In Focus: The Sickly Deification of Obama
See if you encounter a creepier political paragraph this election season:
For a long time now, I have listened to [people who don't support Barack Obama] with forbearance and with a sense of duty — not to some principle of open debate or of the inherent merit in the free exchange of even meritless ideas, but rather out of obligation to the candidate whose cause I champion.
Thus does the novelist Michael Chabon admit in the Washington Post that the only reason he listens to opposing views is out of drooling deference to the man who would be president of the United States.
Read the entire op-ed for yourself and tell me if there are any coherent reasons for why Obama is the best candidate, much less evidence that Chabon is the go-to guy on ideas bursting with merit. All I come away with is a parade of nostrums and what Irving Howe once called a “dithyrambling” style founded on sheer emotion. (Apparently, Ayelet Waldman, Chabon’s wife, is just as over the moon about Barack, which has this useless skeptic wondering if she’d throw Michael and the kids under the bus to save the Moshiach from the South Side.)
What is it about Obama that has otherwise sensible people ascribing superhuman characteristics to him, as though he were Savonarola awaiting the flame?
Liberals exhausted and demoralized by eight years of George Bush seem to be saying that the tonic they crave most is not really “hope” or “change” but a captive mind. (The disturbingly unedited “Yes We Can” video only reminds me of this ditty.)
My friend and PJM correspondent Daniel Koffler has given a good explanation for why Obama may be sounder on economics than his mushy rhetoric lets on, but Daniel is in the minority.
It seems that everywhere one turns, “Obamamania” is edging dangerously close to a personality cult that guarantees to disappoint (as all personality cults do). Since when has politics been this pristine and pretty?
The candidate himself seems to only encourage this noxious trait among his supporters.
Joe Klein quotes this gobbet from Obama’s Super Tuesday speech: “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.”
To which Klein adds: “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.”
James Wolcott voted for Hillary on Tuesday, part of the reason being that he’s an atheist and, well, he “found [himself] 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.”
Jeralyn at TalkLeft is disenchanted with Obamamania: “Barack Obama is a first term Senator running for President. As with all candidates, a speechwriter writes his major addresses. His words aren’t gospel and even if they were, gospel is what I expect from Republicans, like Huckabee.”
“How can we truly bring about real political change if the movement the Obama people are building is devoid of ideological content, content merely to mouth gauzy generalities about ‘coming together’ and ‘yes we can’?” asks Obama supporter Kathleen Geier.
Ron Chusid dissents and sounds genuinely de-programmed: “To most of us Obama is not the Messiah. He is just one of several potential candidates to survive the process to oppose a candidate we do not find acceptable. Others find both candidates to be acceptable, but for a variety of reasons prefer Obama.”
Michael Weiss is the New York Editor of Pajamas Media. His blog is Snarksmith.
I find this kind of disturbing. It reminds me of the way Russians view Vladimir Putin.
Creepy!
this deification will come back to bite obama
it’s offensive to comapre him to any G-d of any religion
the man is a left wing lunatic with half the brain and common sense than the actual folks who support him (collegians, rich white guilt libs)
he taught constitution law, organizaed communities and then sat in the legislature in illinois “voting present”
those are his qualifications, and apparently all leftist tools need to feel excited
The Barack Obama phenomenon is all about white guilt. He subtly offers salvation to those feeling guilty about past racial injustice. It’s as simple as that. Obama is literally one of the most unqualified individuals to ever run for president of the United States. I am dead serious! Please try to point out someone other than perhaps Warren Harding who had less to offer?
David:
Don’t ask the left to use facts and logic. I have asked hundreds of them this hundreds of times. No one has an answer. It’s all about how they feeeeeel….and what’s in their heart!
What we need is Batman. Not Robin the boy wonder. Remember Robin would make what he thought were good suggestions but was often rebuffed by the realistic Batman. Not a bad assistant but still naive and just a student not a teacher.
So what you are saying is that you would rather have a leader that you don’t believe in? Yeah some people may be going overboard but if it is getting people excited about their leaders after the malaise of Bush, I for one think its a good thing.
Obama, like Hillary and McCain, is a marxist. Unlike McCain he is an anti-white racist. Unlike Hillary and to some extent McCain, he is an overtly religious candidate.
