Daniel Henniger, writing in the Wall Street Journal, asks, “can Barack Obama talk his way onto Mount Rushmore?”
He might. In fact, if just half of what Mr. Obama has said that he, we or the world should do comes to pass, he’s going straight to that mountain. More than any U.S. president, The Speech is the primary vehicle of Barack Obama’s politics. Web sites have been erected as shrines to his speeches. Obamaspeech.com offers the text of 100 Obama speeches back to 2002. The electronic library stops at January 2009, when the White House site takes over. Currently it’s up to 36 pages listing the titles alone of the president’s remarks and speeches. …
The first thing to be said about this body of work is that it is astonishingly good. Even by the something-for-everyone standards of political speech, much of Mr. Obama’s somethings are strong and worth hearing.
Here’s the problem: Mr. Obama is not the nation’s Speaker in Chief. He’s not a senator, and he’s no longer a candidate. He’s the president. A president’s major speeches are different than those of anyone else. That high office imposes demands beyond the power of a podium. Inspiration matters, but the office also requires acts of leadership. A U.S. president’s words must be connected to something beyond sentiment and eloquence. Too much of the time, Barack Obama’s big speeches don’t seem to be connected to anything other than his own interesting thoughts on some subject.
So is Barack Obama all talk and no walk? A number of management concepts such as Situational Leadership and Transformational Leadership theory describe the techniques that this kind of approach aims for. In other words, there is method to this apparent verbosity.
Transformational Leadership starts with the development of a vision, a view of the future that will excite and convert potential followers. This vision may be developed by the leader, by the senior team or may emerge from a broad series of discussions. The important factor is the leader buys into it, hook, line and sinker. … The next step, which in fact never stops, is to constantly sell the vision. This takes energy and commitment, as few people will immediately buy into a radical vision, and some will join the show much more slowly than others. The Transformational Leader thus takes every opportunity and will use whatever works to convince others to climb on board the bandwagon. In order to create followers, the Transformational Leader has to be very careful in creating trust, and their personal integrity is a critical part of the package that they are selling. In effect, they are selling themselves as well as the vision.
In parallel with the selling activity is seeking the way forward. Some Transformational Leaders know the way, and simply want others to follow them. Others do not have a ready strategy, but will happily lead the exploration of possible routes to the promised land.
The route forwards may not be obvious and may not be plotted in details, but with a clear vision, the direction will always be known. Thus finding the way forward can be an ongoing process of course correction, and the Transformational Leader will accept that there will be failures and blind canyons along the way. As long as they feel progress is being made, they will be happy. The final stage is to remain up-front and central during the action. Transformational Leaders are always visible and will stand up to be counted rather than hide behind their troops. They show by their attitudes and actions how everyone else should behave. They also make continued efforts to motivate and rally their followers, constantly doing the rounds, listening, soothing and enthusing.
But maybe this approach is best suited to seizing power, in transferring influence and ideas from one set of holders to another set of holders. This leadership style may be less useful for actually doing things. In fact the output of a transformational leader is simply the change vehicle. What happens next is often not his department. The article quoted above says, “in some respects, then, the followers are the product of the transformation.” The significance of the words “we are the people we’ve been waiting for” may not have been fully grasped by those unfamiliar with the transformative concept. But what happens when the situation demands a leader must actually do something, such as balance a budget, win a war, or reform a bureaucracy? What happens when the workings of reality, rather than the charismatic, is driving the situation? Theodore Roosevelt argued that in those situations effective action was transformational and inspirational in itself. That action, not words, had a quality all its own.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world.
There may be something to the idea of being good at action. Teddy Roosevelt actually made it to Mount Rushmore.
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54 Comments
1. James:Hi Richard,
The big difference between Obama and a transformational manager is that the manager is typically up front about what is being accomplished and why. People around him are disappointed sometimes in what that is, but its not a mystery.
With Obama and the public, the transformation is hidden. People don’t know what they are involved in, and won’t know what they are signing up for. until years pass and they see the affects of the law.
The Cap and Tax proposal wouldn’t actually start to take affect until after the 2010 elections. The health care bill won’t pull everyone out of their current insurance until near the 2012 elections. In the mean time, as much is hidden as possible.
Republicans do this too of course. Health savings accounts and DC student vouchers were never publicized at their passing – or even voting.
