The primary campaign became something of a Salvador Dali painting this past week as the canvas on which this surreal process has been rendered revealed an image that has lost all touch with reality and descended into a miasmic dreamworld where up is down, black is white, and consequences are divorced from actions – especially in the case of Barack Obama.
Dali once famously said “The difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.” Something similar could be said for the differences between the Obama on the stump and Obama the real person. This became abundantly clear last night when the largest campaign crowd yet – more than 35,000 by most estimates – thronged to the park in front of Independence Hall to hear the probable/potential/possible next President of the United States chant his “hope and change” mantra while totally ignoring the reality of a man whose past associations include an incredible group of hate mongering anti-Americans, racist pastors, crooked “fixers,” and “politics as usual” politicians who give the lie to his pretty words and noble sentiments:
“In four days, you get the chance to help bring about the change that we need right now,” Obama said. “Here in the city and the state that gave birth to our democracy, we can declare our independence from the politics that’s shut us out, let us down, and told us to settle.”And he blasted Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the party’s nomination, even as he called her “a tenacious opponent and a committed public servant.” She is the front-runner in Pennsylvania, as Obama acknowledged last night, even though he leads her nationally.
“She’s taken different positions at different times on issues as fundamental as trade and even war to suit the politics of the moment,” Obama said. “And in the last few months, she’s launched what her campaign calls a ‘kitchen sink’ strategy of negative attacks, which she defends by telling us that this is what the Republicans would do.”
The crowd – the estimate of 35,000 came from officials at the Independence Visitors Center – began assembling early, filling Independence Mall and spilling into the surrounding streets. They waited with relative patience, chanting “O-ba-ma” whenever the music stopped, until 8:45, when the rally finally started. They gave him a thunderous greeting and cheered often throughout a speech that was crafted with the setting in mind.
That’s only the half of it. Marc Ambinder reports on what happened after the rally was over:
It wasn’t so much that Barack Obama had real fight in him tonight, or that more people attended his rally in front of Independence Hall than any other event since he announced his candidacy. It was the spontaneous demonstration of support that happened when it ended.5,000 people (at least) had nowhere to go but up Market Street. Obama’s charge of the night: “Declare independence!” was with them. They started with the familiar “O-Bam-A.” By 7th and Market, they had graduated to “Yes we can!” By 10th and Market, with hundreds streaming in between cars on the road, they were just cheering. At first, a few Philly cops, killjoys, tried to rough the crowd to the sidewalks. It didn’t work. The cops retreated to the sidewalks. By the time I ducked into my hotel, a full mile away from Independence Park, the Obama crowd was still marching.
Have we become so cynical that despite all the evidence to the contrary – his lack of any track record in effecting change (even eschewing opportunities to do so when the presented themselves), his accepting help from politicians who practice the very kind of politics he rails against, his association with people who have no desire to “unite” the country, only tear it down – that so many would become besotted with “Obamamania” that they deliberately look the other way at this hypocrisy coming from their candidate?
This disconnect became all too visible the last few days as left wing blogs supporting Obama were beside themselves over the efforts by ABC debate moderators Charlie Gibson and George Stephenopolous to pull back the curtain and reveal Obama as the hypocrite he truly is. Their primary beef with ABC? The moderators asked questions the candidate didn’t want to answer and his supporters didn’t want to hear. As long as the press coverage limits itself to the “issues,” only the Obama on the stump will be highlighted. As long as the press reports on the incredible crowds, the adoring fans, the candidate’s rhetorical gifts (not “issues” in any sense of the word but hey! – no one ever accused the left of being consistent about anything), Obama’s Legions are satisfied.
But let the press actually do their jobs and ask the candidate why he is on a first name basis with someone who is “proud” he tried to blow up the Pentagon and the crap hits the fan in Obamaland. Any attempt to reveal the life Obama has led outside of politics isn’t relevant. Not because it has nothing to do with why someone would cast their vote for their candidate – an incredibly stupid assumption that bespeaks an ignorance of why people vote – but simply because they don’t want to know and more importantly, they don’t want the rest of us to know.
The candidate himself pushes this idea that the press should only ask questions he wants to answer in North Carolina on Thursday:
With a voice dripping with sarcasm, Barack Obama offered a eulogy yesterday from Raleigh, N.C. “I will tell you [the campaign] does not get more fun than these debates,” he said. “They are inspiring debates. I think last night we set a new record [note to the wordsmith: all records are new when set] because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters most to the American people. It took us 45 minutes — 45 minutes before we [were allowed to regurgitate what we’ve been saying for months] about health care, 45 minutes before we [got to repeat everything we’ve been saying for months] about Iraq, 45 minutes before we heard [a reprise of the tedious argle-bargle] about jobs, 45 minutes before we [got to harangue everybody for the 12th time] about [how we can’t do anything about] the price of gasoline.”
