Obama schmaltz jumps shark in Berlin

"If American comedians can't find their traction on the Obama Messiah theme, they ought to just give up and get a real job."

The Daily Show has been hitting this theme, uh, daily.

Rod: "He's got to figure out a way to speak about optimism without sounding like such a naif. Then again, it's got him this far, why stop now?"

There's another very good reason why BO is not likely to change his act. Apparently, the candidate has come to believe his own press clippings. Reporters on the BO campaign say the candidate and his team believe his candidacy represents a special opportunity in US and global history -- an opportune match of "man and moment." They really believe this stuff !!

Back in early 2007, Michelle Obama would gently poke fun at her husband's pretensions (remember her teasing about his body odor and his household habits), but we're not hearing that anymore. As hard-headed as BO might naturally be, the adulation and the easy pass he's getting from the Chris Matthews' of the world will severely affect his ability to judge reality.

Another problem is that BO is beginning to bore us because he's using the same material over and over again. Unless he can come up with some new lines, that big Convention acceptance speech planned for the outdoors in Denver will lay an egg. I had a sharp sense of deja vu while listening to his speech yesterday. I'm certain others are beginning to wonder, to borrow words from an old song, "is that all there is, my friend?"

People mistakenly draw comparisons between the 2008 BO campaign and the 1980 Reagan campaign. I think it is more like Carter's 1976 campaign. While Carter did prevail, Ford came from 25 points behind in the polls (at one point) and almost closed the gap to win. This happened not because of anything Ford did for himself (he actually committed a number of gaffes in October) but because voters began to replace day-dreaming with hard thinking in assessing Carter's meager qualifications and vague rhetoric ("I promise a government as good and great as are the American people.")

Should it come as a surprise that all the good Christians around here should embrace blasphemy - using the Messiah image to mock someone - when it suits their political ends?

Ohhhhh, the wishful thinking!!! After watching their own messiah, Jesus...um I mean Geaorge, bungle everything for eight years, Brooks, Rod, and the Christian Right are eagerly awaiting for any indication of failure in Obama.

I don't know whether Obama will be a great president. We want know that until he has actually gotten elected and served for some time.
But to criticize a campaing speech as being "schmaltzy"....HOW PETTY!!!

This is just a liberal, Mr. van Driessen version of the high-minded, crusading universalism of G.W. Bush's second inaugural address -- and which, as it turned out, was pretty much the moment that this administration jumped the shark.

THIS is a good point. The Obamessiah will not represent a sharp of a break from Dubya's Wilsonian policies. In many ways, he'll probably pursue them with greater vigor.

"Schmaltz" isn't necessarily a term of derision. It means "sentimental," and without question Obama in Berlin was over-the-top sentimental.

Obviously Heather is an Obama supporter who didn't get the campaign's memo that this was NOT a campaign speech, yet even she is objective enough after having heard the speech to see it for what it is in spite of the campaign's protests to the contrary.

The speech was schmaltzy...and pandering.

I'm not surprised to find schmaltz in a political speech; but that's all Obama offered, and Gerard Baker's essay really does capture the emptiness of what Obama promises. People want something different after eight years of Bush, and so do I. But if the Bush years taught us anything, it's to beware rhetoric divorced from reality. The German journalist Josef Joffe, writing in the New Republic, had wise words:

If he ran in Germany, Obama would carry the country by a landslide, with 67 percent of the vote. But there is no gold in them thar numbers, only disappointment. By vast margins, Germans and Europeans believe in Obama as the Savior & Redeemer who will deliver them from the last eight years of George W. It's like an exorcist fantasy: Once we can send Bush off into the desert, like the scapegoat of the Israelites, we will be able to love America again.