Management is a matter of gaining the trust of the owners of a company through its board, and then allocating resources to achieve a certain goal.
In theory, the consent of the governed means the same thing for the people who live under the government they elect. Obama is successful only to the extent he fools people, rather than gaining their informed consent.
James
Jul 16, 2009 - 7:59 pm 2. Dave the Kapampangan:Nanny Obananarama says: “Good transformational salesmanship is all about sales. You sell them the anchor as a life jacket; and the people buy it, because that’s what they want desperately to believe. If something good happens, stand tall. If something bad happens, make a straw man and you’ll have someone convenient to blame. That’s how you get ahead!”
Jul 16, 2009 - 8:32 pm 3. rumcrook:so in other words…
hes a cross between a religious cult leader, and a political cult leader with an eye on the same thing cult leaders of all stripes always have an eye on,
unquestioning obedience and power
Jul 16, 2009 - 8:42 pm 4. Bohica:A reasonable explanation of Obama’s style but with one caveat – I find it hard to seperate his talk from Congress’ walk. I’m still wondering how ‘in sync’ the two are…or are not i.e. is the tail wagging the dog and, if so, who’s the tail and who’s the dog.
Jul 16, 2009 - 8:49 pm 5. Wadeusaf:Some folks see what Obama is doing as reaching for greatness. If you can see what Obama is doing, opposed to what he is saying, you will either be reviled or perhaps enchanted. I am not enchanted. I do not see the wrecking of global economics as a great thing, or the destruction of individual liberty in favor of institutionalized leaps from fad to fad. I do not see the construction of a society based on appropriation of private property and wealth and the abrogation of local rule as a desirable thing.
I don’t believe in Communism, by what ever name for the means as we are witness to today are any that work. Call it social justice, call it economic justice, call it what you will. It is not the same as an equal opportunity it is not the same as the opportunity to pursue happiness. It is defined for you Mac Happy.
No Thank you.
Jul 16, 2009 - 8:51 pm 6. Elijah:“The first thing to be said about this body of work is that it is astonishingly good.”
As an academic, what has he published? What’s the body of work?
Jul 16, 2009 - 8:55 pm 7. buddy larsen:From an oratory perspective, some are inspired. Politicians say what they must.
However, as a politician, Chicago and Illinois (his time in the senate) are his body of work.
Oratory skill won’t mean squat if the economy keeps sinking and all his policies are strangling the economy, with a mountain of debt accumulating.
Oratory skill without production of tangible metrics is worthless.
Excellent, excellent, James!
Jul 16, 2009 - 8:56 pm 8. Walt:For those who believe Barack Obama is a Muslim, the question is will Mohamed come to the mountain or will the mountain come to Mohamed.
Mount Rushmore beckons
Jul 16, 2009 - 9:08 pm 9. Lifeofthemind:But who reckons
Obama will be there
Not I said the hen
Not I said the wren
Nor I said the gentle hare
Mount Rushmore’s face
Will take its place
With monuments of old
Each likeness one
Of battles won
Of action brave and bold
Since time began
What sort of man
Used words instead of deeds
To gain the flame
Of fleeting fame
And think that he succeeds
We know of one
A Kenyan son
A master of disguise
But joining those
Whom history chose?
He’s not one of those guys
In order to create followers, the Transformational Leader has to be very careful in creating trust, and their personal integrity is a critical part of the package that they are selling. In effect, they are selling themselves as well as the vision.
Rezco. The one thing that can destroy a politician are the twin convictions among his audience that he is a Hypocrite and that he is playing them for Suckers. For some reason children are usually better then adults at detecting the fraud and adults are better then children at detecting a megalomaniac. Obama is surrounded by cynical frauds and may be one himself. The public could handle that he is a successful fraud if the machine wasn’t so cynical in manipulating and abusing people. The media have worked to infantilize the audience so they could be easily manipulated by mass imagery. The risk is that that may make them more likely to reject a false messiah who is revealed to be a fraud.
Jul 16, 2009 - 9:43 pm 10. Lifeofthemind:Walt,
Jul 16, 2009 - 9:44 pm 11. buddy larsen:Thank you for the correction regarding Lucky Strikes a few threads back.
