Seems like a cult to me. All the elements of cultism are there. It’s disturbing. Now I know how Hilter won Germany.

Hm. Yes. Obama. Very Hitler-esque. And his crowds — mindlessly devoted to Obama.

Why, The Weekly Standard published a piece on the startling going-ons of these Nuremburg – style Rallies, from January we get this, and the single-minded “Destroy All Dissenters, Take No Prisoners” attitude of this Hitlerian Obama guy:

A few minutes after Obama took the stage, a group of about a dozen protesters in the balcony interrupted him, chanting, “Abortion is abomination!” This sort of thing happens all the time at political events. Sometimes the intruders are the “community of peacemakers” who call themselves Code Pink, sometimes they’re LaRouchies. When anti-abortion folks disrupt an event, the response is usually the same: The pro-abortion audience heckles the banner-wielding protesters; the speaker tosses off a barb or two; security escorts the demonstrators away; and the audience cheers, partly in self-satisfaction, partly in derision at the rubes who think babies are not choices.

But at the Obama event, something extraordinary happened. The protesters chanted “Abortion is abomination!” Obama lost his place in his speech and stared up into the balcony, looking to see who was interrupting him. The crowd began booing lustily, and suddenly Obama turned on them.

“There’s no need to boo,” he chastised them. After silencing the crowd, Obama turned back to the protesters and said he appreciated their point and would be happy to talk with them afterwards if they’d let him finish his speech. The protesters continued, and the crowd, thinking Obama simply didn’t want them to be negative, tried shouting them down, chanting “Obama! Obama!”

At which point Obama turned on them again. “Hold up,” he commanded. “This is an example of nobody hearing each other.” The Obama partisans desisted once more. The anti-abortion chanters continued, and Obama tried to engage them. “For die folks who are opposed to abortion, I understand your position, but this isn’t going to solve anything,” he said plaintively. He gave them time to make their point, and eventually they were led away.

The crowd cheered wildly as the demonstrators were taken down the back staircase by the local police, and here Obama cut dirough the applause to lecture them one final time. “Let me just say this, though,” he said. “Those people got organized to do that And that is part of the American tradition we are proud of. And that’s hard, too-standing in the midst of people who don’t agree with you and letting your voice be heard.” The audience, a bit stunned, didn’t quite know what to make of this.

I didn’t either. From my point of view, it would be much better if Barack Obama were willing to help protect the lives of the unborn. Still, his treatment of those protesters-and especially his treatment of his own supporters-spoke to his intellectual seriousness and his temperament, both of which seem to be first rate.

Honestly, I gather the Obama-followers will stop following him somewhere short of his invasion of Poland.

For a critical piece on Obama, still seemingly the most telling for his short career — and not quite a deal-breaker against him but a cautionary note, Harpers published this, which is something I need to re-read and re-appraise right about now.

Were you aware that Cynthia McKinney is running for the Green Party nomination for President? I mention this in light of Ralph Nader’s announcement of his new completely irrelevant presidential run, where he is sure to double to vote for the Socialist Workers’ Party and not much else.  I am aware of gradations in politics and focus on issues which make them a difference of apples and oranges — though I point out that apples and oranges are both round  fruit — but I suggest to you that if you desire to vote for a political candidate somewhere to the left of that there Donkey Party with some Name Recognition and recent history of Fighting one Cause or Another, she ought be your gal and Nader ought not be your guy.

I do hold a contrarian view, and not a contrarian for contrarians’ sake view, based on watching the 2000 election campaign play out that Nader’s part in forcing Gore to commit to a position, “People Versus the Powerful” as it turned out to be for good or bad, outweighed the elecotral loss on Election Day — and I may just have to look up polling numbers through 2000 to back myself up and come to that post later.

Oddly enough, I found myself debating with myself whether to make a note on this here vanity blog of mine regarding today’s episode of that wonderous local comic strip, Adam’s Apple.  I say “oddly enough” because someone saw fit to make a comment to one of my previous posts on the subject.  The fact that it was there pushed me over to the “make a comment” side of the ledger.  On a previous occasion when I felt a tinge to make a remark, I thought better of it.  Better to just move on up the page to Hi and Lois and see if the baby was rolling into a sunbeam again.