There are two problems buried in this fantasy. One, Barack Obama is possessed of a pliable identity that oscillates between Barry and Barack, between White and Black, between the Harvard Law Review and the Chicago slums, between a leftish voting record in the Senate and a right-of-center message on the stump. He is neither saint nor softie, but the most consummate power politician to come out of Chicago since Richard Daley the Elder. Following classical electoral ritual in the U.S., Obama has been moving steadily to the right, be it on the death penalty, gun control, or Iraq. Europeans haven't quite processed his pilgrimage to the center, and if they have, they seem not to care.
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Obama is a screen upon which people project their fantasies of post-Bush redemption. Beware.

Of course, all politicians to some degree try to reshape the raw stuff of their life in order to present an acceptable image to voters. But no politician has managed this to the degree Obama has.

You forget your idol, Reagan. He was a transformative candidate after completely white-washing and reshaping the raw stuff of his life. How else can a divorcee with a prototypical dysfunctional family who never really went to church become the savior of pro-family Christian conservatives?

Then Anchoress had a good post about this speech, making the point that really great speeches have to have (1) some kind of ocassion or reason for being given (the gettysburg address, Churchill's speeches rallying the country, Reagan confronting communism at the wall, Martin Luther King leading the civil rights movement) and (2) they have to have something to say about the reason they are being given.

Obama's problem is that he didn't have either of these two things. There was no real reason for this speech. He just wanted to give a speech about something or other with a nice backdrop of lots and lots of people.

Someone up above said that it was blasphemous to make jokes about Obama being treated as the Messiah. In fact, such jokes are the opposite of blasphemy. They make the point that only God deserves adulation and worship, not fallible politicians. I have nothing against Obama, and I'm sure he has many good points. But the reactions he seems to elicit from some of his fans are rather spooky. No human being is going to live up to such expectations.

Response...

"Schmaltz" isn't necessarily a term of derision. It means "sentimental," and without question Obama in Berlin was over-the-top sentimental.

Paul, obviously in the context Rod was using the word "smaltzy" it was a term of derision. Dumb point for you to try and argue.

"Obviously Heather is an Obama supporter"

Yep, I've said on other threads I will vote for Obama...oooooh, you've got me there.

"who didn't get the campaign's memo that this was NOT a campaign speech, yet even she is objective enough after having heard the speech to see it for what it is in spite of the campaign's protests to the contrary."

Everything a candidate does this close to the election IS campaign related; otherwise they're wasting valuable time. If the Obama or McCain camp tried to claim otherwise, I simply would ignore that.

The speech was schmaltzy...and pandering.

All candidates pander; all candidates spew BS; I expect that from ALL of them.

Since when are comments like "Barack will have more child-raping blue helmets along" allowed on B'net?

Seems that the conservative German government found a lot to like, huh?

I think it's pretty obvious by now that some (almost eclusively the right) dislike Obama for his popularity. It's much more conservative to 'stick to principles' no matter how unpopular or discredited the position. Well, you have your candidate then! Go, McCain!

Yes, suddenly the right has a serious concern with those they consider to have oversized egos -- especially Democrats.

I'm sorry, but after the great love affair with a certain swaggering Texan, your track record on this kind of thing is rather pitiful. Perhaps you could find a substantial issue or two to discuss??? (Probably not...too much work and not gossipy enough! Maybe you can revive the Wright controversy -- much higher on the gossip index.)

Just sayin' (and, yes, being somewhat sarcastic).

Rob: "...that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please."

Actually, your boy mangled the original "Four Freedoms" formula enunciated jointly by Churchill and FDR (in 1940). Predictably, of course, he took "freedom to worship" from first place in the original order to last place.

Daniel: "You forget your idol, Reagan. He was a transformative candidate after completely white-washing and reshaping the raw stuff of his life. How else can a divorcee with a prototypical dysfunctional family who never really went to church become the savior of pro-family Christian conservatives?"

It's an interesting question, Daniel. You're wrong in suggesting, however, that Reagan ever tried to "whitewash" the raw stuff of his life, including the fact that he and Oscar-winning actress Jane Wyman had raised two children before they divorced in the late 1940s. His second wife, Nancy, was perhaps uncomfortable responding to questions about it, but not Reagan himself.