We could always do with more
monuments like Mount Rushmore;
for then the visage of Obama
could grace some other panorama,
perhaps one named Mount Mushroar.
Jul 16, 2009 - 9:47 pm 12. Robohobo:Elijah @ 6:
I do believe that The 0bamanation’s body of work is the destruction of the USA. He is a Transnational Progressive. Their goal is a One_World government. The rest of the nations outside of the US will fall into place once the US is functionally gone. Then their real work can begin.
For a time I wondered what the end game was for EVERYTHING The 0bamanation does, then today somehow it fell into place. The end goal is the actual neutering of the US as a force in the world. Then the rest becomes easy. Spheres of influence can be divided up for the strong-men to rule those spheres.
IOW, his words do not matter, his actions do. And so far his actions have been designed to bring about the fall of the last bastion of Western Civilization – the US.
Jul 16, 2009 - 9:50 pm 13. Lifeofthemind:buddy larsen,
Jul 16, 2009 - 10:00 pm 14. Leo Linbeck III:Let’s start a movement to change the name from Mount Rushmore to Mount Limbaugh. Just the entertainment value of watching the Obamanots foam at the mouth will be worth a little trouble. Perhaps the Alinskyites will try to have it blown up like the Taliban did to Binyamin Buddhas
I think I mentioned this a while back, but the great sociologist Max Weber wrote a lot about charisma and its role in organizational transformation. He had a cycle that described the stages of organizational development:
At each step, there is a risk that the cycle ends because of some flaw. For instance, the Charismatic Leader can be denied Authority; or Authority can fail to create Change. Real transformation only occurs when the cycle gets as far as Routinization; in fact, Weber’s writing in this area is referred to as the routinization of charisma.
My read of the President is that he is a Charismatic Leader of the type described by Weber. But there are at least two steps that I believe could end his cycle of leadership:
Authority leads to Change. For all his promotion of Change, President Obama has not been able to change much. Yet. For instance, if there was an issue on which he made it clear during his campaign that he would change, it was Gitmo. But, despite his campaign promises and presidential pronouncements, Gitmo remains open and will likely stay open for some time: perhaps forever. Winning an election is easy compared to legislative change. Arguably, the only legislative “success” he has so far is the “stimulus,” and that was as much a continuation and expansion of Bush policies. If he fails on Cap and Trade or healthcare, he will not only fail to get Change, but he is liable to lose his Charismatic Authority.
Change leads to Success. Here’s where he’s really vulnerable. Even if he gets his Change, it is almost certain to fail. Let’s just take healthcare, and say his program passes. We’re going to see the most awful disruptions in people’s lives. Doctors will opt out of the public system, and lots of folks will be pissed that they have to switch physicians. Hospitals will start going bankrupt as the public insurance “option” becomes the only game in town, and they no longer get the subsidy from private insurance that keeps the current system financially solvent. And I especially like the way in which 10 million uninsured citizens will still be uninsured in 10 years, but this is being spun as Obamacare “covering 97% of all Americans.” Meanwhile, the economic impact of huge tax increases combined with companies abandoning employer-provided insurance – forcing most people into a national healthcare insurance program – will throw more people out of work and be a serious drag on economic growth.
So, if he gets his Change, it will wreak havoc, and we will all suffer. The Weberian cycle will end, and he will go down in history, not as a Transformational Leader, but a Transgressional Loser. It will take years, perhaps decades, to undo the damage, but it will be undone because it is inconsistent both with America’s historic principles, and also with reason that swing voters broke his way (he came off as a calm, measured moderate as McCain wigged out and suspended his campaign). As independents figure out what he’s done, his approval numbers will slip into Bush43 2009 territory.
By the time he’s done, he’ll be lucky if his face ends up on a molehill.
L3
Jul 16, 2009 - 10:01 pm 15. Walt:Buddy — Mount Mushroar! I LIKE IT!
Jul 16, 2009 - 10:02 pm 16. Leo Linbeck III:The Great Speaker in Chief, our Barack
Has high hopes for his piece of the rock
But we needn’t have fears:
There’s no room for his ears
Or for one who can talk but not walk.
