This Could Get Messianic
He’s JFK, he’s Jesus. Obama as JFK first. Washington Post’s The Trail:
The analogy has been bandied about ever since (if not before) Obama and his vibrant, photogenic family showed up in a glossy magazine photo shoot early last year, frolicking together in a yard in a manner reminiscent of a certain other glamorous political family on the rise. The points in common were hard to miss — Obama, like John F. Kennedy, was young and of lanky build, was seeking to break a major cultural barrier in reaching the White House, and possessed a definite star quality and next-generation eloquence.
…
Now, the Obama campaign is seizing on the comparison itself to rebut one of the main arguments against his candidacy, his rivals’ charge that he lacks experience. At campaign stops yesterday in Chicago and Iowa, Obama was introduced by Ted Sorensen, the 79-year-old former Kennedy speechwriter, who went to great lengths to knock down the inexperience charge by invoking his former boss.
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“That young president who had been accused of being too inexperienced and too young successfully steered the country through that crisis,” Sorensen said. He compared Kennedy’s secret negotiations with the Soviets to quell the crisis with Obama’s stated willingness — criticized by Hillary Clinton — to meet with the country’s foes without preconditions in his first year in office. And he compared Kennedy’s refusal to take the advice of his military advisers to invade Cuba to Obama’s early opposition to the war in Iraq, the day’s campaign focus. “I have decided that judgment is the single most important quality in a president of the United States. Kennedy had judgment. Obama has judgment.”
Sounds great! A whole new JFK.
Uh oh. Fly in the ointment.
Obama “has that sort of ease, and he looks great on a podium,” said Linda Yanney, a historian. She quibbled with part of Sorensen’s account of the naval “quarantine” imposed on Cuba, but said that the comparison was “going to work for a while” for Obama. “It’s worth pointing out that age is not everything, that there’s also judgment, and comfort in a crowd, and ability to think for yourself,” she said.
She did not note one of the possible downsides to the comparison: that it was Kennedy who launched the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, leading to the very war whose foolhardiness Obama and other war critics now see being replicated in Iraq.
It’s OK. Lefty story line is that JFK only ever meant to dabble. He was for abandonment before abandonment was cool. This, however, could be a problem. Chicago Trib:
Former Vice President Dan Quayle, who compared himself to Kennedy in a 1988 vice presidential debate, never fully recovered from Democratic vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen’s withering rejoinder: “I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”
That was a pretty good line. Obama may want to get out quick with a “Heh, I’m no Jack Kennedy,” before someone says it for him. I don’t get a real “bear any burden” feel off his genocide plank. I’ve thought he has a little more Kerry than Kennedy. But maybe he can innoculate himself, and steal a little Kennedy glow. Just like these guys tried to:
Obama follows a long list of candidates who have aped Kennedy’s look, style, rhetoric, even gestures.
Gary Hart, another young senator campaigning on a theme of change in 1984 and 1988, hunched his shoulders and placed his hand in his suit jacket pocket in a way that many thought deliberately imitated Kennedy. Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign featured a photo of a young Clinton shaking hands with Kennedy at a Boy’s Nation event at the White House.
OK, I promised you Obama as Jesus. CNN caught the Sermon on the Pile:
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Republicans no longer have a firm grip on religion in political discourse, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama told Sunday worshippers.
The senator from Illinois delivered his campaign message to a multiracial evangelical congregation in traditionally conservative Greenville, South Carolina. “I think it’s important, particularly for those of us in the Democratic Party, to not cede values and faith to any one party,” Obama told reporters outside the Redemption World Outreach Center where he attended services.
“I think that what you’re seeing is a breaking down of the sharp divisions that existed maybe during the ’90s,” said Obama.
OK, blah blah blah.
He finished his brief remarks by saying, “We’re going to keep on praising together. I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.”
That guy is totally like Jesus. He’s going to create a Kingdom.
Either that or he’s a major blasphemer, going to Hell, etc. I’m not really a good authority on that kind of thing, except maybe the going to Hell part. I’m going to take his word that Kingdom isn’t code for Caliphate, which is an entire other thing. But there’s a lot to think about here.
There’s the separation of church and state thing.
And he’ll want to talk to Ahmadinejad. A’jad’s got his own messianic thing going on and has had to deal with mullahs cocking an eye at him over the issue.
Obama will also need to talk to his lefty base, because you know how they wig out whenever George talks about God. Unless snake-handling is about to get cool. It could happen. But with that crowd it may come down to which kind of religion Obama practices. There’s good religion … the kind you do with your fingers crossed to get votes … and bad religion, the kind you actually believe in.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:10 pm on Monday, October 8, 2007
6 Responses to “This Could Get Messianic”
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October 9th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Beat me to it, but yeah, I’m not getting too many “pay any price, bear any burden” vibes from Obama.
I am getting a lot of the standard “(people with jobs will have to) pay any tax, bear any responsibility” for unproductive elite special interests that we normally get from folks on his side of the aisle.
Man, GWB mentions his faith and the entire Left has a complete blubbering, panty-wadded, mascara running meltdown. And thats just the guys. But any Dem can go to a black church and hold a political rally and there’s not a peep.
October 9th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
The black enough guy, the faith guy, the new JFK clone leading the peeples to the mountaintop guy…
The reinvents self daily phenomenon
I’d be more impressed with Barack Obama’s “specialness” if he hadn’t worked that real estate deal with that shady character in Chicago.
October 9th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
But any Dem can go to a black church and hold a political rally and there’s not a peep.
Yes, and they get double points if they’re white and they talk to the black congegration in shuck-n-jive Topsy blackspeak.
October 9th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Churches that allow in ideologically friendly political speech need to lose their tax exempt status.
As should Media Matters.
If you believe that that crowd of crazed partisans doesn’t take political stands or make political endorsements, you do indeed live in lalaland.
Hillary ! herself has noted that she “helped start” Media Matters.
But sue MM to remove TE status and you’ve got a lawsuit on your hands arguing tiny niggling points for years on end.
It’s a travesty, all these so called politics free organizations that get away with working tiny little loopholes these days.
October 9th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Just one more way in which the left cannibalizes the dead.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:37 am
Barack “I will speak with the President of Canada” Obama is not ready for prime time.