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Reading Obama with Thomas Frank's glasses
For me, the most sinister thing about America is how it tames, absorbs, trivializes and somehow manages to package and market absolutely everything in true, Milo Minderbinder fashion. "Big Brother meets the cash nexus".
Every insight into the workings of the human mind that science stumbles onto is used to "optimize" the population, mold its thoughts and especially its choices, and most especially its spending "decisions". We and our minds are here to be processed as efficiently and as thoroughly as if we were battery chickens... Ever feather, every bone.
That is what I fled from, but it promises to follow me to the ends of the earth.
I think before we go on, you should read an excerpt from Thomas Frank's must-read classic, "Conquest of Cool". After reading this, I think you'll understand me and my Obamamania-phobia, and perhaps even understand your own self, a little better:
Most of this has been done by my own generation (now 60+) who took over decades ago from bemused, older marketing executives who didn't understand "our" new culture. They don't want the same thing to happen to them so they have decided to freeze time and sterilize young people's minds by continually rewinding and replaying their own youth. We are living in a classic-decadent period.
So by now, decades later, what passes for America's perception of reality has been manipulated and packaged by elderly former hippies or wannabes and their apprentices. Sophisticated (hip) and cynical to the point of nihilism, they have been pimping their youth (and mine) ever since. Barack Obama is the first, chemically pure, slickly packaged, political expression of Thomas Frank's observations.
To compare Obama with Martin Luther King, the talk of "change" and "yes we can", is no deeper than Nike's slogan, "just do it!" I am saddened by how Obama's emptiness is taken for value. As if the voters were confusing Starbucks with Vienna's Café Sperl... But then, they already do that almost every day of their lives.
http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/
Every insight into the workings of the human mind that science stumbles onto is used to "optimize" the population, mold its thoughts and especially its choices, and most especially its spending "decisions". We and our minds are here to be processed as efficiently and as thoroughly as if we were battery chickens... Ever feather, every bone.
That is what I fled from, but it promises to follow me to the ends of the earth.
I think before we go on, you should read an excerpt from Thomas Frank's must-read classic, "Conquest of Cool". After reading this, I think you'll understand me and my Obamamania-phobia, and perhaps even understand your own self, a little better:
Regardless of the tastes of Republican leaders, rebel youth culture remains the cultural mode of the corporate moment, used to promote not only specific products but the general idea of life in the cyber-revolution. Commercial fantasies of rebellion, liberation, and outright "revolution" against the stultifying demands of mass society are commonplace almost to the point of invisibility in advertising, movies, and television programming. For some, Ken Kesey's parti-colored bus may be a hideous reminder of national unraveling, but for Coca-Cola it seemed a perfect promotional instrument for its "Fruitopia" line, and the company has proceeded to send replicas of the bus around the country to generate interest in the counterculturally themed beverage. Nike shoes are sold to the accompaniment of words delivered by William S. Burroughs and songs by The Beatles, Iggy Pop, and Gil Scott Heron ("the revolution will not be televised"); peace symbols decorate a line of cigarettes manufactured by R. J. Reynolds and the walls and windows of Starbucks coffee shops nationwide; the products of Apple, IBM, and Microsoft are touted as devices of liberation; and advertising across the product category sprectrum calls upon consumers to break rules and find themselves. The music industry continues to rejuvenate itself with the periodic discovery of new and evermore subversive youth movements and our televisual marketplace is a 24-hour carnival, a showplace of transgression and inversion of values, of humiliated patriarchs and shocked puritans, of screaming guitars and concupiscent youth, of fashions that are uniformly defiant, of cars that violate convention and shoes that let us be us.What I am pointing out here, is that what was a historically unrepeatable, "before and after", period, one that truly brought "change" both good and bad, a period that was genuinely subversive, painful, destructive-creative, revolutionary, fresh, startling and real has been repackaged and recycled until now it is tame, stale and manageable.
Most of this has been done by my own generation (now 60+) who took over decades ago from bemused, older marketing executives who didn't understand "our" new culture. They don't want the same thing to happen to them so they have decided to freeze time and sterilize young people's minds by continually rewinding and replaying their own youth. We are living in a classic-decadent period.