— —
L3
Jul 16, 2009 - 10:19 pm 17. buddy larsen:Walt, LotM, with O aboard, gotta consider also, Mount Hush Moor.
old teddy kennedy chisled in, Mount Lush Begorrah
Jul 16, 2009 - 10:44 pm 18. EvilDave:Personally I hope we put Obama on the $100 bill (post-hyperinflation) with a speech bubble that says “I just want to pass the wealth around”.
Jul 16, 2009 - 11:25 pm 19. sgi:President Pontificator
The Great Orator
Inspires the left
And leaves the rest bereft
Of hope for the nation
His speeches are dull
He lectures and bulls
He thinks if he talks
No one will balk
At the end of the nation
President Pontificator
Jul 16, 2009 - 11:34 pm 20. wildernesscalling:The Great Orator
Will not succeed
The people will heed
The Great American Nation
0bama will have wrecked the train so badly only a completely new one will be able to move forward, anything else will simply continue to fail or exist no more and be but history. Impeach 0bama, Polesi and Reid! Impeach Polesi and Reid! Impeach Polesi and Reid! It is time to refresh the tree of liberty!
Jul 17, 2009 - 12:46 am 21. Fen:Under these standards, Martin Sheen should be on Rushmore before Obama.
Jul 17, 2009 - 2:17 am 22. buddy larsen:put hillary up and call it Mount Fearfully
Jul 17, 2009 - 4:01 am 23. peterike:“This body of work… is astonishingly good”??? Henniger needs to start reading some better literature if he considers Obama’s speeches to be “astonishingly good,” even by the debased standards of modern day rhetoric.
What’s good about them? Piles of vacuous sermonizing and fake, self-referrential uplift, strawman stories and sob stories, peppered with falsehoods and inventions and fantasies. At times, they even descend into inadvertent parody of Leftist cant. There’s this famous moment.
The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then 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 we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.
Aside from the cliches (”the road will be long,” gosh), the astonishing cynicism in that passage and the willingness to spout hilarious lies (”profound humility” indeed!), it’s got so much bunkum in it that it would take hours to unravel all the false assumptions that rest behind the assertions. It’s juvenile clown talk.
But who knows, Obama may well get his face on Rushmore. But I suspect the first order of business before carving the new face will be Obama’s order to destroy the faces up there now. Perhaps we can change them into FDR, Johnson, Carter and Obama. The Quadruplets of Destruction.
Jul 17, 2009 - 5:20 am 24. Mark:Astonishingly good? No. I agree with Peterike. But the words are effective to a large degree.
What is the purpose, the end, of all the Obama words?
Here is a report from the ‘Examiner’ on the “WaPo” report on Obama at the NAACP: “Depending on the listener, President Barack Obama either gave a fiery lamentation about the persistence of racism in modern America or an exhortation to his fellow African Americans to embrace personal responsibility at the 100th NAACP national meeting. The president did a little of both in a speech that ended up being about him and his policies. Writers Krissah Thompson and Cheryl Thompson reveal that the president gave substantially the same speech to the NAACP that he has in foreign capitals and here at home – everyone shares the blame for the troubled past, Obama’s election is evidence of America’s potential for redemption, which can be fully achieved by enacting his policies.”
Redemption?
Indeed there has been and is an ongoing pseudo-religious aura around Obama. The press proclaims him to be ‘a god.’ Politically Obama seeks change towards ‘equality’ and ‘fairness.’ He seeks to diminish the differences, often unjust, that differentiate groups, nations, religions, genders. But what is the likely result of this (besides financial bankruptcy, of course)?
Over at ‘First Things,’ the lead essay is ‘War and Apocalypse’ by Rene Girard. (Yes, shilling for him again.) The essay is from his recent book, ‘Achever Clausewitz,’ forthcoming as ‘Battling to the End: Politics, War, and Apocalypse’ from Michigan State University Press. While the essay is available to subscribers only, there is an online interview available. A small excerpt:
“RG: A mimetic crisis is when people become undifferentiated. There are no more social classes, there are no more social differences, and so forth. What I call a mimetic crisis is a situation of conflict so intense that on both sides people act the same way and talk the same way even though, or because, they are more and more hostile to each other. I believe that in intense conflict, far from becoming sharper, differences melt away.
“When differences are suppressed, conflicts become rationally insoluble. If and when they are solved, they are solved by something that has nothing to do with rational argument: by a process that the people concerned do not understand and even do not perceive. They are solved by what we call a scapegoat process.”