Read the first panel.  That, actually might just be where I should leave this commentary — short and sweet.  I think if you do so you will have the same cringe I felt

But, to extrapulate further:  What the Hell?  Senator What?  Actually, go ahead and overlook that one — insert a generic name for the moment, even though this is not really pardonable.  And we get to the question — Huh?  Oh, that Senator [Jones?  Snodgras, maybe?], keeps pushing that Bill.  Oboy!  It’s just like Senators, they can’t help themselves… them and their bills which they keep pushing.  Over and over again.

It is not a bad gag, in theory, and it is a reasonable political comment, and you can imagine the conversation that put it into his head.  Which leaves me in an area where I am trying to figure out why he wasn’t able to come up with something that might actually be referenced — even devoid of specific politics, which is what the cartoonist clearly was trying to avoid.  Spending Bill, leading to an awkward and vaguely vague construction.  So, to better your enjoyment of this particular edition of Adams’ Apple: They are complaining about a Spending Bill, proposed by a Senator Jones.  Just make it a spending bill, and move on to the next panel.

You can’t gain “Conservative Credentials” until The New York Times writes an unfavorable piece about you. Thus, McCain may well be taking a long sigh of relief, if just for the moment.

Stripping out the sex aspects, I suppose you might go back to that idea of “Attacking His Strength”. The one thing about this supposed strength, chastized in the wake of his role in the Keating Six* scandal John McCain became MR. UNBOUGHT AND UNBOSSED, Mr. SUPER-REFORMER, I do not fully know if everyone in the bottom of their heart, when they sit still long enough, believes such a thing. Maybe as politicians go, grading on a curve — hence his Independent Credentials — .

But there is a way we are going to have to try to get a good handle on the man, the politician, the waving history, circa 2000 through 2004. I suspect you are left cutting his career into four distinct cuts, maybe?

* Correction: Keating Five.

Destined for the remainder bins, and essentially doomed to be unread as most political memoirs by mere Senators are, (beyond which, the Iraq War is soooo very yesterday… right?), yet I can not help but get the feeling that this book is going to be quoted and mined for the next hundred years with occasional references to explain various points about the political climate in the Senate during the lead – up to the War in Iraq and the passing of the Iraq War Resolution (and hence the political climate of some future date).

(I cannot find an online source for this, which is:

Commentary – Chafee’s book zaps Bush, both parties
Scott MacKay; Journal Staff WriterProvidence Journal
Commentary – Chafee’s book zaps Bush, both parties
Byline: Scott MacKay; Journal Staff Writer

For instance…

“Being wrong about sending Americans to kill and be killed, maim and be maimed, is not like making a punctuation mistake in a highway bill.

They argue that the president duped them into war, but getting duped does not exactly recommend their leadership. Helping a rogue president start an unnecessary war should be a career-ending lapse of judgment.

Interesting to note that Lincoln Chafee (ex-Republican) has endorsed Barack Obama for president, and this now reads like a shot in the arrow at Hillary Clinton.

A bewildered Chafee, seeking an explanation, turned to an unnamed Democratic senator who opposed the war but was well-respected by his party’s leaders. This senator tells Chafee “in confidence” what concerned the Democrats. “They are afraid the war will be over as fast as Gulf One. Few will die, the oil will flow and gasoline will cost 90 cents a gallon.”

[…]

“Instead of talking tough or meekly raising one’s hand to support the tough talk, it is far more muscular, I think, to find out what is really happening in the world and have a debate about what we really need to accomplish,” writes Chafee. “That is the hard work of governing, but it was swept aside once the fear, the war rhetoric and the political conniving took over.”

The cynicism and disdain for the Democrats he would have hoped to be on the side of takes on stark relief when we get to this:

Unlike members of his own party, Democratic senators were not getting the influence, home-state goodies, White House invites and Congressional pork that goes with being in the majority.  […]

Naturally.  At the end of the day, the parties crash down to:

Of the general election, Chafee writes that he was both “irked and amused” at the “parade of Democratic Bush enablers” who trekked to Rhode Island to campaign for Whitehouse.

