Left-wing disenchantment with Obama keeps growing, even as the candidate appears to have the election locked up. For the latest example, check out this terrific Acid Test post (which comes to us by way of our friend AnnaBelle).
The Republican chickens are going to be coming home to roost in a big way in the next four years. If the Democrats have the House and the Senate and the Presidency, they’ll be cleaning up the mess and getting the blame. People, too many of them anyway, pin the fault on the visible target. Based on his record, there is no reason to think Obama is a millennial statesman capable of leading us away from the mountain range of shit. He may turn out to be, but he hasn’t been so far. If he doesn’t succeed, the Republicans will gain power in 2012 for another eternity.
Obama, on the other hand, does one thing, says another, and enough people are so desperate to believe in him that they lie to themselves so that they can keep doing it. Look at the reaction on the left when he started promoting faith-based government. Suddenly the left, the left, was trying to find reasons why it wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The ability to make people believe night was day was Reagan’s talent. He succeeded in making selfishness respectable, and then even admirable. He could make people forget which way was up. It’s very hard to climb out of a morass if you can’t even see that.An Acid Test reader summed up the situation with this should-be-classic observation:
Obama, judging by the evidence so far, has the same talent. Based on what he’s done rather than what he’s said, he’s a Republican.
That’s the problem with charismatic leaders. They ask you to follow them through hell and high water, and that’s exactly where they take you.
7 comments:
While the left's disenchantment with Obama may be growing, I have yet to see any substantive implications. Disenchanted or not, they will vote for him (think Big Tent Democrat at Talk Left).
Moreover, they will likely vote for him in 2012. The problem seems to be that the Left has no political agenda. It is striking that the conservatives actually are capable of punishing their candidates ideological deviations by not showing up to vote (just ask George H.W. Bush, and have a look on what is being said about McCain and Palin on The Corner). But that's because the conservatives have both an ideology and an agenda. They may have their cults of personality, but the adulation is at least conditional on the ostensible cult leader behaving in accordance with his followers' wishes. Republican presidents dare not alienate the base.
On the left the cultism seems more unconditional. The equivalent of Obama's support for faith-based initiatives would, I suppose, be McCain supporting abortion rights. That would have instantly killed McCain's popularity among the Republicans. But Obama's swing to the right had no effect whatsoever on his popularity. So the base can be safely ignored because, in the absence of political conviction, there is nothing that can alienate it.
The other day someone named Jack Cashill wrote that Bill Ayers very likely wrote Obama's "Dreams From My Father." Cashill bases his inference on his own close reading of Ayers's memoir (written within a few years as Obama's).
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/who_wrote_dreams_from_my_fathe_1.html
I know if I read Obama's and Ayers's memoirs I'd be able to tell if the same person wrote both, but someone would have to pay me. A lot.
Abbey
I read the Cashill piece. Interesting stuff, though not conclusive, obviously. I felt that some of his arguments were strained, and some were not. Of course, similar analysis has been employed to "prove" that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare.
Mike J,
you have it backwards, IMO. The left will vote for Obama because the right is completely, irredeemably nutso and dangerous.
Reagan and his descendants have run this country into the ground. Obama is not exciting, sure, but fear of the unknown Obama cannot compete with fear of the known which McCain represents.
Okay, it took a while, but I finally got your analogy. The US populace are as familiar with Marlowe and Shakespeare as the Elizabethans were familiar with Obama and Ayers.
Abbey
speculation and wishful thinking are the intellectual equivalent of masturbation. The process is fun, but it doesn't produce anything constructive at the end. What AnnaBelle is doing is not far from that.
"Obama, judging by the evidence so far, has the same talent. Based on what he’s done rather than what he’s said, he’s a Republican"
What evidences are you guys talking about ? The same kind of "evidences" used to determine Hillary killed Vince Foster ? From what I read, it's based on her "opinions". Facts are not evaluated the same way by Obama haters who will cherry pick, dismiss and distort everything in order to win their point. Nobody claims Obama is a revolutionary leftist, at best, he's a centrist, but it's still better than warmongering neocon with a dominionist religious freak who can't answer a question !
And what are the PUMAs who are going to vote Republican ? are they better Democrats than those who support Obama ?
And I'm still trying to understand how can Obama lead in the polls without the PUMA vote...
You quoted my comment! Color me extremely flattered!
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