Since Hiroshima we have always been on the brink of apocalypse. The task must always be to lesson that threat and to create a more just world. I suspect the solutions that Obama proposes, and would lead us towards with his words, would lead us towards danger and not away from it, since he tends to think in terms of problems that can be rationally solved.
Clausewitz would not agree, I suspect. But I haven’t read the book yet.
Jul 17, 2009 - 6:56 am 25. Fred Beloit:I’m with peterike on Obama’s (and his sophomoric speech writer’s) oratory. For once I have no idea what excellence Henninger is talking about. I really don’t. Obama’s “works” are the perfect subject for the talented fisker.
Jul 17, 2009 - 7:02 am 26. Paul Milenkovic:Mt Rushmore? Do not the Lakota consider the mountain sculpture to be a desecration of their sacred ancestral lands? Does this not peg the irony meter to suggest Mr. Obama for eventual including his image on Mt Rushmore?
Jul 17, 2009 - 7:41 am 27. Derek:Obama will be remembered by a simple and clear data point:
The only legislation he got passed are the ones that congressmen didn’t read.
Second point. It is very easy to do an emotional sell. The emotional sell has a time limit, very short and is extremely sensitive to any negative. Obama is all emotional sell, and has no understanding or grasp of the details that can answer any negative or doubt.
Derek
Jul 17, 2009 - 8:38 am 28. RWE:I could do no better to amplify Wretchard’s thoughts than to quote VDH:
“We are being run now by film critics, not directors, book reviewers not writers, music columnists, not musicians. And it is far easier to fault than to birth, nuance rather than build. The irony is that the muscular classes carry the regulating and talking classes on their backs.”
We have them surrounded. And we have them right where they want us.
Jul 17, 2009 - 8:39 am 29. MarkJ:Given current trends, I’d say His Majesty is more in line for a “damnatio memoriae” than a spot on Mount Rushmore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae
Jul 17, 2009 - 9:33 am 30. Mark:“Words and the Man.” That’s a great title!
Cf. “Of arms and the man I sing,” the opening lines of the Aeneid, and the source of the title of Shaw’s play.
Just wanted to give Wrichard credit for his usual fun title, which also provides the opening line for the eventual Obama epic: “Of words and the man I sing . . . .”
Jul 17, 2009 - 9:59 am 31. LFMayor:I’m with Peterike and Mark… this guy is no toastmaster. He stumbles, emits gutteral sounds, can you imagine him in a venue such as the Lincoln-Douglas debates? Those guys each took all DAY, out in the open, projecting to be heard to crowds of 10k without the benefit of amplification. That’s masterful communication.
Rumcrook has it dead on as well. It’s a cult. They can’t be reasoned with, deprogrammed or smelted to make something useful. The sooner we get to the Kool-aid and blue sneakers scene the better.
Jul 17, 2009 - 10:21 am 32. LFMayor:re: 28, RWE. Chesty Puller had a different take on a situation that was tactically similar
Jul 17, 2009 - 10:25 am 33. Roderick Reilly:“astonishingly good.”
I have to marvel at the low standards of this post-modern age. Obama isn’t even eloquent in the true sense of the word by any serious standards. We have defined not just deviancy, but excellence down.
Jul 17, 2009 - 10:30 am 34. Robohobo:Derek @ 27:
Precisely. Cloward-Piven dictates the “solution” to the crisis must be put in place to:
From CLOWARD-PIVEN STRATEGY @ Discover the Networks
Right now the US is in the first stage, destruction and overload. What the end game is really does come from “Atlas Shrugged” or “1984″. Totalitarian rule of the entire world. I know it sounds a bit ‘tin-foil-hat-brigade’ but I cannot come up with another end state. Maybe that says more about me these days, but I hope not.
Jul 17, 2009 - 11:20 am 35. vinny vidivici:Thanks, Peterike, for a most excellent description of ‘Obamoratory’. Thanks to others who piled on.
We think we can elect a celebrity, then watch four or eight seasons of him/her on television acting like a president and go on with our lives, all without consequences. The unknown world outside our cocoon will not intrude. Hothouse-flowers with no practical experience at anything like Ezra Klein will explain it all to us. Leadership and probity have been replaced by entertainment and whimsy. We are no longer a serious people.
