Current Article

Obama’s Train Ride a la Lincoln

By pm317 on December 17, 2008 at 9:45 PM in Current Affairs

All through the election we have heard others compare Obama to Lincoln, MLK, JFK, and even Gandhi. That last comparison really makes my stomach turn. It literally hurts to hear people compare this common politician from Chicago to such historical figures who fought for their grand vision all their life. Lincoln was a monumental figure fighting for emancipation of slaves; MLK gave his life for civil rights; Gandhi brought independence to India from the British without as much as a bullet being fired. They fought for the common good through long years of struggle inspiring millions of people for justice and equality along the way and through their accomplishments became monumental figures.

With Obama, the real narrative does not go quite that way in spite of the comparisons. Even as I write this, I am racking my brains to see what he has accomplished to deserve all this adulation. I come up empty handed every time. Everything about this guy has been a marketing ploy. It includes grand imagery, glorified rhetoric, and incessant adulation and allegiance.

An example of the latest marketing gimmick comes from yesterday’s Washington Post which reports that Obamas will make their way to Washington DC for the inauguration in a chartered AMTRAK train, starting from Philadelphia and through Wilmington and Baltimore. He will make his grand speeches for CHANGE along the way. Quoting the article:

Now he plans to arrive in Washington the same way that Lincoln did in 1861, with a train trip that will include stops, speeches and crowds along the way.

[snip]

“He’s replicating the last leg of Lincoln’s inaugural journey to Washington,” said historian Harold Holzer, author of “Lincoln President Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861.” “This guy’s reverence for Lincoln has no bounds.”

Lincoln had left his home in Springfield on Feb. 11, 1861, for a 12-day journey east to Washington, during which he made 101 speeches. Philadelphia and Baltimore were his last stops before the nation’s capital.

There we go with the grand entrance, a la Lincoln. It lacks original thought or vision but tries to conjure up some grand historical event to make him credible. Why is that? Is that because this 47 year-old man has nothing to show for his accomplishments, has surrounded himself with people like Wright, Ayers, Rezko, Blagojevich and others of that same ilk all his life, and that he has to obscure his past and confuse the public about who he really is?

At best, I say he is a common politician from Chicago which is fine if he can now deliver for the country notwithstanding the way he got there. But I have my doubts.

Remember this video from the brilliant Flineo during the primary? This is Obama’s grand accomplishment.

Seems to me that historian Holzer quoted in WaPO overstated the case. Obama’s reverence to Lincoln did not inspire him to carry out his duties to the constituents who voted for him. Instead, he wallowed in the mud with Rezko and others. He gives speeches but is yet to live by his words.

He has a lot to prove. He should set aside his marketing maneuvers for good, roll up his sleeves and get down to the business of governing the country during these difficult times. The campaign is long over. As we approach inauguration, I hope his supporters get serious and start holding him accountable. He was their choice but we all have to live with the consequences.

{Speaking for me only.}

cathnealon

He’s flying much too close to the sun–it’s going to be a hard fall. And as for “rolling up his sleeves and governing the country” don’t you see? This is exactly how he’s going to govern, with speeches written by frat boys, identification with past dead Americans(it’s easier that way they can’t be indicted)all posturing and no leadership–what you see is what we’re going to get–there’s nothing there, it’s all smoke and mirrors, nothing is real with this guy–I’ll go with despair and the status quo, it’s much less dangerous than the hope and change promised by this disaster.

oowawa

Quite some time ago a commentor cited this hip-hop mantra in reference to O:

fake it till you make it

Like you say cath, “it’s all smoke and mirrors.” At some point the little dog pulls back the curtain and everybody sees the phony behind the machinery, pulling levers frantically: “Uh, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

He’s flying much too close to the sun–it’s going to be a hard fall.

Hubris, the overweening pride of the would-be hero, ultimately lays him low. It’s a common old story.
Peggy Sue

Bingo, Cath. This whole spiel is based on imagery and the distant sounds of a glorious past.

Why? Because there’s no there there.

The Flineo video that pm317 posted above was one of the early things I watched and despaired over. Then I read the Evelyn Pringle series and several other “Obama histories” and wondered: what the hell are we doing?

And, now we’ve [or those who voted for this fraud] done it.

Smoke and mirrors, indeed. We even have Camelot to dream on with CK’s seemingly inevitable Senate appointment.