Why did evangelicals go from supporting Carter in 1976 to opposing him in 1980 (and supporting the once divorced Reagan)? Because despite Carter's evangelical credentials (Sunday school teacher, etc.), his policies (and the platform of his party) were at odds with the deeply-held positions of orthodox Christians. Still are.

Reagan, by contrast, made the elites in Washington and Hollywood (including even his wife) uncomfortable with his defense of the unborn and of traditional values. It was something he would not back down on, whatever the costs.

I grant Rod's point, and that of many other posts on this thread, but I think one thing that hasn't been really brought up enough is that Obama does this because Americans eat it up. Think of Reagan's "morning in America", Clinton's "town called Hope", W.'s speeches about America's mission to spread democracy, etc. etc. Heck, think about Kennedy's "New Frontier". Ever since the 50's, and even more so since Reagan, there seems to be an expectation that someone who aspires to the presidency should drip optimism, sweat shining new vistas, speak soaring speeches, and make us feel good about ourselves and our future regardless of the actual reality of the moment.

If you look at the losers in Presidential races since 1980, every single one was considered insufficiently "optimistic" and too "negative". None of the losers used sweeping rhetoric. The one possible exception was Bush Sr. vs. Dukakis, in which, frankly, neither came off rhetorically well, but Bush had the momentum from the Reagan years.

The only President to use "downer" language and to try to call it as he saw it without feeling the need for "uplift" was Carter. Well, he won in '76 (but after Watergate, all a Democrat needed to do to win was breathe), and his rhetorical style helped him a lot in '80, didn't it?

I'm not really super enthusiastic about either side on this cycle, to tell the truth, and with his vote on FISA I've gotta say that Obama has deeply disappointed me. I'll still probably vote for him as the lesser of two evils, by my lights, but I do get a bit tired of the Messianic aura coming from too many of his supporters.

Having said that, the point is that no one ever lost an election in this country by being quasi-Messianic. I think the problem is in our expectations. As Pogo Possum said, "We have met the enemy and he is us"!

"the point is that no one ever lost an election in this country by being quasi-Messianic."

William Jennings Bryan? But maybe that's too old a case, and things have changed too much, for it to be a relevant example.

Readingbill -- there's a difference between mockery and satire. Mocking Obama is not blasphemous, and Jesus was not being mocked by depicting Obama as an exaggerated version of the way his fans see him. However, when you immerse the cross itself in urine, you're mocking the cross -- unless you can suggest what other thing might have been the subject of mockery in that case?

On the question of blasphemy:

If Baker's piece "blasphemes" anything it is the blasphemous comparison made every day by the Lightworker's droids that their man is Jesus Christ come again or the next best thing.

Before his father Jesse made his recommendation for how to bring Obama down to earth, the junior Mr. Jackson said the Bible would need to be expanded come 2016 to account for all the wonders that the Big O plans to work.

Truly.

I'm not making that up.

Who could?

PS: Also, I seem to recall that between spasmic tremors through his groin Chris Matthews said Obama was "The New Testament" and "bigger than Kennedy" -- bigger than the Beatles, I suppose.

Turmarion,

You make some good points, especially about the appetite Americans have for confident, optimistic leaders.

(1) Everyone agrees that McCain needs to do a better job of expressing what GHWB once called "the vision thing." I supported him in the past (8 years ago, against "W", in the GOP primaries) and have admired him for years. I understand what he's about ... but apparently not enough other voters do ... yet :-)

(2) I disagree with your characterization of Carter in 1976. It's hard to recall how he was perceived in that year because our memory is clouded by his Presidency and the disaster (for him) of the 1980 election. Actually, he was viewed in 1976 as a post-Watergate "breath of fresh air" and a paragon of "Good Book" virtues who would clean up the rancid stables of Washington. Cartoonists had a field day with his enigmatic and toothy smile.