I’ve never understood the swooning by otherwise worldly people over the pablum which passes for substance in an Obama speech. Much of it is sanctimonious moralizing, jousting with straw men or needless restatements of the obvious.
Why is this? Roderick is right about low standards.
Jul 17, 2009 - 11:20 am 36. Evanston1:“So what ya gonna do when the novelty has gone?
Yeah, what ya gonna do when the novelty has gone?
You slap our backs,
Jul 17, 2009 - 12:16 pm 37. Marty:And pretend you knew about,
All the things we were gonna do.
What ya gonna do, what ya gonna do
When its over?”
- Joy Division, ‘Novelty’
THESE SPEECHES AND SUMMITS AND CONFERENCES AND TALK WILL GET OLD, EVEN FOR OBAMA’S BIGGEST FANS. Then what ya gonna do, When it’s over?
During the 2008 campaign someone emailed me about what an intellectual was Obama compared to McCain. I answered that he seemed reasonably bright but what had he ever done to advance any serious field of knowledge or other endeavor to deserve being called “an intellectual.”
Silence.
Jul 17, 2009 - 1:00 pm 38. AWH:peterike @ 23. I couldn’t agree more. As campaign speeches they are merely platitudes upon platitides. As presidential speeches his style becomes dangerous because of his inability to specifically articulate positions and details.
The ambiguity (and really the intellectual sloppiness) he exhibited during his campaign speeches is a dangerous trait for foreign policy.
Jul 17, 2009 - 1:23 pm 39. ridgerunner:Cloward-Piven: “Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown — providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change.”
If you believe this is a likelihood, or even a possibility, form a squad of yeomen ready to be put at the disposal of the agents of local order, probably your sheriff’s department. Join the reserve police. Ideas have consequences. Be ready for them.
Jul 17, 2009 - 1:51 pm 40. vinny vidivici:But once the ‘collapse’ has occurred, as with Clausewitz’s fog of war following the first shot fired, Cloward-Piven’s battle plan would encounter ‘friction’. What would likely emerge wouldn’t be anything they would recognize as the radical progressive state they envision.
Jul 17, 2009 - 2:01 pm 41. Stan:Marty @ 37 – yes, I get the same blank stares
VDH’s observation @28 is spot on –
“Astonishingly good…” ??? very low std’s
O is more Forrest Gump than Charismatic leader – other than his packaged Pres campaign which was more like an American Idol Season (or two) than a political contest – because that’s how the MSM chose to cover it! – what has his vaunted charisma and intellect achieved? He was undistinguished as Illinois Leg. , got lucky – real lucky – in his Senate run because of unsealed divorce docs and was really undistinguished as a Senator. All his initiatives as Pres. haven’t done anything – still too early. The econ. has slowed the slide because the Fed flooded the market with huge money supply expansion – not the Stimulus package.
How many times do we have to ask “What has he DONE?” Nothing… he is pure celebrity, he is the equivalent of Paris Hilton in politics… the media love him and promote him, not any substance of what he has done…
It makes me shake my head…
Jul 17, 2009 - 6:10 pm 42. Jim Nicholas:During the primaries, I began the practice of listening to Obama’s major speeches and then reading them. I found myself reacting positively to hearing him and then, on reading the text, being puzzled about what he was really saying.
Since I assumed far more persons heard him than read the text, I was troubled that they too may have thought there was more merit in what he was saying than the text justified.
Maybe there is method in his non-stop public appearances even how that he is in office: if he keeps talking, the hearers will never get around really to understand what he is saying.
Jim
Jul 17, 2009 - 6:51 pm 43. peterike:The Pied Piper of Kenya
Every bit, other than the slightly modified title and a good deal of deletion, directly from the pen of Robert Browning.
“Come in!” — the Mayor cried, looking bigger
And in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red,
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin
No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,
But lips where smile went out and in;
There was no guessing his kith and kin:
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire….
He advanced to the council-table:
And, “Please your honours,” said he, “I’m able,
“By means of a secret charm, to draw
“All creatures living beneath the sun,
“That creep or swim or fly or run,
“After me so as you never saw!
