Going to the well once to often capsizes both dinosaur news magazines this month:
As we mentioned last week, Time magazine first Photoshopped then-President Elect Obama into the next Roosevelt for their biweekly cover story on The One late last November. Then for their Forth of July issue, Time put FDR himself on the cover to pontificate on what Obama could learn from his presidential career. But as I wrote on July 3rd, “If Obama Is FDR, What Can He Learn From Him?”
Similarly, Newsweek gives Obama an even bigger demotion: Last month, Evan Thomas declared him “standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God.” This week, as Ed Morrissey paraphrases with gusto, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend writes, “You know who’d make a great Pope?”
The parody Newsweek cover that National Review’s art department designed last month (and reproduced at left) is looking, if anything, understated these days. Obama’s no longer “Better than FDR”, he’s positively papal. I didn’t know Obama was Catholic; As someone who placed himself on styrofoam Olympus last year, I assumed he transcended earthly religious castes.
(In sharp contrast, Newsweek itself is calling for plenty of Old Testament-style wrath and smiting, as Don Surber notes.)
Related: “CNN gets flipped the blue crane.”
Related: The London Telegraph asks (and yes, I’m slightly paraphrasing as well), What Fresh Hell Is This, And Can Barack Obama Save Us From It?
Update: The Virginian deploys a bit of Kremlinology to ponder the aura of the penumbra of the “end of Obamania” in the legacy media. (With the possible exception of Newsweek’s budding eschatologists, of course.)
First, Obama talks to God:
Obama and God
When God talks to you through your inner voice, it is even better than prayer. Obama experiences this every day, in his own words, revealed in a March 2004 interview with a reporter on religious issues. It may be good when a person declares their submision to God. It may be bad when he claims to have a daily conversation.
Second, wealth drops like manna from heaven. The rich are just sneakier in gathering an unfair share:
Richard Epstein discusses Barack Obama
Richard Epstein is the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1972. He was a colleague of Barack Obama when Obama taught as an instructor. Epstein had mutual friends with Obama, and talked to Obama about some issues. His main description is that Obama is under complete self-control
“Obama worked as a community organizer and was in many cases very constructive. He organized public/private partnerships to help the homeless and downtrodden.”
“But, the difficulty you get, for someone who has only worked in that situation, is that he believes the creation of private wealth is something the government cannot influence or destroy. He has many fancy redistribution schemes, in addition to his health plan and new labor laws, which are all wealth killers.”
“he’s sort of God.”
No longer. Barack Obama will now likely be a marginalized figure until he leaves office. His administration will be unable to pass any major bills. Obama hasn’t the slightest idea how to improve the economy. The American people are unforgiving when it comes to pocket book issues.
Better than FDR isn’t saying a whole lot, and the fact is that 0bama cannot measure up to even an FDR. FDR instituted a draft in order to expand the military and train some 15 million draftees in the spring of 1940, with co-operation of the republicans in congress. that’s quite a feat, considering that in spring 1940 no one, not Germany or Japan had attacked us, nor would either of those two (Japan, as it turned out) until 1 year and a half later in December 1940.
And when we were at war with both of them, FDR accepted no less than unconditional surrender from both Germany and Japan, and President Truman followed through in accepting nothing less than the unconditional surrender of both defeated imperial nations.
FDR prolonged the depressed economy with the some progressive policies Hoover had tried and failed with. He even worsened the depression in 1938, so if killing the economy, and with individual enterprise is the goal of both FDR, his minions, and Obama and his, then Obama just might be “bettter” than FDR by those standards.