evanmorris.com
From the daily archives: Saturday, February 9, 2008
… probably because this time there’s actually a there there.
He’s got Obamaphilia – Los Angeles Times
You are embarrassing yourselves. With your “Yes We Can” music video, your “Fired Up, Ready to Go” song, your endless chatter about how he’s the first one to inspire you, to make you really feel something — it’s as if you’re tacking photos of Barack Obama to your locker, secretly slipping him little notes that read, “Do you like me? Check yes or no.” Some of you even cry at his speeches. If I were Obama, and you voted for me, I would so never call you again.
Obamaphilia has gotten creepy. I couldn’t figure out if the two canvassers who came to my door Sunday had taken Ecstasy or were just fantasizing about an Obama presidency, but I feared they were going to hug me. Scarlett Johansson called me twice, asking me to vote for him. She’d never even called me once about anything else. Not even to see “The Island.”
What the Cult of Obama doesn’t realize is that he’s a politician. Not a brave one taking risky positions like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, but a mainstream one. He has not been firing up the Senate with stirring Cross-of-Gold-type speeches to end the war. He’s a politician so soft and safe, Oprah likes him. There’s talk about his charisma and good looks, but I know a nerd when I see one. The dude is Urkel with a better tailor.
All of this is clear to me, and yet I have fallen victim. I was at an Obama rally in Las Vegas last month, hanging at the rope line afterward in the cold night desert air, just to see him up close, to make sure he was real. I’d never heard a politician talk so bluntly, calling U.S. immigration policy “scapegoating” and “demagoguery.” I’d never had even a history teacher argue that our nation’s history is a series of brave people changing others’ minds when things were on the verge of collapse. I want the man to hope all over me.
[more at link]
It is increasingly looking like end times in American politics. Ann Coulter–Ann Coulter!–has vowed to vote for Hillary Clinton over John McCain. And now many yellow-dog Democrats, who once worshiped at the Clinton temple, sound as if they have just consumed the complete collection of Wall Street Journal editorial page writings on Billary.
These days, you will commonly hear Obama supporters, and even many undecided Democrats, describe the Clintons as mendacious, brutal, willing to bend (or break) any rule in pursuit of power. Not all of these criticisms are fair. A decade’s worth of resentment has come rushing out, as Democrats have suddenly felt free to despise the Clintons without worrying that their venting might aid Republicans. In certain quarters, it’s an old-fashioned pile-on. Looking at their plight with any detachment, it is even possible to develop a measure of sympathy for the Clintons. Or it was, anyway, right up until the point at which Hillary threatened to steal the nomination. And theft is the only way to describe the plan she has floated for certifying the Florida and Michigan delegations.
[more at link]
today’s moodcat
