The Two Obamas

JAD_333 · 07-03-2008, 14:13 PM

This op ed in the NY Times, of all places, focuses on a distinctly separate question about Obama's persona, so I thought it might warrant a thread of its own. What it says to Republicans and McCain, in essense, is you're dealing with this guy all wrong. Maybe he's just another elastic west side politician. If Brooks is right, he's handing McCain the winning formula. Maybe.

Quote:

Op-Ed Columnist

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: June 20, 2008

God, Republicans are saps. They think that they’re running against some academic liberal who wouldn’t wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn’t proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they’re running against some naïve university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson.

But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes.

This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.

But he’s been giving us an education, for anybody who cares to pay attention. Just try to imagine Mister Rogers playing the agent Ari in “Entourage” and it all falls into place.

Back when he was in the Illinois State Senate, Dr. Barack could have taken positions on politically uncomfortable issues. But Fast Eddie Obama voted “present” nearly 130 times. From time to time, he threw his voting power under the truck.

Dr. Barack said he could no more disown the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than disown his own grandmother. Then the political costs of Rev. Wright escalated and Fast Eddie Obama threw Wright under the truck.

Dr. Barack could have been a workhorse senator. But primary candidates don’t do tough votes, so Fast Eddie Obama threw the workhorse duties under the truck.

Dr. Barack could have changed the way presidential campaigning works. John McCain offered to have a series of extended town-hall meetings around the country. But favored candidates don’t go in for unscripted free-range conversations. Fast Eddie Obama threw the new-politics mantra under the truck.

And then on Thursday, Fast Eddie Obama had his finest hour. Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue. He aspires to be to political reform what Bono is to fighting disease in Africa. He’s spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system.

But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now.

And Fast Eddie Obama didn’t just sell out the primary cause of his life. He did it with style. He did it with a video so risibly insincere that somewhere down in the shadow world, Lee Atwater is gaping and applauding. Obama blamed the (so far marginal) Republican 527s. He claimed that private donations are really public financing. He made a cut-throat political calculation seem like Mother Teresa’s final steps to sainthood.

The media and the activists won’t care (they were only interested in campaign-finance reform only when the Republicans had more money). Meanwhile, Obama’s money is forever. He’s got an army of small donors and a phalanx of big money bundlers, including, according to The Washington Post, Kenneth Griffin of the Citadel Investment Group; Kirk Wager, a Florida trial lawyer; James Crown, a director of General Dynamics; and Neil Bluhm, a hotel, office and casino developer.

I have to admit, I’m ambivalent watching all this. On the one hand, Obama did sell out the primary cause of his professional life, all for a tiny political advantage. If he’ll sell that out, what won’t he sell out? On the other hand, global affairs ain’t beanbag. If we’re going to have a president who is going to go toe to toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, maybe it is better that he should have a ruthlessly opportunist Fast Eddie Obama lurking inside.

All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I’d use to describe Barack Obama. He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/op...in&oref=slogin

citanon · 07-03-2008, 15:21 PM

This article hit the nail on the head. We have a candidate here, who's two parts Richard Nixon, one part Jimmy Carter, and one part JFK.

**Julie** · 07-03-2008, 23:14 PM

Most campaigns begin with a basic theme with which they advocate for themselves. Some choose strength, others utilize experience, and a few of them are even presumptuous enough to catapult their entire objectives on a platform of “hope” and “change”. I say presumptuous, because there is little doubt that labeling oneself as a Nation’s “hope”, and as its ‘bonafide’ personification of their “dreams”, betrays an almost pathological self-importance that is doomed to failure, either before or after it destroys those of whom fall under his spell. Like everything in life, all political strategies are a ‘double edged sword’. What is then the ‘Achilles heel’ of such a campaign?

The key word is disillusionment. Any person (or movement) that elevates himself as the ‘know it all’, self righteous “symbol of our dreams” is liable to somewhat disappoint those who felt engaged with said message in the long run. After all, these campaigns are all managed, maintained and advocated by humans, and their inherently flawed natures make them incapable of truly effecting real change, specially considering their their already conditioned realities. Only an alien, who would theoretically have no true cultural connection with our historic reality, would be truly able to present a “change” platform. Thus, a candidate that sells ‘integrity’ will always be dependent on keeping most information about the REALITY that surrounds his/her ‘mortal’ past out of public consumption, or he will pay the price of reminding his supporters that he is nothing more than a person, and more than likely a corrupt one. More often than not, those who actually sell themselves as ’saints’ are the worse kind of people because they lack the humility and honesty to admit that they are themselves flawed and capable of error. As we know, the biggest scam artists and hustlers have always been those who come into our landscape in the best of packages.