Marxism, racism, and blind faith are bad enough individually, but in combination would be deadly.
Yes, anyone honest would have to admit that if Obama were not half-black, he would just be an unaccomplished junior senator who can give a good speech.
It’s shocking how unqualified he is and how much his campaign is based purely on euphoria.
But Huxley, would he even be a senator?
I love the Obamamania. I think the Dems are going to find themselves making history in November: I think BHO can out McGovern McGovern. Obama will be the new god who failed, and few things – and nothing in politics – make me happier than the tears of leftwing college students.
The Dems always have a dream challenger that the college professors and their students support (I’m thinking Hart, Bradley, Dean), but who never wins. And one of the big reasons that he never wins is because the black vote typically sides with the saner choice. But this time the favorite of the Howard Dean set happens to be black and it looks like things may turn out differently.
I think this line of attack is being floated about Obama’s candidacy because it attacks his identity without racial overtones. While there are elements of truth to the attack, what successful presidential candidates don’t have blind, fervent supporters based on emotional connections? Living in Crimson red Alabama I witnessed quite a bit of this with George W. Bush’s 2nd campaign. Many of his supporters deified him based on their belief in his faith and patriotism. I myself was moved by images such as the one of him crying and hugging the little girl who lost her father in 9/11. I projected my own emotions about those events and what I hoped America could accomplish onto Bush.
I believe many of the people who support Obama are projecting their own desires that we live in a racially and politically unified nation onto their candidate. His rhetoric cultivates this legitimate desire. His ability to move and motivate masses of individuals to support him and his ideas could potentially make him a strong catalyst for enacting legislative policy. Furthermore, while many of his policy ideas and stances are liberal, they are not outside of the historical American political mainstream.
Thus, I believe this Obama a cult leader meme is unfair and inaccurate.
Actually, Andrew, it is important to have a reason to believe in your candidate besides warm fuzzy emotions, and the desire for “change.”
You talk about malaise, but if you haven’t experienced the type of malaise the US felt under President Jimmy Carter, you simply do not understand the meaning of the word.
I understand your pain–I feel your pain. I understand your suffering, your forbearance, your worthiness for something better. Well, not really, but I’m sure you can get yourself to believe that Obama does.
“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.”
Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and All the Blessed Saints,
The above steaming pile of viscous bovine excrementa displays all the deep intellectual substance of ABBA lyrics. I’m beginning to think Obama secretly stuck his ABBA records in Rick James jackets so he maintain his “street cred” at college keggers.
Check out this tune and tell me it ain’t true. It reads just like an Obama stump speech:
Knowing Me Knowing You
No more carefree laughter
Silence ever after
Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes
Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye
Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)
There is nothing we can do
Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)
We just have to face it, this time we’re through
(This time we’re through, this time we’re through
This time we’re through, we’re really through)
Breaking up is never easy, I know but I have to go
(I have to go this time
I have to go, this time I know)
Knowing me, knowing you
It’s the best I can do
Mem’ries (mem’ries), good days (good days), bad days (bad days)
They’ll be (they’ll be), with me (with me) always (always)
In these old familiar rooms children would play
Now there’s only emptiness, nothing to say
Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)
There is nothing we can do
Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)
We just have to face it, this time we’re through
(This time we’re through, this time we’re through
This time we’re through, we’re really through)
Breaking up is never easy, I know but I have to go
(I have to go this time
I have to go, this time I know)
Knowing me, knowing you
It’s the best I can do
[wash, rinse, and repeat until you vomit]
He is the “Magic Negro”! (Google the term before you have a knee jerk reaction!) He appeals to white liberals because support for him soothes their guilt over past racial injustice.
He is not qualified for the office. If he was a white man, he would get barely a glance from the mainstream media. He is a socialist and at the extreme left of the political spectrum. His background suggests he has little in common with the average American…Black, White or Hispanic.
If everyone is saying Obama is inexperienced and unqualified… does that mean he is the Affirmative Action candidate for the presidency?
