OK, So Maybe He’s Not the Messiah

Politicians promise much, but often deliver little. They can make all sorts of grandiose claims while campaigning, but when elected, reality sets in, and their feet must come back down to earth. The day to day business of running a government is often light-years removed from the rhetoric and idealism which abounds prior to taking office.

A classic case in point is Barack the Messiah Obama. Perhaps no other American political leader in recent history had such a messianic aura surrounding him as this man. The hysteria and hoopla which surrounded his campaigning and election was a sight to behold.

Of course more sober voices knew that he was a mere man. Those not totally overcome by ideology and leftwing blinders could see that this mere mortal was not in fact an incarnation of the gods, and would make just as many mistakes, and be liable to as much corruption as the next politician.

And sure enough Obama had not let the realists down. Indeed, a brand new book chronicles the litany of blunders, corruption and unethical practices of the new Obama administration. The book is a mindful wakeup call to all glassy eyed idealists that in a real world, even would be messiahs can mess things up big time.

Those wanting to get the real scoop on the very human Obama and the very tarnished Obama administration need to grab Michelle Malkin’s just released expose, Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies (Regnery Publishing).

The evidence there should be enough to convince most people (except the leftist ideologues who never let the facts get in the way) that Obama’s feet are indeed made of clay after all. It is a damning indictment of corruption, deals and deception.

While you wait to get your copy of this important book, let me draw your attention to a recent column by Jonah Goldberg who has also written on this theme. He reminds us of the messianic status of Obama and how it seemed that deity had indeed appeared on planet earth:

“Obama isn’t supposed to be a typical politician. He was supposed to be The One. He was supposed to change Washington. Transcend race. Fix souls. Bake 12-minute brownies in seven minutes. Oprah promised Obama would help us ‘evolve to a higher plane.’ Deepak Chopra said Obama’s presidency represented ‘a quantum leap in American consciousness.’ Last month, Newsweek editor Evan Thomas proclaimed that Obama stood ‘above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God.’ Well, now he’s the god who bleeds, and once you’re the god who bleeds, it’s hard to get the divinity back in the tube, as it were.”

Goldberg brings us back down to earth by actually looking at his track record – what he in fact has done, and how he has fared, since becoming president. And it does not look all that divine after all. “He’s bleeding on every front. The latest Pew survey shows that only 38 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the economy. In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, fewer than half of respondents (48 percent) say Obama can be trusted to keep his word. Gallup has his approval rating at a new low of 52 percent, and Rasmussen has it below 50 percent for the first time.

“On almost every domestic issue, polls show that support for Obama and his agenda is plummeting, and that the Democratic Party’s advantages over Republicans on the economy, taxes, the deficit and health care have been erased or severely reduced.”

Goldberg continues, “Obama undoubtedly has major accomplishments ahead of him, but in a real way the Obama presidency is over. His messianic hopey-changiness has been exposed for what it was, and what it could only be: a rich cocktail of pie-eyed idealism, campaign sloganeering and profound arrogance. As president, he’s tried to apply the postpartisan gloss of his campaign rhetoric to the hyperpartisan dross of his agenda. And he’s fooling fewer people every day.

“Indeed, the one unifying theme of his presidency so far has been Obama’s relentless campaigning for a job he already has. That makes sense because that’s really all Obama knows how to do. He’s had no significant experience crafting major legislation. He has next to no experience governing at all.

“But he’s great at giving speeches, holding town halls and chitchatting with reporters. So that’s largely what he does as president. The problem is that campaigning is different than governing. The former requires convincing promises about what you will do; the latter requires convincing arguments for what you are doing. He’s good at the former, not so good at the latter. Or as columnist Michael Barone puts it, he’s good at aura, bad at argument.”

Quite so. Goldberg concludes this way: “Now, just as critics predicted, Obama needs on-the-job training to become a president, because he’s a god no more.” The problem is, most people who become American presidents did have quite a bit of training and experience, so that when in office they could actually govern.

Obama has mostly relied on image over reality, rhetoric over realism. Now the hard job of actually running a country has been thrust upon him. It is hoped that he learns real quick, before the nation suffers irreversible setbacks. Time will tell.


http://townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2009/07/31/the_god_who_bleeds

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10 Replies to “OK, So Maybe He’s Not the Messiah”

  1. Or as Monty Pyhton might put it in their next movie, The Life of Obama, “He’s not the Messiah, he’s just a naughty little President.”
    A President in need of a Saviour, not a P.R. machine, spin doctor, auto cue, worshipping press, etc.
    Shalom.
    Michael Evans

  2. Did not the good Dr James Dobson warn us what this man would do if elected President? And he backed it all with what he (Obama) had done on previous occasions. I printed it out, and will compare it to his actual performance at the end of his presidency. People are so gullible when they have no certain, unchanging principles to guide them.
    Ian Brearley

  3. Is any of this surprising? I could not watch any of Obama’s election victory or inauguration without feeling ill. His track record included voting multiple times to allow babies to die, staying in a racist church for 20 years, strong ties with a corrupt lobby organization and terrorists as friends. And he campaigned on the same old leftist shoddy economic principles that in the history of the world have never worked once.

    He kicked-started his presidency by pledging to send money to foreign countries specifically to kill their children, his stimulus has done stuff-all for the US economy except rack up 1.5 trillion dollars of debt that will take decades to pay off, he lied about funding embryonic stem-cell research, he celebrated a lifestyle that kills people for a month – and threw a party for good measure, and he recently uttered ignorant and racist remarks against an exemplary cop for doing his job well. Never mind the lack of transparency (therefore, hypocrisy) and imposed poverty in his proposed cap-and-trade and ‘ObamaCare’ health plans. All that barely scratches the surface of just 6 months of incompetence and evil. If this continues, Chuckles the Clown could run against this guy in 2012 and win just by tooting his funny horn, pointing his red nose and fluttering his eyelids. (He won’t need a teleprompter for that, either.) But will America still be as influential by then?

    Mark Rabich

  4. Hmm, Bill, interesting how much of what you say could be translated “mutatis mutandis” as the lawyers say, to Australia and Mr Rudd.
    John Angelico

  5. Yes, as Mark Rabich says, it’s the determination to extend the dominion of death that is so appalling about Obama. The healthcare idea (which I don’t claim to undertstand) can be defended as an effort to bring health care to those not able to pay, which is a morally defensible, even idealist aim (even if his plan is flawed, as some urge); the abortion aims are not at all defensible in any way. So, it might be better to have someone who’s very public, who can make speeches, and inspire, along with people who actually do the business of governing? I’d hate to be seen to be suggesting that our (British) system is as good as it could be, or the best there could be, but at least there is the possibility of a split between a figurehead (monarchy) who can make speeches and inspire, and politicians (prime minister, cabinet) who do the actual business. While the monarch/royals can be disappointing, history does throw up some charismatic ones.
    John Thomas

  6. Then of course there is the continuing issue of his citizenship:

    http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=105764

    Who knows? This is the internet, after all, and I’ve got some Nigerian millions of dollars to send you… But even this isn’t real, and Obama really is a US citizen, he’s still a fraud. When Bob the Builder exceeds a President of the United States in credibility of usage in the phrase “Yes We Can”, something isn’t right.

    Mark Rabich

  7. The problem is: FDR screwed up the economy, prolonging the depression, yet was elected 4 times because he bribed voters, demonized opponents and kept blaming his predecessor for years.
    Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane

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