It’s beyond depressing. Hope and Change never looked so bleak!
nancy sabet

A crook is compared to great American heros…this is how a nation is humilated and falls!

aa

why dont you just figure out what that means

trixta

BO = GWB redux to the Nth degree.

Ron

TIME’s punk of the year:

http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2008/obama_youth/obama_youth_04.jpg
http://www.wewillnotbesilenced2008.com OBAMA IS A FRAUD

It gets worse every day. Literally. The guy is a creep and really freaks me out. He’s nothing but the biggest marketing con job on America in history with a bunch of rich, America hating malcontents behind him. He’s a puppet for the destroyers like Soros, with a real Hopey and Changey attempt at looking like a Clinton Third Term. I can’t believe how far in the sewer this country has gone. And for those who start the crap and bullshit about Bush…I have news…you’re going to want him back in six months. IF there’s anything to save after Fraudbama starts his slash and burn mission. Ughhhh….Why is America so frigging STUPID?

mimi

Maybe that’s the goal.

To resurrect and transform Bush and his legacy.

There’s got to be a reason.

Maybe this is what’s behind this mess.

It won’t work for me, however.

The disaster that was Bush won’t get any better just because 0bama proves to be as bad or worse.

They’ll just be 2 rotten peas in a pod. And since Bush is ultimately responsible for the 0bama phenomenon, it will only make him worse.

Baba Rum Raisin

I have felt that the reason the GOP was tepid in its support for McCain was to make SURE that Shrubbie handed O’Bannon a big, stinky turd of an economy when the baton (or shit stick) is passed.

One of the reasons I was FOR McCain: a blind man and a yellow dog, much less a one-armed economist, could predict the current mess. I wanted to be SURE that the GOP had their hands on the controls when the DJI hit 4,500 on the way down, and relegated Der Shrub to his rightful place in on the junkpile of Presidential history, to wit, the Herbert Hoover of the 21st century.

The GOP were equally energetic to ensure that the Big Drop occurs AFTER the Democratic president takes office.

Damned if it doesn’t look like they’ll manage to do just that.

Viewed broadly, it would appear that, once again, Old Age and Experience trumps Youth and Enthusiasm.

Or Hopey-Changey…

mimi

Baba Rhum Raisin,

I felt exactly the same way.

But the Dems just couldn’t resist marching into office led by 0bama of all people.

Now they have it.

http://firefox AnnieCollier

Ditto Fraud. I’m already starting to backtrack. Never in a million years did I think anyone could make GWB look like a great man in comparison. Now I’m feeling that GWB did do the job he had to do although he made a lot of mistakes. He was ill equipped…just like this guy…but at least he didn’t leave another 9/11 for us to live with.

I want to throw up everytime this smug jerk shows his face and opens his mouth. I’m watching the home channel a lot these days…I just can’t take it.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Three-Basic-Parenting-Styles&id=744499 Northwest rain

I don’t watch tv– because I can not stand to look at the ONE’s lying face.

aa

hope you not talking about barack

FranSC

All your comments are hilarious! I have never laughed so hard! pm317, you have got his number for sure. The “common politician” is on-target. I don’t know how anyone could be more ‘common ordinary’. I guarantee you the train ride to the inauguration was NOT Obama’s idea regardless of the books he’s read or is reading. It is Axelrod’s idea.

Remember he is the supposed “master” of the crowd scenes – was even asked to do a moving crowd scene for one of the “POTUS” TV shows.

Election night was an example of Axelrod’s “frustrated director” ambitions with the slow, soft, movie music chosen for its victory-sounding qualities. This is one of the reasons you saw all the tears.
trixta

The right allowed the neo-fascist GWB through; the left is providing us with their own version. In other words, it’s because of GWB that we have the likes of BO today. Too bad the Repubs didn’t have a PUMA-like revolt in 2000.

Country before Party — always!
Ron In Arizona

Sewer, yes this a sewer, I WILL LEAVE NOW, BYE BYE SWILL

Donna Brazile

Damn put a beard on Obama and call him Abe Jr.

Stop the hate!

aa

dont make fun of him your not up there making changes for the country.God! have some comonsence

http://yahoo.com WasalforhillbutnowMACPALIN

Didn’t Fitz mention Lincoln rolling over in his grave? Maybe Fitz will take care of Mr. Lincoln’s wannabe reincarnation. I have a dream.
Papoose

A Train called CoatTails.