Recently, certain aspects of Mr. Obama’s campaign have started to disillusion many of his most rabid supporters, specially on issues on which he had made public pledges that he is now breaking. As we know, the first nail in his coffin (among his supporters at least) was his backpedaling on the matter of public financing on the general election campaign. Many of his Liberal supporters slowly started questioning his judgment on this issue, even regretting sending their money to his “cause” in the first place, since it was obvious to them that his success in fundraising had been the cause for his reversal. Today, this number of disappointed supporters has increased into the thousands.

A recent issue that has caused this ‘internal revolt’ is Senator Obama’s decision to support legislation granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants. The New York Times reported that in recent days, “more than 7,000 Obama supporters have organized on a social networking site on Mr. Obama’s own campaign Web site, calling on Mr. Obama to reverse his decision to endorse legislation supported by President Bush to expand the government’s domestic spying powers while also providing legal protection to the telecommunication companies that worked with the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program after the Sept. 11 attacks.” As we all remember, Obama continuously vowed to ‘fight FISA’ with all his might while he was still campaigning against Hillary Clinton.

Let’s read some of what his own supporters are saying about Obama’s latest flip flop:

“I don’t think there has been another instance where, in meaningful numbers, his supporters have opposed him like this,” said Glenn Greenwald, a Salon.com writer who opposes Mr. Obama’s new position. “For him to suddenly turn around and endorse this proposal is really a betrayal of what so many of his supporters believed he believed in.”

Jane Hamsher, a liberal blogger who also opposes immunity for the phone companies, said she had been flooded with messages from Obama supporters frustrated with his new stance.

“The opposition to Obama’s position among his supporters is very widespread,” said Ms. Hamsher, founder of the Web site firedoglake.com. “His promise to filibuster earlier in the year, and the decision to switch on that is seen as a real character problem. I know people who are really very big Obama supporters are very disillusioned.”

One supporter, Robert Arellano, expressed his anger on the Obama site.

“I have watched your campaign with genuine enthusiasm,” Mr. Arellano wrote, “and I have given you money. For the first time in my life, I have sensed the presence of a presidential candidate who might actually bring some meaningful change to the corrupt cesspool of national politics. But your about-face on the FISA bill genuinely angers and alarms me.”

Many of us “cynics” will read these statements from these Obama supporters and cringe at how silly and naive they sound, specially considering the fact that we have all known how corrupt and two-faced Barack Hussein Obama is and HAS ALWAYS been, during his ENTIRE political career. But, the mere fact that these fanatical supporters are starting to realize that their ‘messiah’ is not infallible signals the birth pains of Obama’s true downfall.

As we know, the “youth vote”, a demographic with which countless losing Democrats have counted on for victory (to no avail), are easily disillusioned.

It is in the nature of vigor and vitality, to easily catch fire at the stroke of any match, and to easily be turned off by a simple breeze. This is not necessarily a condemnation of youth, since we have all been there and sometimes even pray to return. But the fact remains that even if younger voters are easily duped by promises and dreams, they will also quickly reverse in their enthusiasm at the quick hint of ’something fishy’ surrounding their candidate. This FISA and public financing fiasco is a great example of this, and his constant reversals on the Iraq War withdrawal of troops is an even bigger mess.

How many times have these same Obama supporters heard him say that he will withdraw troops IMMEDIATELY from Iraq? Well…now he is saying that his decision will have to be based on the ‘conditions on the ground’, something that we all remember hearing Hillary Clinton say in terms of ‘responsibility’ in removing troops from a dangerous military scenario. This issue is already starting to annoy many of his supporters and it will definitely create a mass exodus of young voters, who will probably skip election day all together, like they have been already doing for the last few decades.

