Obama: Cult of Personality
When I was a young man, I was a rocker!!! What? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was a band-geek…….But I was still a rocker!
Anyway……
One of my favorite groups was Living Colour. Their break-through hit was “Cult of Personality”. Part of the lyrics goes:
You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You me power in your god’s name
I’m every person you need to be
I’m the cult of personality
Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I’ve been everything you want to be
I’m the cult of personality
When I think about the recent coronation of Illinois’ best known politician, Barack Obama, I can think no better pop culture reference than Cult of Personality.
Let’s be really honest about what has happened. The Presidency of the United States is the most powerful position in the entire world. Think about that for a moment. Of over 5 billion people in the world, we select one person to lead the most powerful nation in the world. To select this person, we have two parties that go through a grueling process of 50+ primaries and caucuses and the result of this are two candidates that aspire to this high and lofty position.
In my never to be humble opinion, the Republican Party did a pretty poor job of selecting a candidate. That being said, at least the Republican candidate has been a military hero, businessman, and now a Congressman since 1982. While I don’t agree with Senator McCain on some issues, at least it is clear that he comes to the presidency with a significant amount of relevant experience.
On the Democratic side, the Cult of Personality prevailed. Prior to his run for US Senate, Obama was an undistinguished Illinois legislator. He ran unsuccessfully for US Representative in 2000. Pretty much the only reason that Obama won the 2004 Senate race was the revelations late in the primary about Blair Hull’s alleged marital abuse, which effectively knocked him out. Prior to that, Blair Hull had a commanding lead. Obama also benefited from a disorganized and humiliating presence on the Republican side by first Jack Ryan and then Alan Keyes.
With everything well in hand, the Democrats selected Obama, a fresh face, handsome, articulate young man to make a keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Based on resume only, who would have guessed that Obama should have been selected to make that speech? The speech electrified the audience. It was a rousing speech. But, it was a speech. Nothing but a speech. If a speech was a qualifying part of becoming President, let’s nominate Michael Douglas because of his portrayal in “The American President”
From almost the moment that John Kerry failed and Barack Obama took office, he was beset by calls for him to run for the Presidency, largely because of that speech. Think about that. He hadn’t served a moment in national office. He only won the Democratic primary because an opponent was revealed to be a sleaze late in the race, and he didn’t have a credible opponent on the Republican side. If people looked only at a political resume, there would be at least 100 people on the Democratic side that would be more qualified to be President. Bill Richardson is a successful governor, former congressman, Ambassador to the UN, and Secretary of Energy. Joe Biden has been a Senator since he was 30 years old. Chris Dodd has been a Congressman since 1974.
The difference with these three men and Barack Obama aside from their resumes can only be a cult of personality.
I hope that between now and November 4th, the country wakes up from the dream and thinks about the seriousness of the position that will stand before them in the voters’ booth.
12 comments:
Yes, there is a "cult of personality" candidate all right: his name is John McCain.
Face facts: McCain is running primarily off of his "I was a war hero" record; that is pretty much it.
Yes, I like the guy and I have a genuine admiration for his war heroism.
But McCain simply doesn't know his head from a hole in the ground on many top issues; he didn't know that Iran's executive branch is split between an elected President (the loud mouth who always gets quoted) and a Supreme Leader who controls the military and foreign policy. He didn't know that Iran ( a Shiite country) is NOT allied with Al Qeada (a Sunni group).
But unfortunately, many people equate war heroism with defense policy knowledge. McCain simply doesn't have it.
"The difference with these three men and Barack Obama aside from their resumes can only be a cult of personality."
That is a non-sequitor.
While this statement may or may not be a fact, it is not -- as you assert with your use of the word "only" -- necessarily a fact. And it is not a factual conclusion that one can draw from what you wrote above. Although "cult of personality" is one of the infinity of possible explanations for Obama's nomination that remain when you eliminate "experience," your argument does not reveal it to be the only possibility.
Here's an example that might illustrate these logical short-coming: Let's say we're trying to account for the occurrence of an event -- we'll call it "Event A". Then we eliminate "x" and "y" as possible causes. Can we then assert that Event A "can only be" the result of cause "z"?
No.
We have not proven that "z" is the ultimate cause. We have only proven that some possiblities -- "x" and "y" -- are not the cause.
Unless and until we show that "x", "y", and "z" are the only possible causes, the elimination of "x" and "y" as causes does not prove the necessity of "z". The assertion that "z" is the cause of "Event A" still requires actually addressing the merits of cause "z", not merely addressing the merits of "x" and "y".
Similarly, this post fails to either a) narrow the possible causes for Obama's nomination to the ones addressed in this post, or b) to actually address the purported cause -- "Cult of Personality" -- on its merits.
-- SCAM
so-called "Austin Mayor"
http://austinmayor.blogspot.com
BLASPHEMY!!!
