The ever-brilliant Jonathan Rauch:
Your chart here shows chronic punditry, with episodes of prognostication. Looks like you had a hard year last year.In 2007, I made two contrarian calls. First, don't write off John McCain. Second, write off Barack Obama. My average was 50 percent, which is as well as a lot of people did last year.
It's also as well as the average chimpanzee did. Is that why you're depressed?
No, it's these doubts, this hesitation. About Obama. A man I respect. Admire. I want to fall for him, love him as so many others do. But ... I can't. I try, but I can't.
Ah. This is not so uncommon. Obama Resistance Complex. You have Barack blockage. You are afraid to love, to commit.
No, no. Some of my conservative friends think that Obamamania is a messianic cult. I don't. I understand the enthusiasm. I can't remember when I've seen a politician with as much promise. He is eloquent, charismatic, cool under fire. He's the best kind of intellectual: super-smart but not patronizing. He has taken political risks to show moral leadership. Who else would have stood at Martin Luther King's pulpit and condemned homophobia and anti-Semitism in the black community?
And wouldn't it be something to have a black president! Think of the bloody chapters in American history a President Obama could close. I want to believe. I go home, shut my eyes, and say, "Yes I can!"
But I can't.
Take a breath. Here, blow your nose. Now, try to tell me why you think you have these issues. Let it out.
Read the whole thing.
He's the best kind of intellectual: super-smart but not patronizing.
As opposed the worst kind of intellectual: not especially smart, unable to cleanly admit error, gaze excessively at their navels, yet somehow manage to come off as patronizing because they believe themselves to be smart. {shudder}
I still don't get it. I _want_ to, but I don't. He doesn't come across to me as being "super-smart" in the slightest. Maybe for a politician, but [insert joke here about being the smartest out of a group of not-so-bright individuals]. And because I believe he's adopted a political facade, perhaps even one he now buys into, I think he's ultimately patronizing. He's simply going about it in a slightly different manner.
While I'm pleased that it appears we may, for the first time in several elections, be getting two candidates who are their own people (relatively speaking), I'm still dumbounded at the fawning adoration of Obama in this respect from even those who would not vote for him. I can only assume it's because this is how far our expectations for candidates at all levels have fallen.
Sure you've seen this, MM:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sXzmXy226po&feature=related
Set aside for a moment how prescient (and dare I say, libertarian!) vis a vis the Iraq Invasion, but how he's speaking. Pretty smart, not especially patronizing. Now imagine Commander Bunnypants in the same chair. Mercy, whoa. Who voted for that Bunnypants anyway? Oh well, better the devil you know, right?
Everyone knows the John Nash-ish guy who's obviously very smart but utterly incapable of communicating his ideas. And because of this we all accept that someone's intelligence may vastly outstrip their communicative capabilities. But we very rarely want to believe the reverse. Why is it so hard to accept that someone with fantastic oratorical and rhetorical skills is using them to present mediocre ideas, at best?
He is eloquent, charismatic, cool under fire. He's the best kind of intellectual: super-smart but not patronizing. He has taken political risks to show moral leadership.
I was waiting for "dreamy." What happened?
He is eloquent, charismatic, cool under fire.
Actually, I believe it's the other fellow in the race who's been "under fire".
Why is it so hard to accept that someone with fantastic oratorical and rhetorical skills is using them to present mediocre ideas, at best?
It's probably hard to accept because it would be such a massive improvement over what we have now. The leap from such staggeringly incoherent incompetence to coherent, if mediocre, competence in one shot truly boggles the mind.
A serious response to obama. Thanks, Megan.
So the best case is JFK. Bay of Pigs? Vietnam? Ba'athist coup in Iraq? This is upside? What is it with the Left and JFK?
Presumably the second sentence is supposed to be an example of Obama taking "political risks". Condemning anti-semitism in MLK's church is risky? That's either setting the bar awfully low or saying something nasty about that church.
Why’d travel all the way to MLK’s church to publicly condemn anti-Semitism when he could have done it in his own church?
ed,
Yeah, he was against the war before he was for the war before he was against it again.
This guy will, on the evidence, say anything he thinks he needs to say to anyone to get what he wants at any given point. He's got a lot of people - you, apparently, among them - convinced he's been anti-war right from the get-go. If he's so damn smart, why doesn't he remember that public statements get videotaped, written down and otherwise saved for future reference? In this respect, at least, Obama's as dumb as Hillary C. (snipers on the Tuzla tarmac, anyone? Bueller?)
What would he do in office? Damfino. If you're honest, damfuno either.
My bad Dick, you're right. The Iraq War is Teh Awesome and Obama's way worse than McCain or the Bush Administration, as your well reasoned argument/link shows.
ed,
At least McCain has a fairly consistent record and has shown competence on the war (pushing for the surge). He's got a chance of making reasonable decisions about military and foreign affairs.
We have no idea what Obama really believes nor do we have any reason to believe he would have a clue what to do or how to do it, given his total lack of military and foreign affairs experience.