed by the candidates.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
When Even The Left Gets Nervous
It's as if Tom Daschle descended from on high saying, "Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of Chicago a Savior, who is Barack the Democrat." Read the entire post here.Obama's followers are resembling more of a cult than a campaign. Many, myself included, having been pointing out for weeks that there is nothing behind the wonderful rhetoric. Beyond Obama's lack of experience is his lack of any specific policy ideas or plans, his uber liberal voting record, and his questionable associations. It seems a few on the left side of the aisle are waking up to this as well.
This today from ABC's Jack Tapper:
Obama supporter Kathleen Geier writes that she's "getting increasingly weirded out by some of Obama's supporters. On listservs I'm on, some people who should know better – hard-bitten, not-so-young cynics, even – are gushing about Barack…
Describing various encounters with Obama supporters, she writes, "Excuse me, but this sounds more like a cult than a political campaign. The language used here is the language of evangelical Christianity – the Obama volunteers speak of 'coming to Obama' in the same way born-again Christians talk about 'coming to Jesus.'...So I say, we should all get a grip, stop all this unseemly mooning over Barack, see him and the political landscape he is a part of in a cooler, clearer, and more realistic light, and get to work."
Joe Klein, writing at Time, notes "something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism" he sees in Obama's Super Tuesday speech.
"We are the ones we've been waiting for," Obama said. "This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different. It's different not because of me. It's different because of you."
Says Klein: "That is not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause — other than an amorphous desire for change — the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is. “
The always interesting James Wolcott writes that "(p)erhaps it's my atheism at work but I found myself increasingly wary of and resistant to the salvational fervor of the Obama campaign, the idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria. . . .
Then there's MSNBC's Chris Matthews who tells Felix Gillette in the New York Observer, “I’ve been following politics since I was about 5. I’ve never seen anything like this. This is bigger than Kennedy. [Obama] comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament."
And behold, Obama met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. . . .
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
McCain Cements Front Runner Status; Clinton & Obama Split (Updated)
Arizona, California, Connecticut, Deleware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, and Oklahoma. We won't know the final delegate count for McCain until tommorow, but it should about twice as many delegates as the next closest competitor - Romney. McCain at a minimum has cemented front runner status. If, as I suspect, Romney ends campaign shortly, then McCain will be the putative nominee and can start focusing on the Presidential race. Given that nearly twice as many people are showing up to vote in the Democratic primaries as the Republican, McCain's focus needs to quickly shift to energizing Republican voters. Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Utah And the Huckster managed to sell his snake oil in my neck of the woods . . . much to my chagrin. Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia The Huckster has served his purpose in splitting in the Romney vote. Look for his to fade away until he receives his quid pro quo and McCain names his as his Vice Pontif nominee. Update(2) - Delegate Count: Needed to Win - 2,026 Arizona (51%), Arkansas (73%), California (55%), Massachusetts (56%), New Jersey (54%), New York (57%), Oklahoma (55%), Tennessee (54%) Obama keeps the Obamamania going. He won 13 states to Hillary's paltry 8. That is a big spread, even though he lost the delegate battle a little bit. There is no question how this will be spun tomorrow. Alabama (56%), Alaska (73%), Colorado (66%), Connecticut (50%), Deleware (53%), Georgia (66%), Idaho (80%), Illinois (64%), Kansas (73%), Minnesota (67%), Missouri (49%), North Dakota (61%), Utah (56%) Update: One of the nice things to see is the value of a Ted Kennedy / John Kerry endorsement for Obama. Both of the Massachusetts Senators endorsed Obama. Clinton won Massachusetts. Heh.
Update(2): Delegate Count: Needed to Win - 1,191
McCain: 680
Romney: 270
Huckabee: 176
McCain has won - or is projected to win nine states, including the big three of Califoria, Missouri and New York:
Romney won six states:
And On The Left . . . . . A Split, edge HillBill, but O has the Mo and can claim the most states won
Clinton: 818
Obama: 730
Clinton came away with winning less states, but she took the biggest ones and is expected to hold about a 100 delegate lead when the dust clears tomorrow. She won, or is projected to have won:
The next primaries will be Kanasas, Louisiana and Washington state on Saturday, and a week from today, Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C.