Adults, either in the intellectual or physical sense, should have known the stupidity of following a candidate who has the audacity to sell himself as a “hope”. These antics are usually only acceptable in the realm of American wrestling characters or insanely silly rock stars. But, to actually have young people supporting the cheesy message of “wishes”, “change”, and “hope” is something that I thought I would never have to witness. This mentality may not only signal a new era of collective imbecility, but it will finally force us to ask; what is really going on within our educational system? In the “old days” (actually, only a few years back), it was cool to be ‘anti politician’, ‘anti system’, anti ‘fitting in’, and ‘anti hope’. These “positive” concepts with which the Obama campaign is pandering for votes were always seen as weak cop-outs and stupid slogans. Now, our government has finally bred a generation of submissive buffoons who get excited when a WEAK candidate (per excellence) sings the praise of ‘unity’, ‘love’, ‘peace’, and ‘change’. It is almost as if the unrepentant hippies who educate them have aggressively brainwashed them, but without instilling their creative taste for good music and exotic religions.

Thankfully for all of us, these same generations are starting to feel the shame of supporting a cheap puppet like Barack Obama, and are slowly starting to abandon him. Very soon, all that will be left surrounding Obama will be a few of his most ardent racist supporters, who will blindly vote for any man that the Democratic Party and the Media labels as “black”, even if they have NEVER represented them, done anything for them, and NEVER will.

Pertaining to those of us who are always willing to inform our public about the dishonesty and danger of Mr. Obama’s presidential aims, we should then clearly remember that the best approach in this fight is to always strike the match of disillusionment. This may finally motivate our youth into realizing how ‘un-cool’ it really is to follow the candidate of cowardice, ‘pusillanimous’ values, and blatant ‘un-realness’.

Disillusionment | SAVAGE POLITICS

JAD_333 · 07-04-2008, 00:25 AM

Thanks, Julie:

It was a wordy piece with strong Freudian overtones, but it nailed the hope and change fraud dead on.

I thought this comment from one of his constituents from his Illinois legislature days says a lot. It's in answer to a sentence in the article you posted.

Disillusionment | SAVAGE POLITICS

Quote:

“We will be different from the current administration (CHANGE); and even though our candidate has no real record or experience to demonstrate his ability to accomplish anything, you can trust us”(italics added)

That is what I have been desperately trying to put into words - all this change and not a SHRED of proof he can do it - he has no record of doing it - he only has a record of District 11 total failure and a legislative record gifted to him from Hendon and Jones (for favors later given) because he was not gifted enough to create it by himself.

The man cannot back up his words with proof - there is none. He never brought hope to the southside. He never showed bold leadership. He was never in charge when he should have been. He was always where he was because of others pushing him forward - expecting big cash returns on their pathetic investment. And that is about the only thing Barack ever came through on - and if he hadn’t his amateur ass would have been found floating somewhere in Lake Michigan. He knew how to save his skin and get promotions he didn’t deserve, nor understood.

**Julie** · 07-04-2008, 00:51 AM

I noticed when they took Obama's teleprompter away, he started growing multiple heads.

JAD_333 · 07-04-2008, 01:44 AM

I was struck by Wesley Clarks assertion that McCain doesn't have the military background to be Commander in Chief.

For one thing, a military background isn't as important as a thorough grasp of foreign policy. For me the only important thing about a president with a military background is that it shows he served his country and knew he might have to die for it. I don't care what his rank or role was.

It's a silly statement for a 4-star to make. He should know better than most that CIVILIAN control of the military is based on geopolitical objectives which the military does not control.

For another thing, his comments about McCain were said with a straight face as he was endorsing Hillary Clinton who has zero military experience. Now he is endorsing Barak Obama who has even less experience than Hillary, if that's possible. Don't forget the mad dash into Sarajevo under fire.

So what gives with Wesley Clark? Well, he's on Obama's VP list, don't you know. He ran in the primaries just long enough to test his drawing power, won Okla, and bombed in 2 others. His point being made, he bowed out.

Hopefully, he'll eventually prove MacArthur's last lament true and just fade away.

dalem · 07-04-2008, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JAD_333

It's a silly statement for a 4-star to make.

But he's a silly 4-star.

