The Obama Cult
By SusanUnPC on February 11, 2008 at 2:21 PM in Current Affairs
Hate Springs Eternal, by Paul Krugman, February 11, 2008:
Most of the venom is coming from supporters of Barack Obama, who want their hero or nobody. His campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality.
For supposedly not being enchanted by the allures of evangalists, a lot of Democrats are just as susceptible as their Republican counterparts. Practical, no-nonsense talk about the realities of politics (see Krugman’s example of Nixon in the column linked above) is greeted with, “Oh, you’re preaching the old politics, the cynical politics.” When the supporters of the more qualified candidate make their case, the “born-again” Democrats have an answer, no matter how nonsensical, for everything.
- In 2004, I was repeatedly told that we had — simply HAD TO — nominate John Kerry because he was the “electable” candidate. (Uh, where in the name of god did that “meme” get started? Perhaps, just perhaps, in the media, fed by the Kerry campaign?)
- In 2008, we’re repeatedly told that we must nominate the least-experienced, least-qualified, more-conservative candidate because, we’re told in rapturous tones, “HE IS THE ONE.” The vast majority of Obama’s followers know little of the nitty-gritty of his policies, have ever read the seminal Harper’s 2006 article, on Obama’s world of financial and lobbyist influence, on his well-braided relationship with Tony Rezko, who goes on trial Feb. 25 before Patrick Fitzgerald.
Here’s more from Krugman today:
The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.
Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.
Why, then, is there so much venom out there?
I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.
What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.
The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any evidence of wrongdoing on the Clintons’ part, yet the “scandal” became a symbol of the Clinton administration’s alleged corruption.
During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King.
For a real DOSE of reality, try to get the Obama followers to begin by reading this — they won’t be receptive, but perhaps (BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE) some of them may begin to catch on:
Barack Obama Inc.:
The birth of a Washington machine
Harper’s magazine
The best introduction you’ll get to what he’s really about — at least until the Feb. 25th trial of tony Rezko since Obama is an unnamed contribution recipient in probably more than one place in the indictment.
WHAT I MOST WORRY ABOUT:
1) The electorate will begin to wake up after it’s too late to repair whatever unfair, undemocratic “solution” the DNC comes up with; or
2) They most assuredly will find out — which they’ll greet with everlasting buyer’s remorse or the most absurd rationalizations — when he’s sitting in the Oval, beseiged from all sides — and I do mean all sides. What does he know of the fiefdoms in Congress protected by both Republican and Democratic powerful? What does he know of the enormous sway of the corporate lobbies, so vast and pervasive that they now write all of our legislation and influence national policy more than voters do?
Does he really think he can begin to penetrate that by getting everybody together? HELL NO! You begin to fight that kind of entrenched power by FIGHTING FOR EVERY INCH OF IT. And that is a job ONLY a pro, who’s been through the ropes in D.C. and seen EVERY GAME THEY’LL PULL can handle.
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
by 
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.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
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