In a TNR article with the extraordinary title “Contra Expectations: Obama isn’t Jimmy Carter—he’s Ronald Reagan,” Eli Lake demonstrates exactly what Obama meant when he wrote in his book The Audacity of Hope:
I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.
I’d change Obama’s statement in one way—I’d substitute the words “hopes and fears” for “views.”
Lake hopes against hope (and against all indications) that an Obama administration would not be as disastrous as Carter’s—although I’ll leave it up to others to understand how it is that Ronald Reagan has now become a sort of darling of the Left.
If Obama happens to get elected, I’ll hope so too. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s likely. Nor do most of those in the comments that follow Lake’s article, who are in almost unanimous agreement that his proposition is an absurdity.
Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely
July 15th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
The economy is so wrecked that Barack will be able to make substantial changes if elected over the next eight years, and it will probably take that long to deal with the Bush economic damage.
July 15th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I was wondering about that too. You’d think saying that Obama was Ronald Reagan would be meant as an insult, coming from a lefty, especially when Obama himself disparages Reagan in his book.
My head hurts.
July 15th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Paul, the economy is not wrecked. It’s called the business cycle. Relax.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I’ve always felt that most of what he says is absurd. Still mystified at what people see in this man.
He’s played Speed Hopscotch with his career, starting with his fancy schmancy job at a top notch law firm (contrary to any campaign biography details) where he met his wife. Then on to the many brief stints which were required for advancement in Chicago politics, State, and now National political office.
(in fact, this wk’s The New Yorker article does the great service of chronicling his most carefully calculated political movements.”
But that’s politics. Daily baloney and position switches are not. (He doesn’t even bother to bait anymore (knowing he’ll later switch). That is, unless he’s pandering to special interest audiences, of course.
It has now become ironic that “CHANGE” is the way in which he has themed his election but because of the almost daily changes in his positions — ALL positions (always with nuanced “outs” prefacing his next act).
Early on, I listened with disbelieving curiosity. Now I shudder as each day brings more rhetoric with less committed position, not to mention ever-growing stale repetition of Dem. talking points (make sure to get that “McCain and Bush” link in a few times).
Now the idea that he actually could be elected gives me the creeps.
July 15th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Paul, the economy is not wrecked.
It will be, once Obama enacts new taxes and allows the Bush cuts to expire. Then we’ll be a) eyeball deep in debt, b) see a decrease in revenues, c) watch the deficeit climb, d) and climb even more as Obama will attempt to tack on another trillion or so in new spending.
He’ll blame it on Bush, but I don’t think the rioters will care.
July 15th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Obama continues to surprise me with his utter opportunism. As to the “blank screen” here’s a prescient quote that I found on Tigerhawk from a book on Hitler by Konrad Heiden I read as teenager. Heiden emphasizes that propaganda is a two-way street.
The true aim of political propaganda is not to influence, but to study the masses. The speaker is in constant communication with the masses; he hears an echo, and senses the inner vibration. In forever setting new and contradictory assertions before his audience, Hitler is tapping the outwardly shapeless substance of public opinion with instruments of varying metals and varying weights. When a resonance issues from the depths of the substance, the masses have given him the pitch; he knows in what terms he must finally address them.
Rather than as a means of directing the mass mind, propaganda is a technique for riding with the masses. It is not a machine to make wind, but a sail to catch the wind.
(pp137-140, “Der Fuehrer” by Konrad Heiden, 1944 edition, Houghton-Mifflin, translated by Ralph Mannheim.)
http://myrhaf.blogspot.com/2008/07/sail-to-catch-wind.html
Usual disclaimer: I don’t mean to say tha Obama is Hitler or a fascist, but I do think he is playing a deep and dangerous game with people.
July 15th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Note — I first found the quote on Tigerhawk, but traced it back to Myrhaf who is quoting back even further.
The final paragraph is so good: Rather than as a means of directing the mass mind, propaganda is a technique for riding with the masses. It is not a machine to make wind, but a sail to catch the wind.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
“”although I’ll leave it up to others to understand how it is that Ronald Reagan has now become a sort of darling of the Left.”"
This is like the step parent coolness syndrome. Where the child ridicules the actual parent he lives with day in and day out. Because shes not as cool as daddys wife he only sees on vacations and fun weekends.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:13 am
The
Obamessiah is who he wants to be!Thats called “CHANGE”.Besides,even the loony leftists know that Dhimmah Carter has now become a sick joke.July 16th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
“I’ll leave it up to others to understand how it is that Ronald Reagan has now become a sort of darling of the Left.”
Simple enough: they just rewrite any history that doesn’t suit their narrative. There are no fig leaves large enough to hide the crimes of the Soviet Union, their collapse during the Reagan administration, or the fact that it was Reagan’s economic strategy that ended the Cold War without a nuclear holocaust. So they instead declare that Reagan was actually a liberal, a pacifist, and now even a socialist.
We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.