“And I chiefly use my charm
“On creatures that do people harm,
“The mole and toad and Newt and viper;
“And people call me the Pied Piper…”
The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood
As if they were changed into blocks of wood,
Unable to move a step, or cry
To the children merrily skipping by,
– Could only follow with the eye
That joyous crowd at the Piper’s back.
But how the Mayor was on the rack,
And the wretched Council’s bosoms beat,
As the Piper turned from the High Street
To where the Weser rolled its waters
Right in the way of their sons and daughters!
However he turned from South to West,
And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,
And after him the children pressed;
Great was the joy in every breast.
“He never can cross that mighty top!
“He’s forced to let the piping drop,
“And we shall see our children stop!”
When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,
As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;
And the Piper advanced and the children followed,
And when all were in to the very last,
The door in the mountain-side shut fast.
Did I say, all? No! One was lame,
Jul 17, 2009 - 7:38 pm 44. peterike:And could not dance the whole of the way;
And in after years, if you would blame
His sadness, he was used to say, —
“It’s dull in our town since my playmates left!
“I can’t forget that I’m bereft
“Of all the pleasant sights they see,
“Which the Piper also promised me.
“For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
“Joining the town and just at hand,
“Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
“And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
“And everything was strange and new;
“The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
“And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
“And honey-bees had lost their stings,
“And horses were born with eagles’ wings;
“And just as I became assured
“My lame foot would be speedily cured,
“The music stopped and I stood still,
“And found myself outside the hill,
“Left alone against my will,
“To go now limping as before,
“And never hear of that country more!”
And speaking of Pied Pipers, Walter Cronkite finally croaked it at 92. What keeps these miserable bastards alive so long?
Good riddance, jackass.
Jul 17, 2009 - 7:42 pm 45. Bruce Johnson:One thing that I’ve noticed about Obama’s speeches is that they’re exactly like the speeches given by actor Presidents in movies and TV shows. It’s the same rambling, meaningless platitudes that Hollywood writers use to make an emotional soundbite. It’s all about feel good emotions.
I think that is one of the biggest reasons that Obama won the election last year. A significant portion of Americans model their image of what a President should be like from TV shows like West Wing. To them, a speech from Obama convinces them that he knows what he’s doing. They don’t understand or care about the details of what he’s saying. But he sure looks like that hero who saved the world.
I remember, during the closing days of the election, talking to a good friend who is a moderate liberal. We were talking about Obama, and why he so strongly supported him. I was trying to point out all of the errors and problems with the policies that Obama was promoting, but it all meant nothing to my friend. He just kept saying that he could tell from watching Obama’s speeches that Obama “gets it” and that “he cares about us”. And that was it. His decision was that shallow. This is from a smart, well educated guy. It was a sobering moment to realize how thoroughly brainwashed so many Americans are by decades of liberal-leaning television and movies.
I’m beginning to think that the big political divide in America isn’t so much liberal vs conservative, as it is those who believe television vs those who don’t. We’re never going to fix America as long as the Associated Press and Hollywood continue to run things.
Jul 17, 2009 - 9:20 pm 46. DCH:With the Death of the Walter and the so called King of pop and with the Sheeple bleating the wonders of the One take a read from Blackfives blog about “Shifty Powers”. I copied and pasted it to Email and sent to Family and Friends and All the Vets I know. It shoud give us some perspective on who the Great ones really were. In short he was one of the survivors of “Easy Company” from the Band of Brothers story. God bless shifty and all like him.
Jul 17, 2009 - 10:46 pm 47. gdude:‘This is from a smart, well educated guy.’ -Bruce
Aye, there’s the rub, education. It’s not the television and movies, it’s the education. 100 years of pragmatic public education coming home to roost. What could be more ironic than the institutional illiberality of the liberals schooled in the liberal arts at the bastions of the ‘establishment’ the liberals worked so hard to overthrow? Except maybe that they now ARE the establishment and yet refuse to take responsibility for what they’ve wrought. Makes you sick, Jane.
Jul 17, 2009 - 10:52 pm 48. Bruce Johnson:Well, I’m smart and well educated too. I went to college and have a degree similar to his. But I didn’t end up a socialist/liberal. If you look into the demographics, I doubt you’ll find that liberals have a higher level of education overall than conservatives. I completely agree that there are many things wrong with our liberally-biased education system that should be fixed, but I also think that television and movies have had more of an effect on making people “think liberal” than their education. Think of the hours and years that so many American adults spend in front of the TV. It’s far more total time than they ever spent in school.
