This is a very interesting analysis from Asia Times’ Spengler, who on many issues, is one of the Chief’s favorite commentators. In this case apparently Spengler is/was on the ground in Denver at the Donks’ Imperial Coronation of The One, but he came away with a considerably different impression than that of the US MSM.
First, the general ambiance of the convention itself is graphically described:
Senator Barack Obama’s acceptance speech last week seemed vastly different from the stands of this city’s Invesco Stadium than it did to the 40 million who saw it on television. Melancholy hung like think smog over the reserved seats where I sat with Democratic Party staffers. The crowd, of course, cheered mechanically at the tag lines, flourished placards, and even rose for the obligatory wave around the stadium. But its mood was sour. The air carried the acrid smell of defeat, and the crowd took shallow breaths. Even the appearance of R&B great Stevie Wonder failed to get the blood pumping.
Sounds like fun to me – NOT!
The speech itself dragged on for three-quarters of an hour. As David S Broder wrote in the Washington Post: “[Obama’s] recital of a long list of domestic promises could have been delivered by any Democratic nominee from Walter Mondale to John Kerry. There was no theme music to the speech and really no phrase or sentence that is likely to linger in the memory of any listener. The thing I never expected did in fact occur: Al Gore, the famously wooden former vice president, gave a more lively and convincing speech than Obama did.”
So much for “change”. Also, the AlGor comment HAS to smart – “more lively and convincing” than B.O.!? Ouch!
Spengler goes on and illustrates the personal (and somewhat detached from reality) nature of B.O.’s appeal with this striking example:
I sat in on a session with three leaders of Veterans for Obama, a group of retired young officers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, courtesy of the New Republic’s writer on the scene, David Samuels. With passion and enthusiasm, these young people spoke of their hopes for nation-building in Iraq. The George W Bush administration should have put twice the resources into the beleaguered country, they harangued me – not just soldiers, but agronomists, traffic cops, lawyers, judges, and physicians. The Department of Agriculture should have mobilized, along with the Department of Justice.
Nation-building? Doubling down on the US commitment to Iraq? Isn’t that trying to out-Bush the Bush administration, while Obama campaigned on getting out of Iraq and spending the money on programs at home? Unblinking, one of the soldiers said, “That’s what we think Barack will do.” They believed in a more expensive version of the administration’s program, and faulted Bush for half measures – and somehow they believed that Obama really agreed with them, all the public evidence to the contrary. And they believed in Barack with perfect faith.
Gandalf’s warnings about the irresistible voice of the wizard Saruman in J R R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings come to mind. If these battle-hardened veterans of America’s wars fell so easily under the spell of Obama’s voice, who can withstand it?
Hmmm. The voice of Saruman. The Chief has had that thought before.
In my February 26 profile, I called Obama “the political equivalent of a sociopath”, without any derogatory intent. A sociopath seeks the empathy of all around him while empathizing with no one. Obama has an almost magical ability to gain the confidence of those around him. Perhaps it was the adaptation of a bright and sensitive young boy who was abandoned by three parents – his Kenyan father Barack Obama Sr, who left his pregnant young bride; his Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetero; and by his mother, Ann Dunham, who sent her 10-year-old son to live with her grandparents while she pursued her career as an anthropologist.
Combine a child’s response to serial abandonment with the perspective of an outsider, and Obama became an alien species against which American politics had no natural defenses. He is a Third World anthropologist profiling Americans, in but not of the American system. No country’s politics depends more openly on friendships than America’s, yet Obama has not a single real friend, for he rose so fast that all his acquaintances become rungs on the ladder of his ascent. One human relationship crowds the others out of his life, his marriage to Michelle, a strong, assertive and very angry woman.
If Novak’s report is accurate, then Michelle’s anger will have lost the election for Obama, as Achilles’ anger nearly killed the Greek cause in the Trojan War. But the responsibility rests not with Michelle, but with Obama. Obama’s failure of nerve at the cusp of his success is consistent with my profile of the candidate, in which I predicted that he would self-destruct. It’s happening faster than I expected. As I wrote last February:
It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama … Both Obama and the American public should be very careful of what they wish for. As the horrible example of Obama’s father shows, there is nothing worse for an embittered outsider manipulating the system from within than to achieve his goals.
By all rights, the Democrats should win this election. They will lose, I predict, because of the flawed character of their candidate.
Let it be so!
Very insightful article!
Barack Obama may not only be on the verge of self-destruction but his most radical supporters (with an assist from the old-line MSM – NYT, CNN, MSDNC, etc) are demonstrating a lack of core values and a willingness to subvert ideals for political goals in a much more obvious and public fashion than they have in the past.
Their very naked hatred for those who may stand in the way of their ambitions causes them to divide the very class/race/gender focused coalition they’ve used to gain the political power they’ve managed to achieve.
By choosing a “blank slate” to project their theme of “hope and change”, based largely on old style machine politics and a generic (but highly ambitious) multi-cultural candidate, the self proclaimed “progressives” chose a candidate based on demographics instead of character. They were being calculated and “smart” again – lol
They’re making the same mistake they made when they thought that John Kerry’s military service outweighed his treason when he came home and slandered the service and character of his fellow veterans. John Kerry was only “Swiftboated” in the sense that his true (spineless, self serving) character was exposed.
The DNC and MSM are making the same (fatal) mistake they are doomed to make when they try to “relate” to “regular people”. First off, they hold us all in contempt, they know we’re NOT like them so there must be something “strange” about us. The assumptions that Evangelicals couldn’t support a Morman like Mitt Romney, that Bristol Palin’s pregnancy would “alienate” the “fundamentalist” Christians or Sarah Palin’s husband’s DUI (at 22) 22 years ago MUST BE MAJOR DIVISIONS for those “gosh darned” conservatives, just shows how far removed from the “Heartland” these people are.
I’ve followed Sarah Palin’s career since the early summer and I’m ecstatic that the MSM is trying to minimize her and lower the public’s expectations. The Baraccuda is about to be unleashed and her prey will be devoured before they even know what hit them.
The Obama campaign may not only expose the contemporary Democratic Party for the “Progressive/Socialistic”, race baiting, sexist, elitist, America haters that it’s become, but may finally destroy its’ sense of unity altogether.
If so, so much the better!