Where’s the Dramamine? Quoth the distinguished William Rees-Mogg of the London Times, “Obama is the Kennedy of a new generation.” Have you ever read anything sillier? In fact, it is silly on two levels. In the first place, it posits a false comparison between Obama and Kennedy. The postmodern, left-wing racialist could hardly be more different from the patrician Machiavellian satyr. In the second place, it assumes that being like John F. Kennedy would be a good or at least a politically expedient thing to be–as if Kennedy swept into office courtesy an irresistible and progressive Zeitgeist. If you wipe the glaze of nostalgia from your eyes, however, you will recall that Kennedy barely squeaked into office, and the rasping wheeze you heard as the final votes were counted came from Cook County where mayor Daley had made sure that Democrats voted early and voted often.
Like so many Obamamaniacs, Mr. Rees-Mogg believes he has his finger on the pulse of history. He sees it all unfolding before him with the inevitability of the Hegelian dialectic. “On February 18,” he reminds his readers, “I wrote: ‘It is hard to see who can stop Senator Barack Obama becoming the next president of the United States. He has built up an excitement such as no candidate has created since President Kennedy in 1960.’” I have no doubt that Mr. Rees-Mogg is excited. He’s not alone. Most of the press corps is similarly agitated. Mark Steyn quotes MSNBC’s Chris Matthews who listened to one of Obama’s speeches and confessed that “I felt this thrill going up my leg.” (Is he sure is wasn’t a numbness creeping up his neck?) Anyone who doubts that hysteria is a contagious malady should observe the press in its ritual, self-reinforcing frenzy whenever the subject is Obama. It’s a bit like Beatlemania, but where that form of emotional intoxication affected mostly pubescent girls, this variety is non-gender specific and most virulent among aging left-liberals who have been rendered especially susceptible by repeated political disillusionment.
Like Mark Steyn, “Every time I hear an Obama speech, I start to giggle.” I know that contemporary political oratory sets a low standard, but, really, have you ever heard anything emptier and more calculatedly sentimental that the pabulum Obama emits? Of course, as Steyn points out, millions of voters have strong stomachs. And he’s right that “if Chris Matthews and the tingly legged media get their way and drag Obama across the finish line this November, the laugh will be on those of us who think that serious times demand grown-up rhetoric.” But I remain cheerful. William Rees-Mogg believes he can peek into the engine room of history. I think that the only thing that is inevitable is the capacity of the world to surprise us. Mr. Rees-Mogg says that “It is hard to see who can stop Senator Barack Obama becoming the next president of the United States.” I can help him out there. It isn’t really hard. His name is John McCain.
Feeling a thrill going up your leg is a somewhat obscure, but well-understood symptom in neurology and neuropsychiatry. It is often the precursor to a generalized, uncontrolled twitching, or alternately to one form of Tourette’s syndrome, in both cases signaling a more rapid than usual apoptosis (suicide) among brain neurons and an increasing automaticity (addiction to the banal).
Is there a white middle class male in America who will vote for him? And talk about easy to beat! All McCain has to do is run a repeated ad with three things- First, Wright going on about Damning America-Obama pastor for 20 years-
Second, Michelle and the “first time’ statement,
and third the “Bitter’ quote, and a few pic’s of Obama standing there with his head down during the Pledge. A child could organize a campaign to beat him.
And as far as gravitas goes- a campaign to contrast his lack of experience with McCain would be a piece of cake.
Last I looked Congress received a 13% approval rating, An interesting datum, scientists and philosopers have long speculated and hypothesized about what proportion of the electorate is totally inert from the neck up—immune to reason, evidence and experience.
Now we know—13%. This gives us some hope.
On the other hand, suppose he wins? The disillusionment would reach operatic levels.
Dear Readers:
If our choice is between Obama and McCain, Obama wins hands down….he is light-years above and beyond McCain for the Presidency.
Anyone who has the superb command of the English language that Obama does, who has the delivery skills of a Roman rhetorician and who is nearly inspirational in attitude and forthrightness, has my vote. He is a master at selecting ‘le mot juste’whatever the occasion.
