What America truly needs is not a sycophantic public following a cult leader on a path of foolishness.
America as been fortunate in avoiding political cults of personality. The closest that we have come to it may have been the 4 terms that Franklin Roosevelt was elected to. We should note also that FDR was a special case. He was first elected during the Great Depression and continued into World War II. This form of crisis situation has been unusual, and while one might disagree with the way that President Roosevelt handled some aspects of them, he certainly understood the gravity of the situation and the need for America to take action to preserve itself. This is exactly the opposite of what we see with current Democrat presidential front-runner, Barack Obama.
Simply stated, and as a significant number of critics, both liberal and conservative have pointed out, Senator Obama is an empty suit; a candidate who talks in endless platitudes, but says nothing of substance, except that he wants to enact a myriad of tax and spend programs at home, while ignoring the true nature of its enemies abroad and emasculating the military. Perhaps he believes that the foreign dictators are foolish enough to fall for his charm. If elected, he will quickly learn that they will be more than willing to say anything, and then do exactly the opposite if it suits their interest at the time. As Neville Chamberlain sold out Europe to Nazi Germany, Senator Obama is willing to sell out the United States anyone and everyone who has an axe to grind and is willing to say the right things in public, regardless of their true intentions.
Sean Hannity has talked a lot about two focus groups that were asked if they could identify any of Obama’s accomplishments. Both came up with essentially nothing, which speaks volumes; the man really has done nothing, except promote his own political career as rapidly as can. Now, the fact that he can speak charismatically is really all that he is running on. People like what he says, regardless of whether it has any substance. I remember having a similar reaction to Jimmy Carter many years ago. I was a teenager when I told my, now departed, Mother that he said a lot of things that sounded nice, but there was nothing that I could identify specifically as practical or realistic. Obama is now doing the same thing. He talks about “hope” but it is a blind hope; faith that he has all the answers and that electing him to office will somehow solve all of America’s problems. To make matters worse, his campaign is taking on a messianic attitude. This may well speak of an even greater underlying danger.
Michael Medved recently asked of his audience why people are supporting this candidate. He received all of the usual empty answers about hope, unity and the like. In the end, there really was nothing of substance that anyone could identify. I have an answer; it is not one I like, but I believe that it is the truth; that Senator Obama is the candidate of the intellectually bankrupt. It is no wonder to me that so many young people are swooning over this charlatan. He is all show and no substance, like so much of modern entertainment. He is the MTV candidate. He is the candidate of people who love special effects and don't care about the plot. Politically they are oblivious to the consequences of electing someone who is as gullible as they are. He is their drug that will make all problems go away, but like with a drug, the problems don’t really go away and after effects are terrible. Enacting the Obama domestic policies would result in a quick trip to national bankruptcy. His foreign policies would create a weak, vacillating nation that will not defend itself because talking to an implacable enemy is always better than eliminating him. He has no realistic method for dealing with our national energy needs. In short, he is running on hot air, and despite his contentions to the contrary, empty words. He does not have the depth to create words of real substance and so he must rely on others to do his thinking for him.
Anyone who is willing to blindly trust an inexperienced, charismatic figure in our present situation is operating off of emotion, rather than intelligence and rational thought. This is precisely what a charismatic leader wants. It was the same with the people who followed the religious cult figures during the 1970’s. In the worst example, they let Rev. Jim Jones do their thinking and ended up dead from cyanide laced Kool-aid. Fortunately, the damage Jim Jones caused was limited to a relatively small number of people. Electing a President of the United States has far reaching consequences, and can make the difference between a nation that survives or dies.
Barack Obama is counting on a non-thinking, poorly educated public to sweep him into office. He is counting on people having decided that there is no longer any real threat from Islamo-fascists. He is also counting on no one understanding that a high tax, big government; super-regulatory state is a recipe for economic disaster. It seems that the vast number of his followers fit this model to a T. They don’t care about anything except the nebulous mantras of “hope” and unspecified “change.” As Dennis Prager likes to point out, change doesn’t mean anything unless it states what you are going to change from, how you are going to change it, and what you expect the end result to be. No one I’ve heard from seems to know exactly what kind of change is proposed or expected, except that he will magically unify the nation and make our challenges disappear. Change for change’s sake appears to be the fashion this year. Real, specific, identifiable changes, calculated to preserve American existence for the future are not high on any candidate’s list, unless you believe that John McCain will suddenly reach in a totally new direction and allow Michael Savage to formulate his policy direction in the same manner that he allowed Ted Kennedy to do.
What America truly needs is not a sycophantic public following a cult leader on a path of foolishness. What they need is to believe in themselves; to believe that they can lead themselves and take control of their own lives. They need to educate themselves to take charge of their own futures and avoid the empty promises of political con artists of any and all stripes. They need to be able to separate the true statesmen from those offering platitudes in the interest of self aggrandizement. And, if Americans need a messianic figure, then let it be the one they find in their church, rather than a self appointed demagogue who offers nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
slaib@intellectualconservative.com
http://intellectualconservative.com
Read more articles by Steven D. Laib
Steve: Good article. We went through exactly this same thing with Perot in 92. He made general, vacuous statements about trade, government waste, etc., and his supporters filled in the details themselves. Like Obama, they were voting for a vision (in this case, “reform”), not a set of pragmatic policies designed to accomplish an achievable objective. So it is with the Obama crowd. Instead of “reform”, they support “change”.