Like a Street Named Desire. A screenplay.

Proof in the puddin’. Xerox. Carbon Copy. Ditto. The Sequel. (with a bag a chips and a side yard deal).

While we were busy footing the bill our children born in the 70′s and 80′s have been re-educated.

Goddess only knows what has transpired with our children born in the 90′s while we were earning their tuition payments and shopping for their electronics.

I’m beat.
Pingback: Obama’s Train Ride a la Lincoln : NO QUARTER
Papoose

Who is wearing the ruby slippers? Please. Is anybody?

oowawa

Who is wearing the ruby slippers? Please. Is anybody?

The plain old black-and-white Kansas we grew up in starts to look pretty good after a dose of all this technicolor over-the-rainbow stuff.

There’s no place like home.
There’s no place like home.
There’s no place like home.

Seems like an awfully long ways away right now.

trixta

I wish the American public who voted for the ONE would get a brain.

Baba Rum Raisin

Jeff Gannon.

But, he charges Extra for that, I hear.

Texas Playwright

That Narcissistic Personality Disorder will get you every time–even if you’re a fraud puppet of Soros and Co.

Indy G-Dog

Dead on.

And your comment pretty much addresses every public politician in Washington, these days.

The results speak for themselves.

mimi

0bama is now added to the list of triggers for my gag reflex.

Riding to the Inauguration on a train… stopping to give speeches….

All I can do is gag:

Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!

Baba Rum Raisin

Personally, I wouldn’t go down to the train yard for a free Double Stereophonic Mixing Bowl Job from Kate Walsh and Jessica Alba, much less to listen to a Chicago pol bloviate and tell me how great he is.

fif

He has a lot to prove. He should set aside his marketing maneuvers for good, roll up his sleeves and get down to the business of governing the country during these difficult times.

Oh no, you misunderstand. He doesn’t actually want to work–he just wants to revel in the glory of the office. The presidential seal, the Greek columns, the “O” plane, and all the faux historical imagery. The work is so…tedious and slow. He got bored with the Senate in one year. He is pathetic with his grandiosity. Repellent, really. This country is in serious trouble, and he’s still playing president. He can’t even come up with his own policies or traditions–it’s all plagiarized from someone else. You cannot fake greatness–that comes from sacrifice, suffering and vision. Good luck with that Barky.

Ani

Correct — do you see how, bored, irritated and cranky he looks at every single pres conference?

For crying out loud, he hasn’t even been inuagurated yet! Can’t he show a little enthusiasm?

Referring to the press corps as “hey guys” like he’s so groggy he just got out of bed and then continuing with the halting speech… er, ah, um, aaaaand, — not exactly inspiring of confidence or giving a feeling of vim, vigor and energy.

Don’t you always feel like we are intruding on his time at the gym when he comes out to talk to the press? Gee, Mr. President-Elect, are we bothering you?
FranSC

Yeah. I think his work will be done once his cabinet is in place. He won’t have to do another thing. They will run the government while he takes the credit.

Will someone please tell Carolina Kennedy to stop humiliating herself by telling that stupid story about how all of her life people have told her how her father had inspired them and how now she has finally met someone who has inspired her like her father inspired others. Sickening!

This feels a lot like a group of people looking at a painting. Most see nothing to write home about, while others are ranting and raving about it being a “masterpiece”. The only difference is the current epidemic of Obama hysteria in this country keeps persuading ordinarily intelligent people that this common, ordinary, unaccomplished person is a masterpiece when there is nothing to support it.

oowawa

Kinda like Andy Warhol’s masterpiece painting of the Campbell’s Tomato Soup can.

Magic Puzzle Box

I live in the city where we built a museum for Warhol, and it’s rather amazing how stark and empty rooms full of variations of the soup can picture can look. Still, they have some good traveling exhibits sometimes, but your comparison is so apt.
trixta

Okay, art is in the eye of the beholder, but I think Warhol is a genius. His work speaks to the culminating aesthetics and commercialism of the 20th century via the simulacrum (i.e. a copy of a copy, etc., which has no original source) and via the play on repetition. His work is brilliantly ironic, and is epitomized in his CAMPBELL SOUP CAN and MULTIPLE MARILYNS. Indeed, the images of the soup can and Marilyn are elevated to works of art NOT because of any “intrinsic essence” (which doesn’t exist anyway), but because, among other things, of the context in which these images are placed [i.e. a museum, an art exhibition, or art gallery]. Warhol follows in the footsteps of Duchamp and his infamous 1917 work URINAL, a readymade object (taken from its original context –the bathroom) which “became” a work of art because it was placed in an art exhibition). Like Duchamp, Warhol’s works are meant to be provocative.

