- Update 2/26/08 - The Asian Times columnist, Spengler [a pseudonym], contends that looking closely at Obama's women (his mother and his wife), will tell you a lot about him: namely, a hatred for America. Spengler offers an approach and information you won't find elsewhere. Also, note this:
Listening to Obama speak, Sinclair Lewis' cynical tent-revivalist Elmer Gantry comes to mind, or, even better, Tyrone Power's portrayal of a carnival mentalist in the 1947 film noire "Nightmare Alley. " The latter is available for instant viewing at Netflix, and highly recommended as an antidote to having felt uplifted by an Obama speech.
. . . In times of stress they(Americans) have a baleful susceptibility to hucksters and conmen. Be afraid - be very afraid. America is at a low point in its fortunes, and feeling sorry for itself. When Barack utters the word "hope", they instead hear, "handout". A cynic might translate the national motto, E pluribus unum, as "something for nothing". Now that the stock market and the housing market have failed to give Americans something for nothing, they want something for nothing from the government. The trouble is that he who gets something for nothing will earn every penny of it, twice over.
(HT: Lisa Schiffren over at the Corner)
- Update 2/20/08 - Robert J. Samuelson, writes (in the Washington Post), about "The Obama Delusion."
Repudiating racism is not a magic cure-all for the nation's ills. The task requires independent ideas, and Obama has few. If you examine his agenda, it is completely ordinary, highly partisan, not candid and mostly unresponsive to many pressing national problems. . . . He seems to have hypnotized much of the media and the public with his eloquence and the symbolism of his life story. The result is a mass delusion that Obama is forthrightly engaging the nation's major problems when, so far, he isn't. (more)
- Update 2/19/08 - David Brooks takes a look at the fervor and asks a lot of questions including the following:
Obama says he is practicing a new kind of politics, but why has his PAC sloshed $698,000 to the campaigns of the superdelegates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics? Is giving Robert Byrd’s campaign $10,000 the kind of change we can believe in?
If he values independent thinking, why is his the most predictable liberal vote in the Senate? A People for the American Way computer program would cast the same votes for cheaper. (more)
- Yes, his speeches can be oratorical works of art, and even mesmerizing, but might they also be a tad unrealistic? Big time. Even scary? I think so. Charles Krauthammer notes the fervor and tries to bring a little reality to bear. See also my previous post on Michelle Obama who can be scary also.
From Krauthammer's article:
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 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.
Me: Hmmm... I think Obama's emptiness and radical liberal stance will finally dawn on a sufficient number of people to deny him the presidency. Victor Davis Hanson opines:
With Hillary, Obama looks youthful and invigorating. But beside the scarred old veteran McCain, he will appear inexperienced and wet behind the ears.