All I can say is this Democratic battle is really fun to watch. I look forward to enjoying it until a candidate is chosen at the Convention.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
The Race Card, Liberal Guilt and Our Next President
. . . Not since 1896 -- when another rousing speechmaker, William Jennings Bryan, sought the White House – has the zeal for a candidate corresponded so little to a record of hard accomplishment. . . Of all the reasons I can think of to elect someone to office, and particularly during wartime, consideration of their race or gender are not among them. People of all races in America have been fighting against racisim for decades, and America of today, while hardly perfect, is very much a nation of equality. Racisim is not the defining issue facing America today. And expiating liberal guilt over the original sin of racisim will do nothing to protect our country from terrorism, it will do nothing to maintain or improve our economy, and it will do nothing to meet the rising challenges from China and Russia. There is nothing at all racial in what Bill Clinton said. It was a legitimate criticism of Obama. Yet as Obama stayed silent, the race card was played by his campaign and others: The comments, which ranged from the New York senator appearing to diminish the role of Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement — an aide later said she misspoke — to Bill Clinton dismissing Sen. Barack Obama’s image in the media as a "fairy tale" — generated outrage on black radio, black blogs and cable television. And now they've drawn the attention of prominent African-American politicians. Read the story here. And you can see a similar scenario playing out over Hillary Clinton's innocuous remarks regarding MLK. This is a dark cloud on the horizon. If this is what happens when Clinton challenges Obama, what is going to happen when Conservatives go after Obama's record and his choice of associations? If Obama supporters are allowed to make this next election an unspoken referendum on race and liberal guilt, than this is going to be a bloody Presidential election season indeed. It will be a tremendous disservice to an America where racisim is very much on the wane and equality, imperfect though it may be, is the rule, not the exception. Mr. Obama didn't pick this fight. But he is abetting his supporters in their mischaracterizations when he says, "Senator Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark . . . She is free to explain that. But the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous." And see this from Classical Values: "Congrats, senator, you've just lost a supporter." That's what Brendan Loy says about Barack Obama's deliberate decision not to take the high road, and instead "let this racial stew fester": At a conference call with reporters this morning, somebody asked Barack Obama about the Clintons' recent controversial remarks and Hillary Clinton's response to the kerfuffle. Thus, Obama had a golden opportunity to make clear that he does not believe the Clintons' remarks were racist or racially insensitive -- and he chose not to do so. Instead, he said a bunch of other stuff that I have no problem with, but failed to do the one thing he needs to do, which is to unambiguously disassociate himself from this race-baiting nonsense. Via Glenn Reynolds, who adds, The last thing we need is a President who encourages festering racial controversies. Middle Americans who support Obama do so under the belief that he is as refreshing as he looks, and that he can heal America's racial disharmony. (Guilt also plays a strong role.) Having just demonstrated that he is not as refreshing as he looks, Obama has done precisely the type of thing which, if it does not cost him the Democratic nomination, will cause him to lose in November. . .We are watching what portends to be a very ugly race for the Presidency – and not because of the lack of a clear front runner in either party. What portends to make this an ugly election is the spectre of racisim. In all fairness to Obama, he has not heretofore actively made his race central to his candidacy. Nonetheless, his candidacy for the President is inexorably taking on racial overtones while Obama himself remains silent.
The allure of Obama is not any of his demonstrated leadership qualities or his economic or foreign policy ideas. As piece after piece in the conservative press and some in the blogosphere have pointed out, Obama has very little experience for the presidency, and his claims to be able to unite the country are particularly disingenuous in light of his voting record as a hard line liberal. Yet none of this is discussed by the main stream media. Nor are his foreign policy pronouncements subjected to any analysis of the foreseeable consequences. Yet an Obama presidency that sees a complete and near immediate withdrawal from Iraq and an attack into Pakistani soil portends a foreign policy disaster perhaps even more destructive to U.S. interests than the presidency of Jimmy Carter. And as to his choice of associations, Obama is an active member of "an 'Afrocentric' church that bestows awards on Louis Farrakhan and practically defines itself through race-baiting." The mere whiff of something like this would be the death knell for any other candidate, yet the liberal MSM does nothing to question it.
Obama’s allure must of necessity lie elsewhere. I do not doubt that, to at least some extent, it is because of his charisma and his choice of themes. But that is only a part of it. Another part of his allure clearly stems in no small measure from the fundamental liberal belief that America is evil and, irrespective of today's reality, America's history of slavery and racisim paints all of the country with original sin. Supporting the African American Obama will have the singular effect of expiating one of liberal Americans' most deeply felt guilts. And thus, we have Obamamania - where his oratory alone is sited as the basis for popularity, and the liberal press gives him a free pass.
As the Washington Post, in an editorial supporting Obama, points out today:
The Obama phenomenon, then, stems not from what he has done but who he is. As the social critic John McWhorter has written, "What gives people a jolt in their gut about the idea of President Obama is the idea that it would be a ringing symbol that racism no longer rules our land." He is the great white hope.
Having said that, if liberals choose to vote for Obama on the basis of his race, that is their right. And if liberals choose to affirmatively campaign for him on those grounds, that's fine also. (The same is true for Hillary on the grounds of her gender). But its the next logical step down that road that portends the real danger for our country. It is using charges of racisim to protect Obama from criticism. For example, watch this video of Bill Clinton stating that Obama’s claim to have always been against the Iraq War is a "fairy tale:"
"A cross-section of voters are alarmed at the tenor of some of these statements," said Obama spokeswoman Candice Tolliver, who said that Clinton would have to decide whether she owed anyone an apology."