Indeed, Wes Pruden is on to something here. Any discussion of “issues” at this late date in the campaign would have put people to sleep. Now ABC, as you might have guessed, is a for-profit outfit that was horrified at the thought that people might find the candidates’ spouting for the umpteenth time their bullet points about Iraq, health care, jobs, and the price of gasoline so intensely boring that they would flip over to watch a playoff hockey game or perhaps “Deal or no Deal.” Better to make both Hillary and Obama squirm a little by having to answer questions that inquiring minds want to know – like why did you allow a self confessed, unapologetic terrorist hold a fundraiser at his house for you Senator Obama?
Obama’s answer has been recycled time and time again, given when he has been confronted with questions about Wright, Rezko, Daley, Jones, and all the other personalities from Obama’s real life away from the stump that define who he is as a man and not the messianic candidate on the stump who promises so ardently to change things:
Sen. Obama was briefly put on the spot with a question about still another of his shady friends in Chicago, but he was allowed to dance away without the obvious follow-up. What was the extent of his friendship with Bill Ayers, an ex-con and unrepentant member of a ring of cop-killers from the ‘60s? This could have been a fastball but was only a floater, and the Illinois Kid sent it back sharply for a Texas Leaguer. “The notion that somehow, as a consequence of me knowing someone in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, that somehow that reflects on my values, is crazy.”But that’s not quite the point of the question. The senator knew that Bill Ayers was more than “just a guy who lives in my neighborhood” and was once a member of the Weathermen when they served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a small but radical Chicago foundation of suspicious provenance. At the behest of the unrepentant Bill Ayers — who boasts that he and his wife Bernadine Dohrn, who both served time after years on the run, didn’t do enough to plant bombs to kill innocents when they had the chance — the foundation awarded $6,000 to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church “in recognition of Barack Obama’s contributions.” Messrs. Obama and Ayers voted to award a generous grant to the Arab-American Action Network, to finance “actions” (not otherwise specified).
Obama’s catch-all excuse for the Wrights, Ayers, Rezkos, Auchis, Daleys, and other less than stellar characters in his past is the same for each; everyone has a Wright/Ayers/Rezko/Auchi/Daley et. al. in their past so what’s the big deal? Wright is everyone’s “crazy uncle.” Ayers is just some guy who “lives in the neighborhood.” Rezko is “one of thousands of contributors” to his campaign. In each case, Obama tries to portray himself as everyman, asking his supporters (who don’t need much urging) to imagine all the characters from their past who are less than upstanding.
My friend Shaun Mullen does the same thing:
I’ll get this turdball rolling by noting that I knew several members of the Weather Underground back in the day and am a longtime friend of one whom I invited into my home when he was a fugitive. But even in the context of those crazy times, the Weathermen were a bunch of zonked-out wannabe revolutionaries who ultimately diverted attention from their occasionally worthy causes by doing a lot of really bad stuff.All that so noted, I had a hard time getting behind President Clinton’s pardon of two members of the Weather Underground for some very serious criminal acts on the eve of George Bush’s 2001 inauguration but have a whole lot less of a problem with Bill Ayers, a former but never arrested Weatherman and present-day University of Illinois professor who hosted a fundraiser in his home for Barack Obama when the presidential candidate was running for the Illinois Senate.
Allow me to channel Salvadore Dali; “The difference between Barack Obama and Shaun Mullen is that Shaun is not Barack Obama.” Shaun is not running for president. Shaun does not get up in front of 35,000 people and say he is better than every other politician out there because by jing, he’s for a “new” kind of politics while they aren’t. Shaun does not lie through his teeth about the nature and extent of his past associations.
The band plays on, ignoring the discordant chords coming from outside the bandshell because that would disturb their ideal of perfect harmony, perfect syncopation, perfect togetherness. For most of Obama’s supporters, tuning out the sour notes is easy. They hear what they want to hear – Obama on the stump – and ignore the music being made by the candidate in his real life – complete with beautiful melodies as well as dark, minor key atonal counterpoints that for many of us has begun to dominate our opinion of the candidate.
Will they ever gather the courage to hear the entire composition?
1:53 pm
Points well taken.