So by now, decades later, what passes for America's perception of reality has been manipulated and packaged by elderly former hippies or wannabes and their apprentices. Sophisticated (hip) and cynical to the point of nihilism, they have been pimping their youth (and mine) ever since. Barack Obama is the first, chemically pure, slickly packaged, political expression of Thomas Frank's observations.
To compare Obama with Martin Luther King, the talk of "change" and "yes we can", is no deeper than Nike's slogan, "just do it!" I am saddened by how Obama's emptiness is taken for value. As if the voters were confusing Starbucks with Vienna's Café Sperl... But then, they already do that almost every day of their lives.
http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/
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This is an interesting view. By way of counterpoint, I shall simply mention that perhaps the situation is the exact reverse.
And that someone referencing Café Sperl should probably not talk about taking emptiness for value.
February 28, 2008 3:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Sperl? Café de Flor? Les Deux Magots? Café Gijón?
Your pick. The comparison is with Starbucks.
Starbucks is an ersatz European cafe. What I am talking about is the ersatz-ness.
February 28, 2008 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Someone's sounding a lot like a "latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing trust fund bab[y]." ;)
February 28, 2008 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
How interesting that you suggest that Obama is nothing other than pop culture media bullshit.
I think your analysis pretty much sums up you and your analysis. Elderly, former hippie cynic talking slick about something taken out of context(Obama).
You claiming Obama has no substance does not make it so. It only makes you as full of shit as you proclaim US pop culture to be. I am saddened by how your emptiness is taken by yourself to be value.
February 28, 2008 4:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
February 28, 2008 7:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think that was a brilliant move on your part - condescension is always a superior position to take in any argument.
February 28, 2008 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
OMG!!!!!!! Your wisdom is blinding! I apologize. Thank you for explaining why Obama is less talented and experienced than the other candidates. Now I see this is all the media controlling my consumer mind. I realize now that taking Geritol will help me get free of this! Maybe some Depends are in order too. Let us just alzheimer's away anyone who actually knows the Senator's record or policy positions or who doesn't follow MSM.
OMG!!!!!!!!!! The world is perfect now!!!!!!!! Wait one thing is missing! I must move to a foreign nation known for historical repression and savagery that still has a King hanging around. How cool will I look sitting at a cafe with my grey haired legs so perfectly fitted with sandals and my cargo shorts showing that Depends bulge? I've seen the light master.
February 28, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, that argument will sell in November. Take on the aging hippies. There's a ticket to the White House.
February 28, 2008 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
A very compelling post, but I disagree with your conclusion. While it's almost certain that there is an element of what you've described in the hype surrounding his campaign, I don't think that Obama can simply be reduced to a product. From what I've seen, the way that he represents himself appears to be genuine. To my knowledge, he has not compared himself to MLK and I don't think he's even given the impression that he thinks of himself this way. Rather, I think that he's been inspired by MLK and other icons in the fine American tradition of dissent, as many of us have.
You're right to be skeptical of the packaging, but that cat's been out of the bag for quite some time. Everything is sold to emotions these days, not intellect. This can make it pretty difficult to tell what it is truly genuine.
However, just because they've perfected the art of packaging doesn't mean that there's no longer anything worth selling.
I think a lot of the hype around him has at least something to do with his race. He's a good speaker and he's proving to be a very able politician in this campaign, but I wonder if he would be doing so well if he were white. This may seem counterintuitive in consideration of racism, but in terms of it elevating the excitement around him I think he gets a boost here because he seems to present a very real opportunity to end the tradition of white men in the White House. It would be more than just a symbol for an African American to finally hold the highest office in the land in a country where they were once made to live in chains. I cannot see how this prospect isn't justification for some amount of excitement.
When you take this in concert with what this country has been through during the last seven years, is it so hard to believe that there may perhaps be some substance here? That there are people who, just like you, see just as clearly how saturated our world has become with marketing, who are just as cynical about politics and yet just as concerned about the state of affairs and the outcomes, who also see that he may represent an opportunity to start moving in a different direction?
I submit to you that Barack Obama is running for President, not Legendery Civil Rights Leader or Revolutionary Icon. Perhaps some day he may approach these heights, but for now it will suffice if he proves to be competent at the job which he has applied for.