How dare you state anything about our Messiah???!!!!
And this has what to do with Illinois politics?
Wow, way to reduce the man's life and hard work to a speech he made. By those metrics, we ought to be able to sum up John McCain with what he said in his little speech to his wife,“At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.”
Imagine the numerous labels we could apply to him for this one. "Shitty Husband" would be a good start.
Gauntt's the name.
Gaunt's the premise of this pathetic thesis.
Rich,
I think it has everything to do with Illinois politics from history (like Blair Hull and Jack Ryan) to the present day like Emil Jones and Tony Rezko.
Also, it was here in Illinois that the ridiculous fawning and lack of investigation or even analysis (with the notable exception of Tim Novak at the Sun Times) turning Obama into an untested Messiah.
Rich, you deleted posts that are now discussed on CNN, MSNBC and FOX on a regular basis and most other blogs. Everyone critized Fran Eaton (and I do not know her nor am I a fan) of the Illinois Review, but when the major media got the Trinity stuff they went everywhere with it and it became mainstream, there were even posts here on Illinoize calling Fran Eaton anti-Christian (for being anti-Trinity). Fr. Pleger is from Illinois and involved in local politics. David Axelrod is from Illinois, his brother used Deratany ( the candidate against Berrios) as his attorney against the Bulls wife and is Daley's PR guy.
There should be some introspection with the media for not covering Obama more accurately and not creating a sensation (at least outside Illinois) that was created from the media down and not a real grass roots support (based on the vote tallys and the possibility Hilary Clinton won the popular vote and the serious issues from vote tallys, geography and polling that Obama has concerning Hispanics and Blue Collar whites) although in Illinois he was a home grown phenomena.
Even Rich Miller's dad's car (and claim to be a conservative Republican and Barry Goldwater supporter) smacked of a cult like following based on personality and some perceived subjective I don't know what (that certainly Reagan, Clinton and maybe even Bush II have/had). It was in reality more like what the Ron Paul supporters were accused of (but I think they had more policy in sync with their candidate).
The media coverage of Obama was bizarre. Obama's rise to "power" was strange, meteoric and had no critical analysis but almost fawning coverage (even noted in popular coverage by Saturday Night Live) and a messianic element (there are joke Youtubes and even websites making fun of this) with absurd qoutes by Oprah and offensive ones by his wife.
Obama is certainly more civil and gives a good stump speech. I am uncertain how he is not a politician and am uncertain why he bridges a racial gap better than Bill Richardson or even Alan Keyes (objectively not based on polemic against the latter) or what exactly is so hopeful about him (Daley? silence on Jon Burge? Tony Rezko? endorsing Todd Stroger? Ayers?)
So, I think this is very about Illinois. I also think that Rich Miller was one of the biggest fans of Obama and could brook no criticism of him.
Obama is like why people liked Jon Jon Kennedy or Princess Di.
It is mass stupidity. Obama helped bring the Enquirer style of politics with singing sexy girls on YouTube, and Sun Times cover pages of him swimming and thousands of uncritical and promotion articles rather than real journalism.
Obama is like why people liked Jon Jon Kennedy or Princess Di.
It is mass stupidity
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Sheer nonsense. Actually, Obama is liked by many of the same folks who gave society things like cures for diseases or solutions to big scientific problems; Obama polled very well among Ivy league faculty, science bloggers (you know, the folks who actually understand that the universe is more than 6000 years old) and the like.
Mass Stupidity may have given us Ronald Reagan.
ollie, keep Reagan out of this.
Your snarky piece, "Mass Stupidity may have given us Ronald Reagan," could fit AL gore as well.
B.O. needs more than nerdy profs, weird bloggers and groupies to get to 270.
"Rich, you deleted posts that are now discussed on CNN, MSNBC and FOX on a regular basis and most other blogs"
Rich's failure to stoop to the levels of the cable news networks is an indictment of 24-hour cable news, not of Mr. Miller. Your faint damnation is fine praise for Mr. Miller's editorial judgment.
In addition, you once again have fallen victim to faulty logic: On one hand you moan about the alleged herd mentality of the Illinois press corps with regard to Obama, but then you hold up 24-hr cable news -- the most bovine members of corporate media -- as a standard to which Mr. Miller should aspire.
A logical argument must, at minimum, be internally consistent. Your condemnation of Mr. Miller fails to meet that minimal standard of logic.
-- SCAM
so-called "Austin Mayor"
http://austinmayor.blogspot.com
Jim, if you bothered to take the time to look instead of relying on your idiotic conspiracy theories, you'd see plenty of stories and blog posts I've written that criticized Obama.
This is an Illinois politics blog. Not a national blog. I don't care what CNN reports. We're supposed to focus here on Illinois politics and government.
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