2:02 pm
“Will they ever gather the courage to hear the entire composition?”
Short answer: no, at least not until it’s too late for them.
The fools you mention have all reserved staterooms on the “S.S. Obamatanic” and, even after it hits an iceberg, they’ll still be demanding cups of hot tea from the stewards to warm up in their cabins after the “life boat drill.”
4:49 pm
Question: Why are all of Obama’s crazy uncles a bunch of leftist wackos?
One crazy uncle is OK. Two crazy uncles may represent a pattern.
1:57 pm
Not equipped to undertake the task myself, but ‘twould be illuminating to review some of George McGovern’s more emphatic campaign statements from Spring 1972. A generation pre-Internet, this would require search of print and TV archives… but such a historical “compare and contrast” exercise could provide significant context and perspective on current D-rat themes, specifically Comrade Obama’s ever-green collectivist Statist approach to governance.
2:12 pm
Look, a lot of powerful mainstream Dems (a/k/a Superdelegates) have begun to realize that this guy Obama has real problems and a sick sense of buyer’s remorse is starting to kick in. The difficulty for them, though, is that there ain’t no Lemon Law in politics, and if they try and return the Obama Jalopy for a shiny new 2008 Hillary, the African-American and Lefty Moonbat base will erupt in rebellion.
Nope. The Dems have bought this guy from Crooked Chicago lock, stock, and barrel and, as Peggy Noonan noted in this week’s WSJ, it is too late to go back to Hillary. If McCain plays his cards perfectly (no dog fall, there), he could win 48-49 states.
2:34 pm
Color me content. Truly. I’d much rather have Obama’s radical past come out a month or six weeks before the election than now. His glassy-eyed acolytes will never doubt him, but enough clear-eyed Americans will. Better to keep this keg of powder dry for when it can be detonated to greatest effect.
2:36 pm
Let’s face it, these legions of Obamatons are witless sheeple who are ignorant of politics and policy.
They don’t want to know the truth behind the mask. They just want to watch American Idol.
2:42 pm
And three crazy uncles is enemy action.
2:56 pm
My grandfather used to say that if one person said something derogatory about you, feel free to ignore it, it is only one persons opinion. But if two or more are saying the same thing, perhaps you ought to take a look at what they are saying, that is, pay attention!
Obama isn’t paying attention. When the final notes of the obamaband waft out over the crowd, I’m very much afraid that an awful lot of folk will feel like they have been had by a world class charlatan!
3:00 pm
Obama can be tripped up in this way because of a fundamental liberal failure to foresee the entirely predictable results of their own attempts at social engineering.
The Democrats have pursued ‘identity politics’ over the years as means to tinker with society and correct perceived social problems. What they didn’t see was that every time they awarded a new set of privileges to a ‘disadvantaged’ group they would call into being a group of scam artists using their privileged status to act as ‘gatekeepers’, approving or disapproving of aspiring politicians.
These would-be gatekeepers of course have to bid against each other for supremacy – there’s always a long line of wannabees, and it’s a fight only the most extreme can win. Consequently if you look hard enough and far back enough you can today find a whole rogues’ gallery of these characters infesting the background of any Democratic politician. They all had to sell themselves to these shady extremists to get nominated in the first place, exactly as Obama did.
The Democrats are being ‘hoisted by their own petard’ (petard is the Shakespearean term for an IED). Their mistake was failing to see that the attempt to create new, artificial racial and social privileges to combat existing ones was bound to cause this to happen.
3:30 pm
Kerry and geek are on target. Content is of NO importance here. Obama is putting forth a vision, a direction. His followers care not that he doesn’t actually intend to go in that direction, nor has he the skill to lead them if he were. The cynical and corrupt Democrats scare me less.
3:45 pm
Many of those 35k Obama fans have been bused or flown or car-pooled in from all over the country. They are the same faces you’ve seen in Iowa, Ohio, etc.
That group of ‘spontaneous’ marchers were probably led by (and included) professional organizers and union organizers on leave from their unions and paid for by the Obama campaign. this was, after all, a media event. Call it a ‘Potemkin’ parade.
4:01 pm
Look, as an Obama supporter who, last time I checked anyway, is in full possession of my mental faculties (and have no criminal record), let me explain why my support continues despite the various allegations about his past associations.
I believe there is so little in Obama’s record that suggests corruption, character flaws or violence that his opponents are digging really deep to try to find something, anything to hang on him. The overall strategy is to insinuate that Barack Obama, a United States Senator with a 20-year record of public service, is at once a marxist, and also a terrorist.