February 28, 2008 4:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
What really leads you to believe he is competent? His autobiography? His speeches?
Is this enough baggage to be entrusted with the fate of 300,000,000 people?
Do you follow Doonesbury?
Gary Trudeau is beginning to find the range.
February 28, 2008 7:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Doonesbury? Honestly, after what you posted above, you're actually referencing Doonesbury? That's hilarious. Another 60+ Boomer who shows that he's sometimes (more often lately) out of touch?
What I've come to learn in reading your anti-Obama screeds, is that you've never taken the time to actually research him. At first I just smiled and thought that you were the type of person you hear people railing against when they talk about Boomers. I never got it since it wasn't in my experience, but reading your posts I'm finally seeing what they've been on about.
It's clear that you rely on The Clinton's campaign and right-wing smears as your reference with perhaps a bit of bigotry since you seem to only want to compare Sen. Obama to other black people for whatever sad reason. It's easy to find things to fit your frame to tear someone down. But it's sad when, through your own inaction, you know nothing about the person and still think you're standing on solid ground with an argument.
But of course, like Geraldine Ferraro and other boomers constantly talking down to us, you're saying that you know what's good for us, even though your generation didn't actually do much good.
As my husband says, whenever he's insulted, "Thank you kindly, may I have another?"
February 28, 2008 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't pick on Trudeau. I don't know what his particular feelings are about Obama, but it's fair game to point out that Obama's language is like poetry. It's quite another to leap from there to assume that poetry equals emptiness. It almost sounds like something a scientist would say, except that I am a scientist (and know several scientists) and would never stoop to demean poetry that way.
Basically, what I'm saying is don't justify Seaton's faulty assumption by compounding it with an assumption that Trudeau actually agrees with him.
February 28, 2008 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well put.
What's your field?
February 28, 2008 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm guessing that since this was written in the key of blaming pop culture, the last thing he should possibly use as a prop for his arguement is a million year old comic strip.
February 28, 2008 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unlike the remaining alternatives this campaign cycle, he's done nothing to prove to me that he's incompetent. The mistake that you and others make is in thinking that it's all hopeless because he won't live up to the messianic image that others, not he, have built up around him. Guess what? He won't live up to it and he doesn't have to. All he has to do is be an improvement on where we're at. Sad state of affairs? Perhaps, but what are the alternatives? You certainly propose none.
I find it particularly amusing that you perceive so clearly the failures of your generation, but of course none of this is your fault, now is it? After all, as you proudly proclaim at the top of your blog, you bailed on the American experiment decades ago. How convenient: you've found yourself a place from which you can cast stones without any culpability. Classic baby boomer bullshit.
Why everyone thinks they're so prescient for pointing out the obvious, that belief alone is not enough and that change requires hard work, without recognizing the flip side of this, that work will never start unless there's at least some belief that change is possible, is beyond me. That you also seem to assume, just because your generation has been a dismal failure, that all subsequent generations are doomed to the same fate is less a comment about the current state of affairs and more a comment about your own weariness.
So, go ahead. Sip your Café Sperl and keep writing about how ersatz everything is, but don't be entirely surprised if it turns out that my generation isn't as dog stupid as all you geriatric, jaded geniuses proclaim.
As Michael Parenti, a voice of your generation that hasn't turned completely sour, likes to say, "We must be pessimists of the mind and optimists of the will."
February 28, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want to be cautious here, since I'm an acknowledged Clinton supporter. Even I can see the "sour grapes" retort coming from 10 blocks away. Nevertheless, I'll risk it.
I give Sen. Obama all due credit for his achievements in his prior life and career, and certainly in this campaign. Somehow, it's worked so far.
At the same time, I have been unable to resist premonitions of exactly what you're talking about. It may be that as a 60's-era type myself, I (and you) have a reservoir of memories and associations not available to younger people.
Whatever the reason, I sense (rightly or wrongly) a basic lightness of CONCEPT (a deliberate word-choice), without a genuine nourishing substance, or real staying power. Not to go completely overboard, but his speeches and public events strike me as like eating sugar: A quick burst of energy and pleasure, followed by no productive impulse at all, except to it over again.