Long before the "malaise speech" and the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the second energy crisis and double-digit inflation rates ... Jimmy Carter was viewed in many ways as Obama is seen today. Reporters noted with admiration how Carter read Reinhold Neibuhr and had grown up alongside blacks as a child and was supported enthusiastically by "Daddy King" (Dr. King's surviving father, also a minister) and the entire leadership of the civil rights movement. The commentariat predicted he would be a transformative President.

I beg forgiveness for jumping the shark about blasphemy.

Back to my original point, using Messiah imagery in mockery, no matter how clever, isn't blasphemy to any of the Christians around here?

And isn't this Obama/Messiah satire "in addition to being insulting and juvenile, it's unimaginative, passe, and requires no talent at all to execute"?

Alicia,

Appreciate your candid comments about McCain. Frankly, I have never gotten the stuff about McCain's "stability." Yes, he certainly has demonstrated a capacity for outrage ... especially against waste and corruption or Wall Street profiteering or the usual cant one associates with traditional politics. It's a sensibility he shares with a lot of vets, especially those who served in Vietnam. In this regard, one thinks of US Senator Jim Webb (VA) or of former US Senators Max Cleland (GA) or Bob Smith (NH).

McCain's major weakness -- and it is not a weakness of character but of candidacy -- is that sometimes he has been a bit too transparent for his own good. He really "lets it all hang out" with an exhaustive schedule of town-hall meetings and open access by reporters. It was little remarked but when he appeared last week at the NAACP convention he not only delivered a set speech but then followed it with a town-hall format and took questions from the audience. You can appreciate that given this audience and his Republican status ... he took a lot of tough if not hostile questions. He didn't avoid the challenge ... but rose to it ... and earned a lot of kudos from the African-American leadership for his grit.

As to Obama, I'm not worried about his mediocrity but rather by the mystery of the man. He spent the month of June in a complete political makeover. Who knows what this guy is really all about .... other than the fact that his last name isn't Bush? Alicia, I would take a little more time to "check under the hood" and "kick the tires" before I'd ride away in the Obama Bandwagon.

"Back to my original point, using Messiah imagery in mockery, no matter how clever, isn't blasphemy to any of the Christians around here?"

I could see where it might be taken that way, but since the actual Messiah isn't Himself being mocked, but rather the blasphemy of attributing messianic qualities to another, I don't think it qualifies. I don't think mocking another person's false beliefs is the same thing as mocking what is true. Elijah was not committing blasphemy when he mocked Baal going to the toilet, even though there is a real God who does not go to the toilet.

I'm not sure that I'm competent to post on this subject because I had to look up the phrase "jump the shark".

In any case, both "campaigns" are going through an awful time, as both candidates are lurching around trying to pick up voters. There's not a lot of eloquence, but there is a lot of calculated speech directed at particular groups.

I've never expected anything else, so I've been pleasantly surprised that the candidates have not started in yet with real invective.

I'm not sure what David Brooks expects, but it sounds like he wants the candidates to blow up their campaigns by saying a lot of unpleasant, if truthful, things. I don't know what Niebuhr would think of that expectation, but I find it really mystical.

Image crafting... check.

Pandering to fears... check.

Character assassination... check.

Propaganda thinly veiled by morale-boosting rhetoric... check.

An electorate that not only wants its thinking done for it, it complains bitterly when given the slightest intellectual challenge... check.

... I was encouraged by the record-setting turnouts for the primaries. Now, I'll just sit back and yawn while the same-old same-old spins its merry way through unending news cycles that are essentially devoid of basic journalism.

I know, I'll daydream one of my favorite fantasies: playing canasta with McLuhan, Murrow, and Bob (Robert Anton) Wilson. The "players" change depending on context, but the fantasy remains entertaining.

... actually, let's make that a game of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_square four square, with Tim Leary, Heinlein and (thinks a bit) Hearst waiting for their turns. ;-D

What most people have since forgotten was that MLK Senior was a life-long Republican, so his support was truly against type.