Obama can’t be allowed to have it both ways. If he is going to run on the platform that the color of his skin is a justification for his election to the Presidency, than he needs to say that publicly and be judged accordingly. And if he is not seeking the Presidency on his genetic heritage, than he needs to publicly denounce efforts to portray criticism of him as racist. He needs to be pressed about this in the MSM, and he needs to be pressed about it now. This is very much a substantive issue.
It would be wonderful if we could finally put a stake in the history of racism in America. But we are about to elect a President of the United States and we do so in time of war. We need an effective President, whether that be an African American, a woman, or an occidental male. What we do not need is a "great white hope." And I can think of no more a disingenuous method to expiate racisim than to decide how to vote on the grounds of race.
Update2: Since I composed this post a few days ago, the Washington Post has weighed in with a January 15 editorial making the same point, that the unsupported charges of racism emenating from Obama supporters portend to do great harm to our county. Further, it appears that Obama has ominously refused to denounce these unfounded allegations of racism. As the WaPo notes:
Friday, January 11, 2008
Krauthammer & Our Modern Day Saruman
The most amazing thing that has come out of this year's contest for the Democratic nomination is Obamamania. It is a phenomenon made all the more puzzling given that it seems to be based purely on rhetoric and image rather than on any sort of reality and substance.
One is very much reminded of a chapter in Tolkein's epoch trilogy, The Lord of the Rings - the books, not the movies. It's when Saruman is cornered in his tower at Isengard, his powers lost but for one - the power of persuasion. Gandalf warns the hobbits not to listen to Saruman's voice as it can take the weak minded and wrap them in a thrall, unable to see beyond the soothing words to the much different reality behind it. And indeed, as Saruman speaks, so are the naive hobbits beguiled.
So it is today with Obama, whose words alone inexplicably enchant the masses. Obama's soaring rhetorical promise to "rise above partisan politics" has proven every bit as soothing and beguiling as were the words of Saruman spoken from the heights of the Tower of Orthanc. But as our modern day Gandalf points out, Obama's rhetoric is equally as empty:
. . . The Democratic primary campaign has been breathtakingly empty. What passes for substance is an absurd contest of hopeful change (Obama) vs. experienced change (Clinton) vs. angry change (John Edwards playing Hugo Chavez in English).
One does not have to be sympathetic to the Clintons to understand their bewilderment at Obama's pre-New Hampshire canonization. The man comes from nowhere with a track record as thin as Chauncey Gardiner's. Yet, as Bill Clinton correctly, if clumsily, complained, Obama gets a free pass from the press.
It's not just that NBC admitted that "it's hard to stay objective covering this guy." Or that Newsweek had a cover article so adoring that one wonders what is left for coverage of the Second Coming. Or that Obama's media acolytes wax poetic that his soaring rhetoric and personal biography will abolish the ideological divide of the 1960s -- as if the division between left and right, between welfare statism and free markets, between internationalism and unilateralism, between social libertarianism and moral traditionalism are residues of Sgt. Pepper and the March on Washington. The baby boomers in their endless solipsism now think they invented left and right -- the post-Enlightenment contest of ideologies that dates back to the seating arrangements of the Estates-General in 1789.
The freest of all passes to Obama is the general neglect of the obvious central contradiction of his candidacy: The bipartisan uniter who would bring us together by transcending ideology is at every turn on every policy an unwavering, down-the-line, unreconstructed, uninteresting, liberal Democrat.
He doesn't offer even a modest deviation from orthodoxy. When the Gang of 14, seven Republican and seven Democratic senators, agreed to restore order and a modicum of bipartisanship to the judicial selection process, Obama refused to join lest he anger the liberal base.
Special interests? Obama is a champion of the Davis-Bacon Act, an egregious gift to Big Labor that makes every federal public-works project more costly. He not only vows to defend it but proposes extending it to artificially raise wages for any guest worker program.
On Iraq, of course he denigrates the surge. That's required of Democratic candidates. But he further claims that the Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda and joined us -- get this -- because of the Democratic victory in the 2006 midterm elections.
Obama has yet to have it pointed out to him by a mainstream interviewer that the Anbar Salvation Council was founded by Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha two months earlier. Obama has yet to be asked why any Sunni would choose to join up with the American invaders at precisely the time when Democrats would have them leaving -- and be left like the pro-American Vietnamese or the pro-French Algerians to be hunted and killed when their patrons were gone. That's suicide.
Even if you believe that a Clinton restoration would be a disaster, you should still be grateful for New Hampshire. National swoons, like national hysterias, obliterate thought. The New Hampshire surprise has at least temporarily broken the spell. Maybe now someone will lift the curtain and subject our newest man from hope to the scrutiny that every candidate deserves.
Read the article here. Our next President will unfortunately not be a charachter in a fantasy trilogy that ends with all living happilly ever after. Accordingly, a bit of reality would be nice before Obama is crowned king on the strength of his beguiling rhetoric alone.
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