-dale

07-03-2008, 23:14 PM	#3 (permalink)
Julie Moderator Join Date: 08-04-03 Location: Georgia, USA Posts: 6,806 Country:	Disillusionment Most campaigns begin with a basic theme with which they advocate for themselves. Some choose strength, others utilize experience, and a few of them are even presumptuous enough to catapult their entire objectives on a platform of “hope” and “change”. I say presumptuous, because there is little doubt that labeling oneself as a Nation’s “hope”, and as its ‘bonafide’ personification of their “dreams”, betrays an almost pathological self-importance that is doomed to failure, either before or after it destroys those of whom fall under his spell. Like everything in life, all political strategies are a ‘double edged sword’. What is then the ‘Achilles heel’ of such a campaign? The key word is disillusionment. Any person (or movement) that elevates himself as the ‘know it all’, self righteous “symbol of our dreams” is liable to somewhat disappoint those who felt engaged with said message in the long run. After all, these campaigns are all managed, maintained and advocated by humans, and their inherently flawed natures make them incapable of truly effecting real change, specially considering their their already conditioned realities. Only an alien, who would theoretically have no true cultural connection with our historic reality, would be truly able to present a “change” platform. Thus, a candidate that sells ‘integrity’ will always be dependent on keeping most information about the REALITY that surrounds his/her ‘mortal’ past out of public consumption, or he will pay the price of reminding his supporters that he is nothing more than a person, and more than likely a corrupt one. More often than not, those who actually sell themselves as ’saints’ are the worse kind of people because they lack the humility and honesty to admit that they are themselves flawed and capable of error. As we know, the biggest scam artists and hustlers have always been those who come into our landscape in the best of packages. Recently, certain aspects of Mr. Obama’s campaign have started to disillusion many of his most rabid supporters, specially on issues on which he had made public pledges that he is now breaking. As we know, the first nail in his coffin (among his supporters at least) was his backpedaling on the matter of public financing on the general election campaign. Many of his Liberal supporters slowly started questioning his judgment on this issue, even regretting sending their money to his “cause” in the first place, since it was obvious to them that his success in fundraising had been the cause for his reversal. Today, this number of disappointed supporters has increased into the thousands. A recent issue that has caused this ‘internal revolt’ is Senator Obama’s decision to support legislation granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants. The New York Times reported that in recent days, “more than 7,000 Obama supporters have organized on a social networking site on Mr. Obama’s own campaign Web site, calling on Mr. Obama to reverse his decision to endorse legislation supported by President Bush to expand the government’s domestic spying powers while also providing legal protection to the telecommunication companies that worked with the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program after the Sept. 11 attacks.” As we all remember, Obama continuously vowed to ‘fight FISA’ with all his might while he was still campaigning against Hillary Clinton. Let’s read some of what his own supporters are saying about Obama’s latest flip flop: “I don’t think there has been another instance where, in meaningful numbers, his supporters have opposed him like this,” said Glenn Greenwald, a Salon.com writer who opposes Mr. Obama’s new position. “For him to suddenly turn around and endorse this proposal is really a betrayal of what so many of his supporters believed he believed in.” Jane Hamsher, a liberal blogger who also opposes immunity for the phone companies, said she had been flooded with messages from Obama supporters frustrated with his new stance. “The opposition to Obama’s position among his supporters is very widespread,” said Ms. Hamsher, founder of the Web site firedoglake.com. “His promise to filibuster earlier in the year, and the decision to switch on that is seen as a real character problem. I know people who are really very big Obama supporters are very disillusioned.” One supporter, Robert Arellano, expressed his anger on the Obama site. “I have watched your campaign with genuine enthusiasm,” Mr. Arellano wrote, “and I have given you money. For the first time in my life, I have sensed the presence of a presidential candidate who might actually bring some meaningful change to the corrupt cesspool of national politics. But your about-face on the FISA bill genuinely angers and alarms me.” Many of us “cynics” will read these statements from these Obama supporters and cringe at how silly and naive they sound, specially considering the fact that we have all known how corrupt and two-faced Barack Hussein Obama is and HAS ALWAYS been, during his ENTIRE political career. But, the mere fact that these fanatical supporters are starting to realize that their ‘messiah’ is not infallible signals the birth pains of Obama’s true downfall. As we know, the “youth vote”, a demographic with which countless losing Democrats have counted on for victory (to no avail), are easily disillusioned. It is in the nature of vigor and vitality, to easily catch fire at the stroke of any match, and to easily be turned off by a simple breeze. This is not necessarily a condemnation of youth, since we have all been there and sometimes even pray to return. But the fact remains that even if younger voters are easily duped by promises and dreams, they will also quickly reverse in their enthusiasm at the quick hint of ’something fishy’ surrounding their candidate. This FISA and public financing fiasco is a great example of this, and his constant reversals on the Iraq War withdrawal of troops is an even bigger mess. How many times have these same Obama supporters heard him say that he will withdraw troops IMMEDIATELY from Iraq? Well…now he is saying that his decision will have to be based on the ‘conditions on the ground’, something that we all remember hearing Hillary Clinton say in terms of ‘responsibility’ in removing troops from a dangerous military scenario. This issue is already starting to annoy many of his supporters and it will definitely create a mass exodus of young voters, who will probably skip election day all together, like they have been already doing for the last few decades. Adults, either in the intellectual or physical sense, should have known the stupidity of following a candidate who has the audacity to sell himself as a “hope”. These antics are usually only acceptable in the realm of American wrestling characters or insanely silly rock stars. But, to actually have young people supporting the cheesy message of “wishes”, “change”, and “hope” is something that I thought I would never have to witness. This mentality may not only signal a new era of collective imbecility, but it will finally force us to ask; what is really going on within our educational system? In the “old days” (actually, only a few years back), it was cool to be ‘anti politician’, ‘anti system’, anti ‘fitting in’, and ‘anti hope’. These “positive” concepts with which the Obama campaign is pandering for votes were always seen as weak cop-outs and stupid slogans. Now, our government has finally bred a generation of submissive buffoons who get excited when a WEAK candidate (per excellence) sings the praise of ‘unity’, ‘love’, ‘peace’, and ‘change’. It is almost as if the unrepentant hippies who educate them have aggressively brainwashed them, but without instilling their creative taste for good music and exotic religions. Thankfully for all of us, these same generations are starting to feel the shame of supporting a cheap puppet like Barack Obama, and are slowly starting to abandon him. Very soon, all that will be left surrounding Obama will be a few of his most ardent racist supporters, who will blindly vote for any man that the Democratic Party and the Media labels as “black”, even if they have NEVER represented them, done anything for them, and NEVER will. Pertaining to those of us who are always willing to inform our public about the dishonesty and danger of Mr. Obama’s presidential aims, we should then clearly remember that the best approach in this fight is to always strike the match of disillusionment. This may finally motivate our youth into realizing how ‘un-cool’ it really is to follow the candidate of cowardice, ‘pusillanimous’ values, and blatant ‘un-realness’. Disillusionment \| SAVAGE POLITICS

