PrintJuly 26, 2008
Obama the Prideful
When Hillary Clinton was beating the stuffing out of Obama beginning in March, she was paying off the notion that Obama is elitist, via the infamous bitter and clingy remark. Though Hillary eventually succumbed to Obama, elitism remains the candidate's fatal flaw.
Many people are noticing the high regard Obama has for himself as a defining hallmark of the candidate and his campaign. He has proven unable to stop the flow of telling signs.
His attempt to earn Joe Sixpack cred by bowling a line blew up in his face. The cool kids at the Punahou School, Columbia and Harvard probably didn't hang out at the bowling alley, I suppose.
Obama created his very own presidential seal.
Obama felt that 17,000 people watching his speech at the DNC convention was too small, and moved it to Invesco Field at Mile High to try and give another 60,000 or so the privilege of watching him.
Only after striking out in trying to grab the Brandenburg Gate to cast himself in the same light as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. did he settle for a speech at the a Prussian battle monument relocated by Hitler.
A campaign willing to showcase this large an ego without any evidence of modesty or shame is underway. Obama's last gasp effort at combating the notion that he considers himself more highly than he ought came in his victory speech in St. Paul upon securing enough delegates to claim the Democratic nomination:
"The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility."
Give Obama points for associating himself with the word "profound" while seeming to claim humility.
But even that humility lasted all of a few seconds, when he quickly shed it with this:
"I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when...the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
History and literature are rich in examples of pompous, overly proud, and arrogant figures. They make familiar objects of mirth and contempt. Chanticleer, the rooster of fable who takes credit for the rising of the sun, may be the ultimate archetype of the popmpous
Edmond Rostand's play Chantecler offers one of the more famous satirical expressions of pride:
"And when I feel that vast call to the Day arising within me, I so expand my soul to make it more sonorous, by making it more spacious, that the great cry may still be increased in greatness; before giving it, I withold it in my soul a moment so piously; then, when, to expel it, I contract my soul, I am so convinced of accomplishing a great act, I have such faith that my song will make night crumble like the walls of Jericho- ..."And sounding its victory beforehand, my song springs forth so clear, so proud, so peremptory, that the horizon, seized with a rosy trembling - obeys! ..."I sing! Vainly Night offers to compromise, offers a dubious twilight - I sing again! And suddenly - ..."I fall back, blinded by the red light bathing me, dazzled at having, I, the Cock, made the Sun to rise! ..."I dare assume that the East without me must rest in idleness! ..."That which opens flower, eye, soul, and window! Certainly! My voice dispenses light!"Barackadoodledoo!
Of course, were high self-regard enough to launch a successful bid to become a major party nominee for president, there would be hundreds of members of Congress lined up for the competition. A person with such regard needs willing messengers who not only believe they have found the one they have been waiting for, but who are in a position to carry that message in a convincing way to a large audience.
For Obama, he has captured the hearts of the media for this very purpose.
John Kass in the Chicago Tribune uses his own literary reference to help describe the relationship between Obama and the media:
[Obama is] the Mr. Tumnus of American politics, the gentle forest faun of Narnia, with throngs of reporters trembling to sit with him at tea and cakes, like the little girl in the C.S. Lewis story, as he plays the flute, chanting "We Are The Change We've Been Waiting For." And nobody laughs.
You don't laugh because you can't make fun of Obama. The ground would swallow you whole.
Brilliant.
And since we have started down the path of casting Obama as Chantecler, let us use Rostand's play again to cast the media as would-be love interest Pheasant-Hen.
In the play, Chantecler reveals his secret for making the sun rise to Pheasant-Hen, though she begins with some hesitation in believing that Chantecler possesses such power:
PHEASANT-HEN: And you believe that at the sound of your voice the whole world is suffused--? ...CHANTECLER: Ah, what I say sounds mad? I will make the dawn before your very eyes! And the wish to please you adding its ardour to the ordinary forces of my soul, I shall rise in singing, as I feel, to unusual heights, and the dawn will rise more fair to-day than ever it rose before!PHEASANT-HEN: More fair?
And yet, as Chantecler begins his song, performing brilliantly and beautifully as dawn begins, Pheasant-Hen cannot help but be swept up in the moment:
PHEASANT-HEN: How beautiful he is! ...He is so beautiful that what he says almost seems possible! ...What great breath lifts his breast-feathers? ...He is magnificent! ...I love you! ...The Sun! Look, the Sun! ...You are beautiful! ...And you sang beautifully! ...Indeed, indeed, I admire you beyond all bounds and measure! ...Yes, my glorious Beloved, yes, it is you who make the dawn appear! ...
The media doesn't laugh because you can't make fun of Obama. The sun would refuse to rise.
What else is left but to mock such a notion?
Barackadoodledoo!
Jeff Dobbs blogs at The Voice in My Head