February 28, 2008 4:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
last sentence should end, "except to do it over again."
Sorry.
February 28, 2008 4:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
February 28, 2008 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
amen, David, amen. when are this people will going to wake from their slumber. Obama is only good in making speeches, speeches you hear in the church where he belong. his spiritual adviser is Rev. Wright who promotes racism, anti-Semite, and etc. go to their website and read what this reverend said. do you know the church he belongs to is the one who gave an accolade for Farrakhan. Are you not scared? these are the people who gave solace to him, and if he is elected these are the people you will see in the white house. that gives me chill. wake up!!!
February 28, 2008 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't tell anymore—is that meant to be satire?
February 28, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Resist the temptation to condemn a candidate on the basis of whether a Robertson, Dobson, Farrakhan, Billy Graham, the Pope, or the local orthodox rabbi, endorse him/her.
You do understand that all these people, fundy or not, in this country, have the right to speak and endorse anyone.
It could be that diverse voters want an end to the war-mongering and corruption of the two Bush terms. I would hard pressed to judge a voter's motive by the way he/she worships. Or doesn't worship.
I just prefer the option of choosing my own candidate in my own way, without your telling me that my candidate's endorsements define his policy and his ability to govern.
February 28, 2008 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
David,
While I see your point, I think you misunderstand the public. We are finally waking up after a long sleep. The Brittany Spears, Anna Nicole, Fox Noise phase of our American conciousness is waning.
I think what Obama brings to the table is a belief in the intelligence of the American people. He never speaks in I or Me, he speaks in us and we.
Slick packaging in our materialistic society always claims that if you buy this, it will solve all of your problems with little or no help from you. Just buy this and you will be prettier, healthier, more wealthy. Obama is the polar opposite of that, since he claims that it is the people who need to make the change. They are the ones who will make the change with their voices and actions.
Obama's candidacy strikes a chord because it finally brings some perspective to a world seemingly silly and out of control. It gives the responsibilty of our country not only to him, but to us. His Google for government is in place right now so we can see just how much the government is spending. His pledge not to sign any bill for 5 days after it reaches his desk so the people can view it online and comment on it engages people in the laws that will effect them. Having all government meetings broadcast on the web and cspan is yet another way to rid Washington of corrupt, behind closed doors dealings.
In this new technological age, we can be more involved than ever before. Obama wants to harness that power and really give government back to the people. It will be hard for any rep to hide from decisions when all of their constituents can view and hold them accountable for their actions. It will also virtually eliminate any kind of spin one side takes over another because we can just go to the tape. It is already happening in this campaign cycle. Hypocracy is caught every day.
But what really did it for me, was not a speech given in front of 20,000 screaming people, but one he gave back in 2006. A divisive issue about religion and politics, Obama has, what I believe and many also do, a way to cut through the modern day hysteria and remind us what America is all about. There is no soaring rhetoric, just a lot of good old common sense. I suggest you take a peak at it. It is about 30 mins long, but well worth the watch.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid463869411/bctid416343938
February 28, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think this is a brilliant argument. In one fell swoop you have eliminated the ability of anyone not as "mature or as experienced" as you to be able to participate in the dialog. Clearly us "younger" people can't know, or distinguish real from fake. We lack any historical reference to make such a distinction.
You have turned an entire group of excited voters into New Coke supporters.
Now what?
I suppose that you are happy with the results from your generational "tune in and drop-out" and how many dead-head stickers there are on big white Cadillacs? Having proven that resistance by and for the people clearly can't be accomplished, because the counter-culture movement of yester-year graduated to be ad execs?
I think we have our new "sexism" topic replacement - ageism. It all ties right back into the cult argument. Somehow, Obamanicultbots cannot possibly think for themselves. Gen X will leave this mess in ruins. Next we can get into arguments as to which has more impact on societal violence - John Wayne or Grand Theft Auto. Nevermind that it is an ingrained desire for/attraction to violence. This new music out is just bad! Now CCR... thats good music.