To use your art metaphor, unlike Warhol’s playful works of art, Obama is just a thug and a con man. As a created thing, Obama can’t even produce himself as a copy because he’s too confused as to which “source” to base his copy on. Is he a copy of JFK, MLK, Ghandi, Lincoln, . . .? Who knows.

KintheNorthwest

I have a feeling he will be adding to his list of accomplishments “The Most Expensive Presidental Inauguration” ever.
Just_Saying

If there’s any president farther from Lincoln, I don’t know who it’d be. “I knew Lincoln, and you’re not Lincoln.”
.

oowawa

I’m sure Obama is planning on writing his inauguration speech on the back of a paper bag while he’s taking his triumphant train ride. (Meanwhile, Jon Favreau is hard at work on his laptop)

kgirl1028

and it will will probably start with “four score and seven years ago a great man once said ask not what your country can do for you but what you can for your country. Some poeple look at the the way things are ask why i dream of things that never were and I ask why not, because we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Keep hope alive because i have a dream.” People will call it the most original and brilliant adress ever written.

oowawa

He needs to fire Favreau and hire you, kgirl!
Indy G-Dog

i dream of things that never were and I ask why not, because we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Keep hope alive because i have a dream.”

And then perhpas he can segue into Richard Harris singing “to dream, the impossible dream:”

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

Yep, sounds like an Obama speech.

Perhaps working in “My Way,” and in times of trouble “MacArthur Park.”

oowawa

LOL G-Dog! Perfect! And perhaps, for the grand finale, Aretha can sing “When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high” while THE ONE is standing in his magnificent pose, chin up in the air, eyes closed.

Indy G-Dog

I agree, in fact, I think the canon for the Obama presidency has already been written:

“Where’s my beer?”

“Where’s my porn?”

“Where’s my cut?”

And if I’m jon

“Where’s my hair?”

Down, down the drain, but here, you can borrow my baseball cap — wear it backward while copping a quote from Lincoln, or Kennedy — you’re styl’in, d0od.

trixta

Ha! Ha! Brilliant, kgirl! You made my point about BO’s confusion! But I’ll bet that if he delivered such a confused speech his besotted Kool-Aid drinkers would still think it’s brilliant.

Wouldn’t it be fun if after his inauguration someone would translate his “historic” speech according to WORM (i.e. “what Obama really meant”)? Actually, it could be done on an open thread for all to participate in.

HARP

Does Obama`s train of thought have a caboose?

Baba Rum Raisin

The caboose has been replaced by something called a “FRED.” This acronym is alleged to stand for, “Flashing Rear End Device,” though I have heard other, more interesting explanations, none fit for a family publication.

Andrew P

Flashing Rear End Device?

Borrowed from MEchelle?

TeakwoodKite

Harp, Is Casey Jones the engineer?

I’m a Linda too

Auh yes, and those comparisons, along with the short comparison to Bobby Kennedy, (but Bobby’s children endorsed Hillary, so they shelved that one) wore thin, so they moved on to Reagan and FDR.

The cheap copycat wannabe. Aren’t we lucky.
Sonic Ninja Kitty

I, too, am gobsmacked that this flimsy poser got to the top. I am beginning to think it might be a good thing, though–McCain was a confused mix of ideologies. What we really need is a return to the original liberal ideology, which was one ‘favorable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms’ written about by Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek. Perhaps this coming Obama debacle will wake everyone up in a way a McCain administration would not have.
The Robot

Obama is a fraud with three main modes of operation:

Bamboozling (the snow-job), Hoodwinking (direct deception), and the Ol’ okey-doke (the side-step con- job).