Yet, Chafee doesn’t mention that such GOP war supporters as former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, Arizona Sen. John McCain and First Lady Laura Bush traveled to Rhode Island to raise money or campaign for Chafee.

Undoubtedly the only one of those to make a public appearance, or at least the most publically — maybe your Fred Thompson made an appearance — and note that George W Bush uttered not a word in Rhode Island, astride your Lincoln Chafee would be the John McCain.  Two things to note with this one: #1, again, Lincoln Chafee is for Obama.  #2:  McCain has been winning those Republican primaries with the margin of victory coming off of anti-war (as defined per stance with Iraq posturing) Independents and the slim pickings of anti-war Republicans.  It’s a testamont to the insanity of our politics, and that “Moderate” status he has successfully engendered.  Why he would be running around with
McCain in that election in the first place.

First they came for the Ron Paul supporters, and I remained silent, for Ron Paul supporters struck me as kind of nutty. (*)

There is something a bit disconcerting on the emerging narrative about Barack Obama, and the word “Cult”.  The thing is that going over the list of Democratic Party nominees, you almost would guess they have been super-sensitive toward this charge — going out of their way to nominate personality-less candidates that could not in any way transfix or emotionally connect to you with either empty or full platitudes.

So we arrive at a can’t win situation.  Politicians delving into policy focuses are derided and told that the electorate wants to know not so much anything on that score — a bit complex and nobody’s an expert on these intricate matters, but about “Values” that might inform such policies.  For good or bad, there we are, there Obama has staked his claim.  What does it get us?  “CULT!”  Hare Krishna, dangeditall.

And from no less a Democratic friendly than Paul Krugman.  But Krugman is a Clinton accolate, his editorial suffering from a “Remove the Log from your own eyes before pointing to the mote in the other’s” situation.

The other case of “can’t win” comes in the always present background noise about voter and political apathy, particularly with the Youth.  So when “The Youth”, or a lot of Youth, throw their lot in with a candidate (for better or worse, as indirect a manner it is, the way into the electoral political process) — they are derided once again.  It was something you saw in 2004 when Howard Dean “Deaniacs” were tarred as tattooed and pierced and purple haired freaks.

In a real way, all presidential campaigns are “Cults of Personality”, and there is no real way of getting around it.  To recall Dean again, it was with him that I came to this conclusion, sometime during his 2003 Summer campaign when I read through a blog description of an event, the blogger proudly pointing to a thousands-gathered crowd chanting (ahem) “We are Dean.”  Understand, I say this about a candidate I genereally liked, actually moreso than any other presidential candidate I’ve come across within the past three cycles, and who I was disappointed that I did not get to vote for — even as a useless symbol past his drop-out.  (A sort of “Identity politics” strikes me as important theme in voting, particularly because your one single vote rarely matters — think of the pride in having voted for and supported Goldwater or McGovern (or Eugene McCarthy) — and why I was annoyed by this news statement about Mike Huckabee voters.)

As for a political figure I do not think much of, I always go back to this New York Times Magazine cover:  here.

So, my thought experiment  goes like this:

The aliens come down to meet you. They say, “Take Me to Your Leader.” Who do you take them to?   Me? I think I wouldn’t know where to take them to. It’s easier as a child, there you can at least take them to your mom and dad, but now? I just don’t know.

Maybe the rule should be that you have it coming if you describe your political campaign as a “Movement”.  I am not going to stand foresquare behind your Barack Obama — I’m just not.  I wish I could take credibly the National Journal and subsequent Republican talking point ranking of “#1 Liberal Senator”, not necessarily for strict ideological reasons as because than I would be able to firmly place him somewhere beyond his impressive array of “Present” votes, and his speechifying would have something backing it up.  But this is what it is, and I suggest the nature of our political discourse has brought us to a point where this is sometimes optimum.  When eight years ago, I squinted at candidate Bush’s thin resume, I do so again and shrug.  But I have a faint warning in my gut: Obama has a steep electoral upside, which comes with a steep electoral downside.  I do not believe it is hard to conjure up the outlines of a massive negative onslaught against him which would leave one a little dizzy, wondering “That the Hell is wrong with our Society?”  It begins with items of racial innuendo — check your email box, please –  (Eventually I’ll come back toward this.)