February 28, 2008 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let's be honest here—you do look a little young to be participating in these conversations! ;)
February 28, 2008 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
lol
February 28, 2008 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
David I believe that your commentary is quite a revealing socialogical commentary on our time. I have a question that I have been pondering for a long time about your generation as I was not a 60's kid but an 80's kid; I am a novice student of history, mostly US, but something that keeps on being brought up over and over again in American politics is a fear of socialist programs, institutions and ideas. It seems prior to the cold war that many in America felt that socialist principles were important in addressing the needs of all citizens in a culture on an equal platform. There were socialist and communist groups openly organizing throughout much of the country and many of their ideas influenced political decision making in many communities(maybe you disagree). In no way was this a national movement but rather discourse that existed between citizens trying to find solutions to community problems. Many times socialist initiatives failed in congress because many were afraid of big government and intrusions on people’s personal liberties. Then the depression hit and Europe was being dragged into another war against Germany, Italy and Japan. The US was openly divided and many preferred a more isolated stance in light of WWI. Well FDR comes to the rescue by basically installing many programs which today would be seen as socialist programs, but hey it was the depression and millions were out of work. His New Deal was considered by most American a roaring success at the time and the following president Truman continued this policy as a great expense to his future legacy. It would seem that shortly following Truman but probably before that there was deep sentiment in many political and business circles that the New Deal policies were hurting America and that they were good but now should be changed so society can get back to business. The cold war was budding and the McCarthy hearings were coming down the road instilling in many Americans a deep fear of anything socialist, communist or red.
My question is do you feel as if many in your generation have a deep sense of hatred or fear of policies developed by the New Deal? IS my assessment for feeling that many even today harbor a deep flawed fear of the value of social institutions at the expense of progress? I bring this up because of fears used against universal healthcare and it seems a deep appreciation of everything being free-market. In my eyes our public schools are a socialist institution, our police departments, our fire departments, and our national defense departments all exist as social institutions.
I look forward to your comments!
February 28, 2008 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Many feel that FDR saved the capitalist system in the USA.
My personal feeling is that the best form of government is something like Scandinavian social democracy. I don't know if that is good for business, and I don't particularly care.
February 28, 2008 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
first let me say i don't think obama is a shallow candidate who has a catchy slogan. I think his supporters care about real honest to goodness change.
but more than that your post seems to be a fairly depressing indictment of society. If the baby boomers gave us this shallow culture, and the younger generation simply perpetuates it, where we go next? hillary is no good, she created the system and barack is no good, he's a product of it. your argument seems fatalist and self perpetuating, what are we suppose to do with it?
February 28, 2008 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, there's another voice that spent his life arguing that people aren't smart enough to know who to vote for. I'll give you a hint: he very recently passed away and his initials are WFB.
February 28, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's be honest here: most of his supporters are shallow. Most of Clinton's are, too. Most Americans are. Most people are.
That doesn't make him shallow, however.
February 28, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reminds me of an old John Podhoretz quote:
What does that make someone who does a pretty good impression of John Podhoretz?
February 29, 2008 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
May I just say that your generation seemed to know better then those that came before, and yet you preach to us as your elders did to you? We may not be out in the streets marching or throwing bottles, but we do our part.
In your days the revolution was televised.
I submit that our revolution against 25 + years of corporate corruption in our government will be fought differently then yours.
This time the revolution will be streamed.
I respect your experience (you have seen things we can only learn of), but with age comes cynicism. The cynicism your elders showed towards a bunch of punks trying to buck the system. However, with age you forget the idealism of your youth and how it helped to move the world.
This is not so much a comment on Obama as it is a look into the minds of those inspired by him.
February 29, 2008 12:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
The problem with your post is the same exact thing that is problem with hippies in general, both pre- and post-cooptation, pre- and post-disillusionment: It's the false assumption that there is such as thing as authenticity.
Your post is premised on the idea that there was once such a thing as an authentic, unselfconscious, unproblematized "cool." But guess what? There is no "authentic." The idea of the authentic is just a response to crises of modernity-- we saw this in the 19th century with Romanticism and the search for the volk, and we saw it in the 20th century with hippies and Robert Zimmerman's search for the folk (If you want to read a really illuminating book on this subject, skip Thomas Frank's pop-sociology and try Philip Deloria's "Playing Indian.").