I’m a Linda too

Very good. And we know he studied those practices well.
Baba Rum Raisin

This three-step process describes Life exactly as lived by my ex-wife…aka, “plaintiff.”
Nellie

Excellent summary and escription.
trixta

I think the great 19th-century writer Herman Melville wrote about this American archetype in THE CONFIDENCE MAN. In this literary context, perhaps Obama can be considered “American” after all.

jwrjr

Barak Obama – a legend in his own mind.
Sarah

you can’t even get tickets on the train. they were all sold out in 6 minutes after his announcement. crazy, huh?
Cat in NJ

Derail.
athy

PM317-
Thanks for this well-written article.
I agree with what you say.

Unfortunately- history books are written by the victors.

We are contemporaries of Barack Obama.

Many of us know what the truth is regarding his rise to power and his past record.

However, since he bought the election and is therefore the ‘victor’ in this presidential campaign…

he and his cronies- will make sure to ‘revise’ what we have witnessed during this campaign.

His enablers-including the msm, some people involved in educational reform-(Ayers & CK come to mind) , and book/magazine/textbook publishers – and others- will make sure to ‘rewrite’ what we are now bearing witness to.

Just like Jackie Kennedy made sure that the Kennedy name/image would be forever branded (Camelot), so will Barack Obama’s handlers make sure that the Obama name is branded too (MLK,Lincoln,Gandhi).

pm317

athy, you’re right, to the victor, go the spoils. Fortunately, we will all be dead if and when that happens (like bozo Bush said). Something tells me however that he may go the way Bush did. We have to keep writing this stuff. This post is for the reasonable people who did not do their homework in this election and then voted for him believing all that nonsense from MSNBC and such.

Gandhi by 47 was already on his way to correct social injustice in South Africa and then in India. Same sort of thing with Lincoln or MLK. It is really insulting for them to be talking the way they do. Who is that joker historian quoted in WaPo, right?
http://firefox AnnieCollier

Yes, there was no Camelot myth while JFK was alive. No one identified them as anything but a young, stylish, wealthy couple. Jackie did this to cement her place along with the kiddies.

Even now, Ayers is taking a page from her play book in trying to rewrite his history…he was actually heroic being an anti war demonstrator. I demonstrated against the war too but I wouldn’t have wasted spit on Ayers and his loony wife. You always had the feeling that the violent radicals were out of touch with reality. Just finished re-reading Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers”. It’s as if the PC liberals and Acorn are the reincarnation of the all that. Passed it on to my grandson, hoping he’ll see the resemblance to the jerks in the Democrat party today and how silly people can really do damage. Acorn definitely learned their techniques from the intimidation techniques of SF radicals fishing for free money.

trixta

I’ve never liked Tom Wolfe’s work, but I may just read this one.

oowawa

This train ride sounds like a logistical nightmare for the Secret Service.

Baba Rum Raisin

Secret Service managed it quite well for FDR.

Cathy in Ks.

Ronald Reagan was an actor turned president. (Actually I personally think Ronald Reagan wasn’t much of an actor and his greatest role was that of president of the U. S.) In Obama, it appears we may have a president-elect turned actor.

The democratic primary season and the democratic convention along with the national elections were the stuff of an overrated Hollywood blockbuster that bombs at the box office. However, I still hold out hope that this “imposter” with the help of some good advisers and a lot of prayers may turn out better than say “Geo. W.”?

pm317

He may or he may not. But right now I want his koolaid supporters to lose their hangover and hold his feet to the fire.

Diana L. C.

I am just getting too depressed thinking about him and thinking about the lack of intellectual curiosity in the majority of American voters. I am sad for our country.

It is hard not being about to particpate with the majority. I did so want to be happy about this election. Now I can’t stand to open a paper, watch t.v., etc.

Got to go to bed and dream of other things.

pm317

Take it easy, Diana. It will be a different day tomorrow.
rolling_thunder

Pastor Manning says “Stand strong. Don’t let the emissary of the devil defeat you. Don’t give up.”

TeakwoodKite

Pm317, so I google “Lincoln’s train ride to inauguration”, and what do you know?

Instead of getting Lincoln as the link, I get Obama this and Obama that.

Disgusting. As far as I am concerned he can bunee jump.

On the 13th page there was this gem about Lincoln train ride on the CIA’s web site, about “Saving Mr. Lincoln”

pm317

Google is manipulating its search results. There is an article where they admit the staff manipulates it. Knowing a thing or two about designing search engines, it can easily be done. It is a travesty that a “trusted” technological company has become political, a propaganda arm for Obama. Shame on them. I will use your comment here to write about it, if you will.