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07-03-2008, 15:21 PM	#2 (permalink)
citanon Contributor Join Date: 11-13-07 Posts: 354	This article hit the nail on the head. We have a candidate here, who's two parts Richard Nixon, one part Jimmy Carter, and one part JFK.

07-04-2008, 00:51 AM	#5 (permalink)
Julie Moderator Join Date: 08-04-03 Location: Georgia, USA Posts: 6,806 Country:	I noticed when they took Obama's teleprompter away, he started growing multiple heads.

07-04-2008, 01:44 AM	#6 (permalink)
JAD_333 *Defense Professional* Join Date: 04-15-07 Location: Virginia Posts: 3,117 Country:	I was struck by Wesley Clarks assertion that McCain doesn't have the military background to be Commander in Chief. For one thing, a military background isn't as important as a thorough grasp of foreign policy. For me the only important thing about a president with a military background is that it shows he served his country and knew he might have to die for it. I don't care what his rank or role was. It's a silly statement for a 4-star to make. He should know better than most that CIVILIAN control of the military is based on geopolitical objectives which the military does not control. For another thing, his comments about McCain were said with a straight face as he was endorsing Hillary Clinton who has zero military experience. Now he is endorsing Barak Obama who has even less experience than Hillary, if that's possible. Don't forget the mad dash into Sarajevo under fire. So what gives with Wesley Clark? Well, he's on Obama's VP list, don't you know. He ran in the primaries just long enough to test his drawing power, won Okla, and bombed in 2 others. His point being made, he bowed out. Hopefully, he'll eventually prove MacArthur's last lament true and just fade away.

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