TV shows are non-stop drill routines of established liberal-dictated stereotypes. Straight white males are always either helpless goofballs, or evil greedy corporate devils. Black men are always abused by white men, and end up being righteous heroes. Women always care more and are usually right about everything in the end. It goes on and on, and this stereotyping has gotten especially bad in the last 25 years. After a while, it sinks into your brain and clouds your judgment. You use TV characters and storylines as your reference when evaluating people and events.
I grew up in a household where TV was openly ridiculed. My parents were cynical towards TV shows and TV news, and taught us to assume that it’s all fiction. That’s probably what saved me!
Jul 18, 2009 - 4:29 am 49. Peter Boston:Barack Obama is already an historical figure. We just don’t know what that history looks like yet.
I think the Enlightenment reached its apogee in 1776 and died somewhere in France in 1914. I don’t know where we are now but it seems pretty clear to me at least that the notion of promoting individual liberty as the best pathway to human happiness is as passe as green Luck Strikes. Something you talk about but may never see again in your lifetime.
In his May 21 national security speech Obama used “I, me, my, mine” an astounding 147 times. Maybe Paris Hilton would have been more self-referential but I doubt it. Abraham Lincoln had real character. He often referred to himself as “Mrs. Lincoln’s son.”
Obama on Mt. Rushmore is preposterous, but then again Teddy Roosevelt didn’t sound much different by 1912.
Jul 18, 2009 - 5:13 am 50. Mel Williams:The Obama quote in post 23 is scary in its audacity. Obama thinks he is the turning point.
Obama is an idealist. His vision of a fair and just society appeals to all, but because of who he is, it has galvanized a part of society like none before him.
Anyone who has any inkling of modern history should be able to see that Obama’s proposed solutions to bring about his utopia are so wrong. We as a society really have no excuse for going down these previously failed paths.
I feel this country is in for a real test of its two century old convictions.
Jul 18, 2009 - 1:13 pm 51. Boghie:“There may be something to the idea of being good at action. Teddy Roosevelt actually made it to Mount Rushmore.”
As did
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
All were decisive, all wer men of action.
Obama, not so much…
Jul 18, 2009 - 5:19 pm 52. jms:I’m OK with Obama being placed on Mount Rushmore, so long as his visage is accompanied by a gigantic stone teleprompter hewn from the mountain.
Jul 18, 2009 - 7:38 pm 53. Mad Fiddler:A bit of research shows that the sculptor commissioned to design and execute the carving of Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum, was given wide latitude to choose the faces he would carve. Teddy Roosevelt’s was the only one of the four that seemed to raise any questions, but Congress did not over-rule him or withhold funding.
It’s worth noting that all those presidents were no longer living. Washington and Jefferson had been more than a century in the grave, Lincoln for six decades, and TR a dozen. But Roosevelt’s historical accomplishments on the international stage dated to as much as three decades prior to the initiation of the project. Evidently, someone in Congress sponsored a bill in 1937 to add Susan B. Anthony to the group, but the attempt was neutralized by an amendment.
What of Obama’s vaunted “eloquence?”
Lincoln’s Gettysburg address is considered a gem of oratory, a shining example of writing. But history has given us thousands of elegant and passionate and tightly-reasoned essays and speeches by writers each acknowledged as a genius. Lincoln’s Gettysburg address is remembered not just for its economy and grace, but because it so clearly sets forth the actions and spirit of the man who wrote the words.
Obama is a sham. He is a shadow, effective in obscuring rather than illuminating.
His programs even in success will diminish not advance the human condition.
He is a tyrant on the make.
He will indeed be remembered.
His name is already added to the list of oaths and curses used by people who cannot find relief swearing with language long commandeered by Hollywood scriptwriters.
Jul 18, 2009 - 8:18 pm 54. Mad Fiddler:Two quick thoughts:
1) It seems to be diagnostic of despots during their tenure to command, commission, or just allow their sycophants to erect grandiose statues, distribute florid posters, and broadcast films and videos with slobbering puerile praise. Examples: the Personality Cults of Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, et cetera.
2) Has anyone else noticed how much the Honduran ex-president resembles Saddam Hussein?
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