THOMAS SOWELL DISCUSSES CROWD HYSTERIA OVER OBAMA AND THE LIMITS OF RHETORIC

Many of us have sensed something weird and wacky about the adulation over a man whose rhetoric totally masks his lack of accomplishments.  To put it more finely, Thomas Sowell says:

Barack Obama is truly a phenomenon of our time — a presidential candidate who cannot cite a single serious accomplishment in his entire career, besides advancing his own career with rhetoric. 

Sowell also cites what has probably come to a lot of people's minds:

To find anything comparable to crowds’ euphoric reactions to Obama, you would have to go back to old newsreels of German crowds in the 1930s, with their adulation of their fuehrer, Adolf Hitler. With hindsight, we can look back on those people with pity, knowing now how many of them would be led to their deaths by the man they idolized.

This is not to say that Obama himself is evil or has evil intents.   Sowell goes on to make the important point that,

A leader does not have to be evil to lead a country into a catastrophe. Inexperience and incompetence can create very similar results. . .

Sowell next observes, and this is what especially bothers me:

He has a rhetorical answer for everything. Those of us who talk about the threat of Iran are just engaging in “the politics of fear” according to Obama, something to distract us from “the real issues,” such as raising taxes and handing out largesse with the proceeds.

Yes.   Sowell is so right:  "He has a rhetorical answer to everything."  And in my judgment the failure  to recognize that by so many people speaks volumes concerning the lack of discernment and critical thinking endemic within our nation. 

Sowell is exercised over our failure to take the Iranian nuclear threat seriously, and his point is crucial:

Will future generations wonder why we slept? Why we could not see the gathering storm in Iran, where one of the world’s leading oil producers is building nuclear facilities — ostensibly to generate electricity, but whose obvious purpose is to produce nuclear bombs.

This is a country whose president has already threatened to wipe a neighboring country off the map. Does anyone need to draw pictures?

When terrorists get nuclear weapons, there will be no way to deter suicide bombers. We and our children will be permanently at the mercy of the merciless.

And here comes the clincher:

Yet what are we talking about? Taxing and spending policies, socking it to the oil companies and rescuing people who gambled on risky mortgages and lost.

All useful topics and important topics, no doubt, but we ignore the larger threat.  Sowell finds Obama's response wanting:

Barack Obama of course has his usual answer: talk. Rhetoric seems to be his answer to everything. Obama calls for “aggressive” diplomacy and “tough” negotiations with Iran.

These colorful adjectives may impress gullible voters but they are unlikely to impress fanatics who are willing to destroy themselves if they can destroy us in the process.

Just what is Senator Obama going to say to Iran that has not been said already? That we don’t want them to develop nuclear weapons? That has already been said, every way that it can possibly be said. If talk was going to do the job, it would already have done it by now.

Go to the United Nations? What will they do, except issue warnings — and when these are ignored, issue more warnings?

But what does Obama have besides talk — and adoring crowds?

What indeed?   (my emphases above)  Read the whole thing.