As an aside, for the claim that Obama is actually a lightweight empty suit, Belmont Club notes:
Obama besides hype has nothing.Actually he's quite dangerous.
True but not true. True in the sense he has no voting record or administrative experience. Untrue in that he has shown a remarkable instinct for finding his advantage. A lot of guys from his Alinsky days would have been stuck in the "community organizing", outsider groove. That was Ralph Nader's mistake and why Nader will never amount to anything.
But Obama knew how to get inside from Day One. Farrkahan. Rezko. Daley. Soros. Kerry. Kennedy. AIPAC. Look at how he went after the Latinos, how he's gotten the Hoffa imprimatur. He knows how to find the right buttons to push and is not inhibited in pushing them.
A lot of less talented politicians -- Nader comes to mind -- wouldn't touch those guys out of a kind of scrupulousness. Obama has no such scruples. He'll bridge to anyone. He says so up front, just like he said he did dope. He'll go right up to Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il, probably Osama himself if Bin Laden were still alive and consented to meet.
He'll go up to anyone because at the center of everything is Obama. Don't think I'm criticizing him. That's his genius. He makes his own rules. Like Napoleon or Nelson he is beyond the Fighting Instructions. Lesser mortals are constrained by convention. He's beyond convention. And his freedom, I think, stems at one level from a persona which only comes alive when it is on the public stage. Read Spengler carefully. Obama the private man is smaller than Obama the Man of Destiny. But Obama the Man of Destiny is an emergent phenomenon larger than the man himself.
Therefore I don't think it is a safe bet to write him off as a Milli Vanilli nonentity. Obama is at least an order of magnitude a better politician than Hillary Clinton.
Here is the Obamamessiah site, which
"... a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama" - Barack Obama Lebanon, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.One hopes Obama spoke that in jest...
Just scroll through that marvelous site, finding gems like this:
... there is no other like Obama. Absolutely none. ...To get a feel for the fanaticism, see this tribute video with its rousing chants of "O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!"
What he is offering is not for the naive, nor the fainted-hearted, its not for the uncourageous, nor the unchanging.
What he is offering is for the courageous, for those who have the heart to move beyond just dreams, and into realms never experienced in American history.
...
What he is offering is an agreement between struggles and a covenant for perfection, in that nothing is impossible if one begins with hope and the assurance of faith.
What he is offering is a contract between the old and the young, black and white, citizens and immigrants, rich and poor, priviledged and the impoverished.
...
Fundamentally, the similarities between Obamian hope and biblical hope are extraordinary, striking and intriguing.
...
My musician friends and I are writing songs to inspire people and couples all over America are making love again and shouting "yes we can" as they climax!
...
They were awaiting the messianic figure of a presidential candidate who had just added two more wins to his victory column and who the night before had ignited a crowd of about 20,000 in Houston.
Barack Obama was coming to town. . . .
Inside the arena, the unprompted crowd was yelling, "O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!" a full 90 minutes before the candidate would appear. And just like at sporting events there in days gone by, one section spontaneously led the others in the "wave."
...
Parents had taken their children out of school because they were keenly aware this was a special moment in history. Some high school kids from Fort Worth had skipped classes and taken the early train to Dallas.
When finally taking the stage, Obama basked in the outpouring of affection as his followers stood in awe of the man whom they had waited so long to behold. He was well into his speech when he thought to remind the crowd that it was all right for them to sit down as he delivered the rest of his comments.
I love some of the statements by Obama supporters in that video, like "basically, I just want the war to end!" and "I believe in Obama, because he believes in us!", and the plea for the "rest of the world to think highly" of our country again, to explain their Obamaphilia.
But is this really all that new?
Has there truly been nobody like Obama before?
Here's another speaker who also rallied a rapturous youth, speaking of "unity", of "a youth that knows no class distinction", and of a youth that "is the epitome of altruism." This youth was exhorted to be "peaceloving and also courageous. You must be peacable and courageous at the same time."
You'll get the point quickly so you don't have to sit through all seven minutes of this:
O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!!
O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!!
Tomorrow belongs to us!
This one is worth watching all the way through; not so hard to understand now, is it?
"You still think you can control them?"
Does Obama's "covenant for perfection" allow for the Liberty to say "No I Won't" instead of "Yes I Can" at every turn?
(not sure where I first saw that question posed, perhaps in the comments at Belmont Club...)