Magic Puzzle Box

Maybe that’s why I couldn’t find much enlightening on this Arne Duncan when I heard he was appointed Sec. of Ed. I hear he’s a Hyde Park neighbor and who know what else.

pm317

Teak, send me a note through Susan about what you tried to do and with your permission, I will use that as a jumping off point to show what they are doing and the rest. Thanks.

13th page, hah and your query did not even contain the word Obama. I am a Computer Scientist and you don’t know how this makes me angry.

rolling_thunder

Everything about this guy has been a marketing ploy. It includes grand imagery, glorified rhetoric, and incessant adulation and allegiance.

For a moment there I thought you were talking about Hitler.

What can I say> this whole thread is so dead on it needs to be framed.

pm317

You think it will convert an Obot or two? See the follies of their ways?

KathyNeocon

More pomp and circumstance from His Majesty. This guy’s ego knows no bounds. To even fancy himself as a Lincoln-in the making is blasphemy.

The higher His Majesty climbs the harder the fall will be. He’s at about 25,000 feet right now. Can’t wait to watch the little bugger fall back to sea level–SPLAT!!!
thetownecrier

Grand marketing ploy indeed! You are right – there is nothing original about this guy, other than the shameless copping from anyone previously who has made a grand name for themselves in history.

Wannabes are always such a disappointment.
TeakwoodKite

I feel really bad for the Secret service advance teams. BO’s ego is a very dangerous problem in terms of the resources required to secure a moving target such as a train. He has done this before and ala Denver and the Europe 72 tour…

If Obama can intend to use a wounded soldier as a photo op and then cancel and not go privately to see them, then he cares nothing for the safety of those around him. His indifference is going to get someone hurt.
beaming

Obama is Bush’s fault ? Will everything Obama does and the man or woman after him in 4 years [ one term and out ] be Bush’s fault.

Wake up folks, here’s how it happens in America;

Obama/ Biden- Executive branch
535 Senators and Representatives- Legislative branch
Supreme Court Justices- Judicial branch

That scenario existed in Bush’s administration also. I’m not defending anybody, there’s a lot of blame to go around. There are also alot of people to keep an eye on besides Obama. Congress is in the process of throwing this country down the drain and Obama will be more than happy to put his signature on the laws they write. Watch out for what comes out of congress as much as your watching Obama.

Oh well at least we weren’t attacked again after 9/11.

While I’m on a rant, why in the world would Hillary even want to associate with this administration soon to be in office ? Talk about associations.
lark

All you guys missed it specially mimi.

As usual, Obanana is ahead of schedule.

His train ride is the official beginning of his campaign for world president.

Yes, after POTUS is POTWWW.

mimi

Geez, can’t you people think critically?

The Bush Administration set the stage for the political climate which confronted the Primary and the subsequent election. People were so bummed out and angry over the Iraq War, the lies that were told to get us into that war, the trillion dollar deficit as well as a lot of other shenanigans during the Bush/Cheney regime: Guantanamo, Abu Graib, Alberto Gonzalez, Rumsfeld, not capturing Bin Laden, the loss of many civil liberties and this is only a partial list.

The result was that there was very little rational thinking in the election process this go-round and it opened the door for 0bama, a totally unqualified, lying, cheat of a man to get elected.

Will everything 0bama does be Bush’s fault?

Of course not!

Only an asshole would suggest something like that.

0bama is definitely on his own from here on in.

But that doesn’t mean that Bush didn’t set the table for him to eat off of.

And anybody thinking that Bush is too precious to be criticized considering the gargantuan mistakes he made as president, is not someone I care to have a discussion with.

Nothing 0bama does or doesn’t do will ever make me want Bush back. And from the looks of 0bama’s decisions so far, he’s continuing many of Bush’s policies.

Bush and 0bama are not joined at the hip in my book. Bush is the past. 0bama’s what we’ve got to deal with right now.

All I’m focused on is getting to 2012 and a new president and hopefully a presidential election process that was way better than this time out.