McCain is a master too – a master of stating the obvious, in a dry, barely audible voice.
He invariably laughs at his own “jokes” and is devilishly clever at putting audiences to sleep. If you think Bush should have taken some brush-up English courses before entering the White House, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
I hate to say it, but McCain reminds me of Howdy Dowdy (and his wife gives me the creeps too. Ever seen a real live mannequin? Take a close look).
Obama’s Achilles heel appears to be his “inexperience” in world affairs. I don’t see how anyone with any international experience can possibly say that. I currently live overseas and I can tell you that he is currently the most popular American, bar none, among the denizens of the streets where I live.
McCain is a nice man. He is to be commended and admired for his military service and his ghastly experiences as a POW. But he is not what we need at the moment. He just isn’t.
Obama means business…..that’s my bottom line with him. McCain doesn’t quite seem to get it – it’s all somehow beyond him is the feeling I get.
According to Mark Mortford at the San Francisco Chronicle, Obama is a Lightworker, and that is why he’s compared to JFK. So say “spiritual” people (spiritual being good and religious being bad). This foolishness could reignite enthusiasm for McCain among Evangelicals. More at http://www.getreligion.org/?p=3584.
It is true many people are acting like the girls at a Beatles concert when Obama is “talking.”
The Ed Sullivan clip you posted actually attests to the odd behavior of girls not listening to the music.
It is very interesting to note that a couple years after the Beatles performed on the Ed Sullivan clip, McCartney wrote Eleanor Rigby. This song was put on the 1966 groundbreaking album Revolver and had the hook, “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?”
Many people have asked the question who are “all the lonely people”? Most that have studied the times, including the late Allen Ginsberg, had to conclude these lonely people were all the Beatles fans.
And so it goes….. The lonely empty people that give Obama adulation are the same people “at this moment” that have no life and look to anything that makes their leg twitch for some meaning. There is no listening. There is nothing said.
The problem is of course they aren’t all pubescent girls.
Liberals in the Democratic Party have tried for years to train adults to stay adolescents that don’t listen.
They make feelings and popularity contests the most important place to put ones trust.
Just as A. Kievalar states….er …. Uh… well…,. Obama wins hands down because he’s popular. Apparently Obama is the most popular American ever. He just is, and that’s the “feeling”. And feelings are the most important things children have.
A. Kievalar tells us that Obama will win hands down because he speaks nicely and projects a better image than McCain. Perhaps. Left out of his analysis is the fact that Obama’s lovely speechifying contains either a vapid lack of substance (We are the change we’ve been waiting for) or a stupid, reactionary and ignorant hard-left substance (like taking away the profits of drug companies). Those qualities are what make Obama so attractive to Europeans, who are always supposed to be so much more sophisticated than we American rednecks, as well as to other enthusiastic foreigners, like America’s enemies. Vapidity and reactionary ignorance, no wonder Obama is so popular.
If McCain can get Obama arguing on substance McCain can win, especially if it is extempore, since Obama is lost without a teleprompter and a prepared speech.
Right on Michael……
However… I think Obama has already lost.
Europe has proved itself incapable of much of anything.
EXACTLY WHAT IMAGE DOES OBAMA PROJECT?
The worst of all that is bad for this country.
I have in the plast likened Obama to the winner of American Idol, but now I
see him as something completely different: the winner of EURO-Idol.
American cultural attitudes, whatever the electoral fortune of the Democratic Party, have been moving steadily leftward since the 1960s.
Witness the Civil Rights movement, women’s liberation and entry into the workforce, the growing influence of the green lobby, growing acceptance of the realities of abortion and gay rights (two issues that the Republican Party has exhausted and abandoned for this campaign because the hard-liners now hold the minority opinion).
Young people and college-educated people prefer today’s Democratic Party over today’s Republican Party by increasing margins. The demographic group most virulently anti-Obama, white Appalachian senior citizens, are undoubtedly among the most ignorant and isolated people in the United States (and the poorest and least educated). I know these things because I’ve lived there all my life.