A little revisionism here. MLK Sr. was a Republican until 1960. After endorsing Nixon, he ended up supporting JFK for President. From that point on, he was a Democrat. It's hard to fathom MLK Sr. supporting the GOP of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, or 2000s.

The Man from K Street,

Thanks for picking up on the reference to Reinhold Niebuhr and explaining the significance. When I saw a month or so ago Obama referencing Niebuhr I couldn't help but roll my eyes and, think, "gosh, they're running that part of the Jimmy Carter playbook from 1976." What other parts of the playbook are they studying?

I've been amused by the robotic comparisons many are making between B.O. and R.R.. The two are as different from each other as Woodrow Wilson was from Will Rogers. In fact, that would be the analogy I find most apt. [Sure, Will Rogers never entered politics but he might have given FDR -- and certainly Herbert Hoover -- a good run for the money had he taken entered national politics back in the the 1920s and 1930s.]

There is something earnest and high-minded in Barack Obama's communications style which calls to mind Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter. He has Clinton's brains but not his rogueish charm. He's brighter than Gore (and craftier) but without some of Prince Albert's more irritating quirks.

But in no way does Obama match Reagan (or for that matter, Bill Clinton) in their ability to connect with people. Earnest, yes. But evidently little ability to laugh at himself or his foibles. Terrific with a script and a teleprompter ... but terrible as an impromptu speaker. Little wonder that McCain and his people wanted to have ten "townhall" meetings with B.O.

Your analysis, "K Street," of Carter's early record on segregation was instructive as was your explanation of the state of mind of the civil rights leadership back in the mid 1970s. Indeed, Vernon Jordan epitomizes the pattern we so often see in various "movements": the pioneering leaders get older, get a mortgage, and get bought off by the system.

I always learn something from your posts, "K Street." Thanks!

This has nothing to do with Barack, and I am really really weary of PZ Myers and his ilk. But I just had to point out that this afternoon he's posted a picture of a communion host with a rusty nail poked through it, along with a banana peel, coffee grounds, a ripped page of the Koran and a page from Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" dumped in the trash (it's beyond pathetic that Myers seems to think that by including this last bit, it somehow ameliorates what he has done).

Paul Zachary Myers begins his post with the intentional words, "It is finished." The comments thread on Myers blog is stunning in its volume - as it is in the sheer ferocity of hatred spewing forth from Myers' fellow atheists.

Here's one of the milder comments: "What a hollow god they serve! How delicious a treatment of their sacred relics!"

I don't think I need to expand on this much, except to note how demonic all of this seems. It's gone beyond smarmy atheist "freethinkers" with a bone to pick against faith in general. Now the snarling rage is there for all to see, and it is very focused against one faith, against one figure in history.

I'm not sure I was prepared for the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach I would experience at witnessing Myers photo. As I've noted here before, I'm not a Catholic and I don't believe in transubstantiation. But what Myers has done is far, far beyond that. He seems trapped in his own version of magical thinking; in other words, he seems to believe that the "symbols" of Christianity are what gives the faith its power. And that is precisely what one under the oppression of the prince of this world would believe.

Myers seems unaware of the consequences of so gravely and deliberately sinning within his own heart. As he himself put it, he did this joyfully and with much laughter in his heart - thus he has committed an act of purposeful desolation, distancing himself from God nearly as far as one poor soul can be.

Others will now follow him with far worse, I fear. Myers has crossed a boundary, and the hatred of aggressive atheism has been loosed. It is no longer the province of folk songs, pithy bumper stickers or amusing droll commentary. It is now what it has always been - the domain of pure hatred.

Pray for them, pray for peace, pray that you yourself can simply forgive them for what they do. And pray for the strength to walk in a manner worthy of Christ in the days ahead.

I think that BO is going to burn himself out with BS.
That empty suit is becoming see through.