PrintJuly 18, 2008
Obama is Just Another Politician
Barack Obama is just another politician. That is the increasingly obvious fact of the presidential campaign. He runs to the center to win the election. He breaks his campaign pledge on public financing when it helps him. Obama plans an open air speech in Denver; how is the substance of that speech going to be different than an indoor speech? Everything is for image. Everything is for style. Everything is for political gain.
Has the senator proposed a single really new idea? Has he taken a single really courageous position? If we had learned that Obama walked out of Jeremiah Wright's church, that would have been something -- but, of course, he never raised the slightest peep during his long membership at Trinity. If we had learned that Obama took on the power Daley Machine in Chicago, that would have been something -- but, of course, Obama endorsed Mayor Daley, boss of the longest running political machine in America, for re-election. If we had learned that Obama rejected a single lunacy of the Left -- global warming, constitutional rights for captured terrorists, no drilling in ANWR, anything! -- that would have been something, but, of course, Obama has walked lockstep with every Leftist whim as long as he has been in the public eye. He panders to one group in the Democrat nomination and then panders to another group in the general election. He is just another politician.
Is he an honest politician? Well, he lied about what he had known about Trinity Church in Chicago. He was closely connected with convicted felon, Tony Rezko. Obama is well entrenched in Chicago politics which is owned by Boss Daley. He brings his daughters on a television program and, in less than one day, he "regrets" his decision. He tells San Francisco audiences about rural folks clinging to religion, but then backtracks at once. Can anyone name a presidential nominee who, this early in his career, was caught in more half-truths and outright lies? Can anyone name a politician who became more honest after winning the White House? He is just another politician.
What we do know about his pre-Washington career is not good. As a state legislator, he voted "present" often. Obama "explains" this by pointing out, no doubt correctly, that this was a legislative trick designed to allow the official voting "present" to try to work out a deal behind closed doors -- he assures us that this is an old tradition in Illinois politics. It probably is. But is that what we want in a leader? Is that what we want in our new Messiah? Or does this say something else about Obama? Does it say that he is just another politician?
What we know about the mind of Barack Obama today is not encouraging. There are gaping holes in his basic knowledge of history, government and economics. He said that Arabic was the language of Afghanistan. He said that the United States has 57 states. He said that Canada has a president, instead of a prime minister. He doesn't understand the Joint Chiefs of Staff do not convey his orders to the command structure. But this sort of profound ignorance never affects candidates who appeal to emotion and not to intellect, which is to say, most politicians. And Barack Obama is nothing more than another politician.
Or, perhaps, he is more like another door to door salesman. He charms the housewife, flatters the homeowner, promises what wonderful things his very common products will do, makes his sale, and moves to the next front door. Whether his vacuum cleaner works or his food processor breaks down in a month is not his concern. What matters are his sales figures -- his polls numbers, his votes in primaries or elections, and his electoral victories. He is just another politician.
The irony of all this is that in 2006 many Republicans left their party in disgust, and many other voters joined them, because too many Republicans had become just politicians. Americans in general felt the same way. Congress, the ranch for politicians, has now the lowest rating it has ever had in history -- and that takes some doing! -- yet Americans appeared poised to elect the most typical and ordinary member of that highly unpopular body, a friend of the most corrupt political machine in America, a man who is virtually all glitz, hype and image and has virtually no substance.
So a nation trying desparately to free itself from the manacle of pure, crass, common politics is about to embrace as its Messiah (or, perhaps, in Muslim parts of America, its Prophet), one of the most typical politicians to be nominated to high office in our lifetime. What is in the biography of Obama, besides state legislator? Lawyer! (And his wife is a lawyer too .) Well, that sure separates him from a lot of other cynical politicians in Washington. He might have been a member of the law firm of Clinton, Clinton, Nixon and Obama - a law firm of very political politicians.
Barack is a vast yawn, much more than most presidential candidates in recent memory. Bob Dole was a genuine war hero, as was George H. Bush and as was John Kennedy. John McCain is a man of great courage as a POW. Ronald Reagan made fame and fortune before entering politics. Hubert Humphrey took on Democrat racists in 1948. Eisenhower commanded armies. Even Carter attended the Naval Academy and learned at the knee of Hyman Rickover, a great patriot. Heck, even George McGovern flew a B-17 in the Second World War. Nearly every man who has run for president in the last forty years had something in his biography besides "politician." Everyone, that is, except for Obama. More than any candidate in modern history, Barack Obama is nothing more than another politician.