This is what the wizzened, balding John McCain will be up against: Obama floating over all issues in a fog of soaring “change” rhetoric. He is perfect for guilty white liberals. Being for him can absolve them of the sin of racism. He is perfect: half-Black, half-Muslim, half-Third World. Look at the faces at an Obama rally. You have not seen such orgasmic looks since Hitler rode by crowds in an open limo. Obama can give MEANING to their pathetic lives. Any effort to pin him down on particular issues will seem impolite. The media has no interest in his birth to a Muslim father, his friendship with a ruthless tribal leader in Kenya, or his rise through the Cook County political snake-pit. His inexperience is turned into an advantage (he’s not part of that “Washington crowd”). If the ruthless Hillary machine and devious Bill cannot damage him, imagine the “Where’s-the-outrage?” fate of John MdCain — especially when McCain condemns “negative campaigning” and the media is at best indifferent to “issues.” Obama is a secular saviour at a time when the Left uses politics as its religion. Obama is the Fred Astaire of politics, the Black JFK, seen in martyred retrospect, not as Nixon saw him in 1960, Hillary is a plodder by comparison. She knows the words, but only Obama hears the music. McCain is not as agile as Hillary. Obama does not have to say anything. He just has to stand on the same stage with McCain for comparison purposes. Obama is tall, stylish, graceful, quick, and verbally agile. McCain is short, old, cranky, ill-tempered, and a hero from a war that is as remote to most voters as The Somme. He will be swamped.
Donnie — Of course, strong presidential candidates have strong emotional ties with their followers, but other than a very few exceptions like Warren Harding or William Jennings Bryan or Barack Obama, they also have completed full terms in Congress or as state governors, they often have had successful careers running businesses, or have distinguished themselves as war heroes on in some other way.
Barack Obama has none of these credentials.
I also wrote about this today. I think the key line from your essay is that Obama is actively encouraging this religious nutitude behavior.
If you doubt that statement, look at the masthead of his own campaign website – SICK!!
http://www.barackobama.com/images/temp_flashheader.jpg
Let’s calm down here. Obams is a flaming liberal, but not a real socialist, much less a Marxist. The lefty zillionaires who fund (and lead) the Democrats aren’t interested in giving up their wealth. And Obama goes to church – genuine Reds are atheists (“opium of the masses” and all that).
What Obama has that Democrats and leftists crave is genuine personal appeal. Hillary’s a stiff (as were Kerry and Gore). Bill C. is slick but sleazy. (Obama isn’t out to screw any woman who doesn’t run fast enough, nor is he obviously on the take.) By comparison, Obama is a dreamboat. The exaggerated adulation isn’t about him, it’s about the Democrats’ neediness.
It’s like a lonely bachelor or spinster who gets hit on: the other party may be scum, but the target won’t hear a word against her or him. The adjective for this condition is “besotted”.
Joe McNulty: Obama may be Fred Astaire-oid, but he’s never won a seriously contested election. He got his state senate seat by disqualifying the other candidates. When he challenged Bobby Rush for his House seat, he was crushed. He got his Senate seat because both his chief Democrat rival and Republican opponent self-destructed with divorce scandals. Can he win a real fight? I don’t know. We may see.
Huxley: Bryan served two terms in the House; Harding a full term in the Senate, and was LG of Ohio. OTOH Wilson was a half-term Governor of NJ.
The unspoken issue of the Obama “change, it’s all about change, the changes they are a timin’” Tomorrowland Campaign is the nature of government, and the role of the individual in society. Obama is promising paradise, a land of happiness and prosperity, of painless, effortless bliss. No more splinters under fingernails, no bitten tongues, twisted ankles, dead batteries or overflowing toilets. No dust. No bad smells. Food will cook itself. Mickey Mouse’s D.C. powered broom from Fantasia will carry all water, chop all wood. We will all triumphantly return to the Garden once the Casablanca Snake is forced into the exile of the limited term. Oh yes, and “seas, and ships, and sealing wax…” Save us, Obama-Nobi, you’re our only hope. Except for that one little problem he cannot solve, just a tiny, tiny thing…mortality. What you gonna do when death comes for you?
Dan Quayle was more qualified for the presidency on his senate record.
Rich – It’s true that Bryan served two terms as a representative — my bad — but that’s only four years. However, Harding campaigned before he finished a full term in the Senate, like Obama.
Obama also belongs to a black racist church. I rarely see this important fact mentioned on blogs or in the MSM.
If a white candidate belong to a similar type of church that promoted white racism, such a candidate would never have gotten so close to being nominated.
http//obamamessiah.blogspot.com