You Bush lovers and apologists need to get this: I ain’t letting W off the hook. He was a disaster. Big time. And no amount of 0bama fuck-ups is going to change that.

trixta

Mimi, you are so right!!!! I, too, will not let GWB of the hook — or anyone who supported him until it became unfashionable.

hootnannie

I guess Obama has to give his minions SOMETHING(a big show)because almost everything he’s currently doing, a la apppointments, is distressing them more than many will even admit. What so many of his followers wanted is just a symbol, and he can manage that for those who don’t look too deep. For those who want actual change, I guess they can either throw themselves onto the train tracks or twiddle their thumbs in frustration for 4 years. Then we may find ourselves with a Bush back in the WH.
DAB

That One is such a tedious, overweening, pretentious copycat!
Magic Puzzle Box

It’s not a marketing ploy. It’s actually fairly normal to talk about leaders like this…in Communist countries. How do they talk about leaders in Africa or Indonesia, by the way? Also, wasn’t the Gandhi thing what got Edwards into trouble with that PR woman? At any rate, it’s setting us up for some really unhealthy leadership dynamics.
Phillymiss

The adulation of Barky is sometimes bizarre. At my workplace one woman randomly shouted out “Obama!” If I yelled out “Sarah” I would probably be standing in the unemployment line.

First my daughter tells me she is going to the inauguration, then I hear there’s a good chance that Chris (“Mr. Tingles”) Matthews might run for a senator, now the Flim-Flam Man is going to begin his coronation (I mean, inauguration) festivities here.

I’m getting really, really depressed.

oowawa

At my workplace one woman randomly shouted out “Obama!”

Tourette’s Syndrome? This could become commonplace, perhaps accompanied by epileptic seizures and speaking in tongues.
DAB

Sorry about your daughter’s sudden dementia — I got one of those too.

trixta

We have a new syndrome called OBAMAUTISM.

interested party

Obama is no Lincoln, and the train ride Lincoln took (out of necessity, he after all couldn’t fly) not about Abe’s triumph entry in D.C.

From Thomas’s Abraham Lincoln:

The Twelve-Day trip to Washington was an ordeal. At last Lincoln must speak…These speeches, mostly extemporaneous, too often sounded trite.

The background is succession of southern states from the Union over the expansion of slavery into the west; a subject Lincoln, not relying on speech writers (which were not part of his entourage), had no clear answer for.

And this about his entry into Baltimore:

The President-elect listened calmly (to Alan Pinkerton and Norman Judd assessment of the situation in the city). He knew that feeling in Baltimore was tense. Street-corner gossip hinted that he would be stabbed or shot while passing through the streets, that his train would be derailed, or that he would be abducted and sent south on a boat lurking in the harbor.

and this:

The next day, after the speech at Harrisburg certain trusted members of Lincoln’s party were told of the danger and of a plan worked out by Judd and Felton. Soon after dinner Lincoln went to his room, changed his clothes, donned an overcoat, and, with a soft wool hat stuffed into his pocket, walked inconspicuously to a waiting carriage. Burly, devoted Ward Hill Lamon, a man noted as a rough-and-tumble fighter with whom Lincoln had practiced law in partnership at Danville, armed with two pistols, two derringers, and two large knives, jumped in beside him, and immediately the carriage took off for the station where a special train waited. As the train pulled out with its two passengers, all telegraph wires leading out of Harrisburg were cut.

Aside, one of Lincoln’s speeches on that journey was not in line with “generally mediocre performances”, I will put that against anything team Obama was ever said or will ever say on his upcoming extravaganza.

DAB

Presidents who inspired others usually did so as a by-product of what they actually did. Obama tries to manufacture his out of thin air i.e., “let me inspire you” sort of like “let me entertain you”.

I imagine that at some point people will begin to have a hangover from all this cheap heady stuff. I believe it is already beginning to happen in some quarters.

http://firefox AnnieCollier

Generally I can hit the mute button before the smarmy dialog for the “Obama plate” begins with the “see his kind eyes and confident smile”…eeeewwww barf.

It’s as if a Thomas Kincaid paint by numbers piece has come to life and speaks. Hey, maybe Axelrod can get Kincaid to paint the Abe train on a plate.

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http://AOL Jane Stewart

Are you jealous! Come on!
Eddie

I did not vote for BHO but since he won the election give him a chance and I hope the media provides the same garbage, garbage, garbage, to him when he makes mistakes (give me a break a Treasury Secretary that did not pay his taxes, ugh) that they did to our outgoing president. I may not have agreed with GWB but at least he was a real person not a public relations experience.