Getting co-opted only works if you are gullible enough to think that there is such thing as authenticity. Fortunately, one of the few dividends paid by postmodernism has been the understanding among some of us Gen X-ers and Gen Y-ers (and sorry to use those terms, by the way) that there is no authentic; that the search for the authentic is a fool's errand, a mistake made by our parents' generation. People mistake this for cynicism (particularly when they are bashing The Daily Show, one of the least cynical cultural offerings out there), and they act bewildered by the fact that we young'uns are now actually moved to action by Obama's candidacy. But that fact is, we are attracted not to Obama's "cool" or his "authenticity." We are attracted to the very real sense of possibility he offers.
As Marshall Berman expresses beautifully in his book, "All That is Solid Melts into Air" (and in plenty of other articles), not every expression of hope, possibility, or resistance has to be co-opted. And even if a movement or art form does eventually becomes co-opted and corporatized, that does not necessarily undermine its initial contributions.
I'll leave you with a quote from a recent article Marshall Berman wrote for Dissent, entitled "New York Calling." It is an example of how we still can change the dominant discourse--we don't always have to get snookered. At the very least, we have to believe we can change the discourse if anything is ever to be accomplished. You and Thomas Frank make the same mistake that Chomsky makes in "Manufacturing Consent": you treat discursive and commercial barriers as equivalent to physical barriers. That is just plain wrong, and doing this denies the individual of his or her autonomy and dignity. My point is, We can surprise you. In "New York Calling," Berman writes about Bronx communities’ creative responses to—-and subversion of—-repression, exclusion and abandonment. It is inspiring.
“Meanwhile, the South Bronx, at its moment of greatest misery and anguish, and in some sense because of its misery and anguish, created the mass culture called Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop today envelops the whole world. I knew of no one in the 1970s who imagined that anything like this could happen. The kids of those neighborhoods in those days created because they had to; they couldn’t help themselves, they couldn’t stop. The Bronx above all became more culturally creative than it had ever been in its life. In the midst of dying, it went through rebirth.
[…]
“Hegel says that ‘spirit is a power only by looking the negative in the face and living with it.’ ‘Living with it is the magical power that converts the negative into being.’ Well, that’s the message. In New York in the 1970s, this meant that social disintegration and existential desperation could be sources of life and creative renewal.”
This is what we mean when we say, "Yes We Can."
P.S. Sorry to get all academic on your ass; I've been in grad school way too long. That, and I hate hippies.
February 29, 2008 1:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, as a retired hippie-turned-CPA, I'll agree with you. You've been in grad school too long. You hate hippies. Whatever. A lot of hippies hated kids who hide out in school on daddy's money.
February 29, 2008 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK, Friend:
I'm scraping by on a 15k/year salary as a TA. No trust funds here, no help from Daddy. No heat in my apt, either.
Goodnight.
February 29, 2008 2:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. I think I just got Buffenbargered!
February 29, 2008 2:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
That you did, sir. That you did.
February 29, 2008 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
David...Many feel that FDR saved the capitalist system in the USA.
I'd agree with that and note that he saved it using 'un-capitalistic' methods. OK by me. And the system may need it again sometime.
The Obama 'sugar analogy' is good. It tends to remind me of the old adage regarding genius/accomplishment...ie 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. While I'm seldom moved by any speaker, Obama seems to be a moving speaker based upon the responses I've seen from supporters here and elsewhere. Good for him. I applaud it but I've seen little to inspire me to believe that he's got what it takes for the other 95% of the job. And if he doesn't have that, it's little more than that temporary 'sugar rush'.
In addition, when I hear his 'reach across the aisle' schtick, it makes me wonder where he lives. Where I live, republicans have instituted more filibusters (60 vote requirements) this year than at any time in our 200+ years. If he can indeed accomplish that 'reach across the aisle' thingy, why hasn't it been on display in the Senate this year. It would have been extremely helpful. 'Reach across the aisle' is cynical vaporware...consumption for the faithful. It means nothing. I want to know how he performs in political trench warfare because that is what will be required to move any agenda. From what I've seen, I don't think he is up to it. Just my opinion...
February 29, 2008 2:04 AM | Reply | Permalink