— No, actually this is overshadowed at the moment by what is at hand… “Cult”.  Looking at the Machivelian trick, now dubbed Rovian, and onto the verb “Swift Boat”, it is a tad more nuanced than “Attack your opponent’s strength”.  The strength has to be shown to be a mask for a perceived weakness.  There was an underlying sense that Kerry was overplaying his Vietnam Service to get away from explaining national security  — something he with which wanted to place himself firmly in several camps.  Obama gets faced with this because his charisma and inspiring speech ends up, in the minds of many — and this is a criticism that Obama fans will just have to own up to and face whether they believe it or not themselves — thought of as a bunch of puffery not backed up with anything substantial.

…………..

(*) Or, you know… first they came for the Landon LaRoach supporters, but that actually is a Cult.  Which, I should be getting back to — I haven’t posted on that for a while, have I?

There is this PSA advertisement I keep hearing on the radio which bugs me just a tad.  It takes a firm stand against that oh-so-controversial of issues, Bullying — more to the point “Cyber-bullying”.

I will assume the two girls are about 13 years of age.  I will call them Suzy and Sarah, because I don’t remember their name.  So Sarah’s mom says, “Oh hi Suzy.  The kids are in the kitchen making sandwiches.”

Cut to kitchen.  Where Suzy unleashes a torrent of insults at Sarah.  There is a familiarity to it all, even if I can’t say many of them were directed at me.  (Boys differ from girls in their bullying.)

The announcer comes on.  “You wouldn’t say this in person.  So why say it online?  Delete Cyber-bullying.  Don’t send; don’t forward; don’t respond.”  — AND let ‘er rip, another message from the “Ad Council”, I never too sure if this really reaches it’s targeted audience.  (There are a slew of them designed for that rough age group — something about baaing sheep and remaining “above the influence”–, and I’m largely roaming the am dial and hearing them there.  AM dial.  AM dial.  Tween early teenagers.  Bit of a Disconnect.)

The problem with this public service announcement ad… Yes, yes a thirteen year old girl might say that all in person.  Or, kids can be so mean.  Thus we have… a disconnect, and until that disconnect is solved, a message that misses its intended mark.

“Freedom is better than lack of freedom.”

Or so says Russia’s next “President”, Dimitri Medvedev.

Positively Jeffersonian, it.

Just a thought:

With Darlene Hooley departing from the House, the number of Congressional members in the Oregon delegation who can do a play off of the Baha Boys’ 2000 (or 2001?) one hit wonder quasi-sports anthem “Who Let the Dogs Out” drops to one.

I wonder why Darlene Hooley or David Wu never tried that one for one of their campaigns.  Became too entrenched by that time, both of them?  Didn’t strike the right note for Wu’s one serious match in 2004 where he was dogged by a college-rape scandal?

(Yes, I know the reason is because it is insanely stupid, and this only makes me laugh in a cringe-inducing stupor, but…)

Sometimes I trip over something expressed in the Media, or Medium, where they display — unknowingly — a bias which tells us about what is off with Politics.  As with this idea —

a clear winner in McCain, but he continues to be embarassed by his main remaining challenger, Mike Huckabee, whose strong showings underscore McCain’s weakness with the religious conservative base of his party that doesn’t seem willing to accept the new reality.

Electoral politics thus becomes a sick psychotic game, personalities and individuals stripped, herded into one mass, and then herded again into another mass.  My question for this analysis: Would it have been better for the Republican Party and John McCain’s campaign had the Mike Huckabee voters not voted at all, which would have given McCain a higher percentage showing in those primaries?  I for one suspect that the Mike Huckabee voters were more than willing to accept the reality of the moment they were voting:  a ballot with the name of one candidate they preferred to vote for over another candidate.

The peril of democratic electoral politics is that voting in a primary for someone other than the designated and on-the-trajectory to nominee becomes a spoiler by mere inference — a sign that they are not behind that candidate one hundred percent.  And, indeed, the trouble is, it is a spoiler, because these things are decided off of margins of margins.