This is no exaggeration. By the time November rolls around, the right wing will be trying to paint him as all these things at once. Marxist, corrupt machine pol, muslim, terrorist.
This does not affect my perception of Obama because all of it is transparently absurd for any thinking person. John McCain is not being held to the same standard, in which all of his previous acquaintances and associates are considered to be proxies for the man himself and his recorded views.
If this were an ideal campaign, Obama’s opponents would criticize him on the basis of his public service record (his votes and legislation) and his stated positions. Not those of his pastor, his acquaintances, his drycleaner, or his dog. If you are a real conservative, there should be enough there to argue with—Obama is a traditional democrat, with social-democratic positions, like those of Europe’s right wing parties.
Instead, spurious adolescent-minded attacks on character are instigated and repeated. Obama is demonstrably not a terrorist, a muslim, a black separatist, or a terrorist, and yet all these things are hinted at. It’s actually just pathetic. And out of touch. And unlikely to carry Republicans to victory.
6:41 pm
These Obama maniacs are like those who made a Messiah of Pierre Trudeau—the man who turned Canada into a Socialist, anti-American, and effeminate nation.
That country is dead, and beyond being saved, except for maybe parts of Western Canada.
If Obama is elected with a Democratic Congress, he will destroy America the same way, with Socialism, and squelching of dissent via repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and imposition of hate speech laws, backed to the hilt by a lapdog leftwing, media and legal establishment.
If he is not elected, we can expected, race riots and left-wing terrorism, with the MSM blaming it all on evil, gun-totin’, bible-thumpin’ white racist Americans.
Either way now, we lose.
8:12 pm
“If this were an ideal campaign, Obama’s opponents would criticize him on the basis of his public service record (his votes and legislation)”
We have been. You haven’t been paying attention. Obama’s early political career showed no legislation passed or even submitted until the Democrats took control of the legislature. Then there were a flurry of bills submitted by him. What isn’t common knowledge is that these were all OLD bills, drafted and submitted by other Democrats during the “wilderness years”, but that the new Democrat state senate leader had submitted in Obama’s name. There are a number of Democrat state senators who still grumble about this.
Obama is a manufactured messiah. He’s been carefully nurtured in a (political) hot house and groomed for his role as Great White Hope. The reason he sprang out of nowhere to the Senate and now the race for the Presidency is that he is a nothing, merely an empty suit mouthing the speeches running across the teleprompter and written by his handlers. He makes the Manchurian Candidate look like a self-made man. And that’s why he’s doing so poorly in the debates: Can’t think on his feet to save his soul.
12:16 am
I am sooooo Thankful for Obama. He should win the election. He will set in motion the creation of the intrusive superstate which will intrude upon all your lives. Once he and his lefty pals have done this – the electorate will turn on them. The superstate will not be dismantled – it will be in the hands of the what the now discredited Obamaniacs would call “right-wing wackos”. Then, finally, will America start to go fascist. Thanks Obama, it could not be done without you.
1:05 am
To #14: Yes, Canada is no more. Through the smouldering nightmare landscape laid to waste by Pierre Trudeau, that homo-commie, nary a living soul roams, and those that do are forced to participate in a nefarious socialized medicine program. Truly it chills the blood.
#15 If the right indeed limited itself to just your kind of critique, you wouldn’t hear a complaint from the likes of me. But true bad faith operators like #14 keep implying that electing Obama would not just result in ham-fisted governance, but instead talk about ACTUAL TERRORISM and MARXISM, and other such patently absurd, mind-numbingly stupid scenarios. It’s pathetic and ridiculous. OBAMA IS A DEMOCRAT, not a nazi, terrorist, or black supremacist. Please tell me that the people claiming otherwise are just cynical, inflammatory political hacks who aim to manipulate, and not INCREDIBLY STUPID CRETINS WHO BELIEVE THAT @#@$%.
3:04 pm
One Good Kingfish…
Kingdaddy of ‘em All: Huey Long The real shift in this country’s politics was well-summarized in Mediocrity’s Post, How to Make Real Dissent Impossible:What I think has changed is that there is now an automatic belief that the state is…
7:39 am
[...] Rick Moran watches with dismay the left’s willing suspension of disbelief. [...]
12:52 pm
[...] is not moderate. That is going to happen when Gandelman’s site runs posts by someone who sheltered a fugitive member of the Weather Underground calling former Sen. Phil Gramm a terrorist. Posted [...]