A new AP poll shows Obama leading McCain nationally by 6 points, his largest margin yet. Republicans need to rethink their strategies and start offering solutions, instead of futilely complaining about the lifestyles of 21st century Americans.
Since OB locked the nomination, he is ignoring the council of his campaign staff and running off at the mouth, convinced of the magic of his scenery-chewing theatrical oratory. He will cause the seas to recede, the polar bears to flourish, the eagles to soar, while he changes “the greatest country on earth” into another Euro-socialist utopia. like Canada. Coeds will weep and faint, TV anchors will pee their pants, the Pied Piper will lead the children into fairyland.
Mcain’s biggest asset is OB’s love of his self and faith in his glorious spell-binding rhetoric. He’s an incompetent, not very bright gasbag who will orate himself into obscurity.
The election of John Kennedy occurred around the same time I learned read competently. By the time I was ten I was thoroughly sick of “The Kennedys.” Of course I was shocked and saddened by the assassination of JFK, but it didn’t slow down the deluge of Kennedy “print” that threatened to swamp my home and school library. Old Joe Kennedy sure got a lot for his buck. But there is not enough money in the world to turn Obama into a Kennedy.
jph,
America’s steady movement leftward since the 1960s, that you describe, must be what resulted in two victories for Richard Nixon (the man who proved that popularity was not needed for a career as a politician),two for Reagan, one for Bush41 and two for Bush43. I might also add Bill Clinton, since he campaigned as a centrist not a leftist, and indeed adopted Republican/conservative policies like NAFTA and welfare reform in office. Jimmy Carter practiced leftist policies and was turned out on his ear for incompetence after a single term. Yes indeedy, that is a record of steady progression to the left. Oh wait…
Well you’ve got your reactionary leftist nominee now. Are you happy? Senator Obama promises to be the Carter Administration redux, but this time with even more socialism. If any significant numbers of voters wake up and realize that over the next five months he’s doomed.
Oh, piddle paddle. You’d think that someone called Osama was running for office, not Obama.
I’ve never seen such a sanctimonious, hysterical bunch of ninnies recoil at the thought of a black US president as has appeared recently not just here but on pajamasmedia.com in general.
This foaming at the mouth, this pulling of the hair out by the roots, this gnashing of teeth, is harming your cause more than you can imagine.
Like it or not, in the modern world, appearance, posture, delivery etc. does count….a lot.
Our 3 most remembered Presidents all had the qualities of a movie star. Kennedy because he looked like one, Reagan because he was one and Obama because he speaks like one – they all have or had a “heroic” cast to their persona.
McCain, of course, IS a true hero in the simplistic sense of that word. I don’t minimize his service and sacrifice.
But the fact is, he doesn’t come across as a LEADER. He comes across as a nice, ageing man…….and that just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Washington DC long ago took on the mantra of a Hollywood, the Hollywood of the East coast……(and you know how vicious Hollywood can be….ruined lives, drugs, fantasy, the whole bit).
It long ago ceased being the torch-bearer of ancient Athens.
The truth is, I’m an apolitical person. In the end, I don’t care who wins the Presidency. I’ve never voted and I don’t think I ever will.
Why? Because I think the presidency is an overblown position. It may be the most powerful office in the world…..but it is a REACTIVE position. That is to say, for several generations at least, presidents have reacted to events….very seldom have they instigated events.
As far back as the Vietnam War, then the Iraqi “War” (there’s a reason I’m using scare quotes here but I won’t go into that here), Social Security, etc….you name it, the US president simply reacts.
In other words, events OVERTAKE the presidency. Events are now too large for even a US president to have anything but the most minimal affect on them. (9/11 was a chilling example of this state of affairs).
That being the case, it doesn’t matter who is President.
Did you hear Obama’s speech recently at the Jewish lobby event? My God, I thought I was listening to Golda Meier !! Jerusalem the capital of Israel and so on…?
They’re all saying the same thing…..they have no choice. It’s all a bunch of hot air.
Neither Obama nor McCain can possibly imagine what’s in store for them in the future whoever wins the Presidency…..not even close.