Unfortunately, this attraction of this kind of empty-suited rhetoric isn’t limited to the poor and uneducated. Obama is making gains across all income and education strata. Unless there is a tangible illustration of the need for an adult to be in charge during the next 4 years, Obama could very well win the election.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | February 20, 2008
From business boardrooms to military chains of command, from the halls of education to the levers of government power, perennial warnings to beware the charismatic leader seem all too often to go unheeded, perennially. Charismatic leaders use mastery of speech, fair appearance and choreographed body language to spellbind followers and bring new blood into the fold. The Intellectually Bankrupt and the Young and Impressionable may comprise the outriders of the movement, but emotions can override discernment in the best of thinkers, and when that happens, the emotional flood gushes, sweeping many along its path. Once the tide begins to roll, it gathers momentum (that word!) and becomes nearly unstoppable until its inertia diminishes over time. The charismatic leader runs a bifurcated risk of 1) believing his or her high-sounding (and usually simplistic) rhetoric, however far-fetched or impractical, and 2) of surrounding himself with fawning sycophants, creating a firewall against dissenting good advice — a prescription for disaster. But charismatic leaders do seem to be possessed of vision, and some may lead to dizzying heights — while others, far too many others, can take an entire nation straight into the abyss of hell. Caveat emptor.
Comment by MCSpearing | February 20, 2008
Opposed the Iraq war from the start.
Voted to end the war in Iraq.
Supports capturing and killing Osama Bin Laden.
Favors a $1000 tax cut for every working American family.
Will implement tax form simplification to reduce filing time.
Provide tax credit for all middle class homeowners.
Provide a tax cut for all families making less than $75,000 a year.
Amend NAFTA to protect American workers.
Amend NAFTA to strengthen environmental protections.
Providing Flex Ed training accounts for workers.
Extending Trade Adjustment assistance to service workers.
Supported Patriot Employer Act of 2007 that gives tax credits to large companies that keep workers here in America.
Double funds for basic federal research.
Implement a long term research and development tax credit.
Invest in green technologies.
Reduce carbon emission gases.
Tackle the challenges of global warming.
Create an energy focused youth jobs program.
Create Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard.
Extend the Production Tax Credit.
Expand Broadband into every community.
Keep the Internet tax free.
Expand high speed internet access in rural areas.
Fight for passage of Employee Free Choice Act.
Ensure freedom to unionize.
Would overturn "Kentucky River" classifications of Bush's NLRB
Protect rights of striking workers.
Increase the mininum wage to index it to inflation.
Crack down on predatory lenders.
Provide a universal mortgage tax credit for homeowners who don't itemize.
Sign the Stop Fraud Act to prevent lending fraud.
Mandate accurate loan disclosure.
Create a fund to protect people from foreclosures.
Close the bankruptcy loophole for mortgage companies.
Establish a credit card rating to improve disclosure.
Ban utilateral credit card charges.
Apply interest rate only to future debt.
Prohibit credit card interest on fees.
Prohibit Universal defaults.
Require prompt and fair crediting of cardholder payments.
Protect working people from unfair bankruptcy laws.
Ban executive bonuses for bankruptcy companies.
REquire disclosure of pension investments.
Cap outlandandish interest rates on payday loans.
Implement legislation to drive unscrupulous lenders out of business
Create a bankruptcy exemption for people that went broke because of medical bills.
Double funding for after school programs.
Extend Family and Medical Leave Act.
Encourage states to adopt Paid leave.
Expand the Child Care Tax Credit
Supports ratification of UN Convention Rights of Persons With Disabilities.
Supports independent, community based living for people with disabilities.
Expand educational opportunites for people with disabilities.
Expand job opportunities for people with disabilities.
Strengthen civil rights enforcement.
Sign into law the Fair Pay Act.
Sign law reversing recent SCOTUS rulings that permitted discrimination against women.
Sign law reversing recent SCOTUS rulings that permitted discrimination against racial minorities.
Strengthen federal hate crimes legislation.
Eliminate the sentence disparities regarding crack cocaines.
Establish drug courts for first time, non violent offenders.
Create a prison to work incentive for those transitioning back into society.
Passed a law to prohibit the practice of racial profiling.
Supported reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act.
Opposes all discriminatory barriers to voting.
Helped reform death penalty system in Illinois to protect innocent people on death row.
Voted to ban cluster bombs.
Provide high quality affordable child care to families.
Will quadrulple Early Head Start funding.
Will increase Head Start funding.
Creates early learning challenge grants.
Abolish overly rigid teach to the test curriculum in schools.
Improve accountability in public schools.
Invest in intervention strategies to reduce dropout rates in schools.
Increase funding for afterschool programs.
Supports Step Up program to increase summer learning opportunities.
Support English language learner programs.
Expand college outreach programs.
Create teacher service scholarships.
Requires all public schools to be accredited.
Create teacher residency programs.
Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit for higher education.
Streamline financial aid application.
Introduced legislation to increase Pell Grant to $5,100.
Reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.
Confront deforestation.
Promote carbon sequestration.
Accelerate commercialization of plug in hybrids.
Promote development of commercial scale renewable energy.
Invest in low emission coal plants.
Transition to new electric digit grid.
Double science funding for clean energy products.
Create Green Jobs Corps.
Invest in programs to help manufacturers make transition to green products.
Create clean technologies venture capital fund.
Deploy cellulosic ethanol.
Expand locally owned biofuel refineries.
Increase renewable fuel standards.
Establish national low carbon fuel standard.
Increase fuel economy standards.
Invest in solar energy.
Invest in wind energy.
Establish a centralized database to track lobbyist activities.
Appoint an independent watchdog group to oversee congressional ethic violations.
Favors campaign finance reform.
Sunshine on legislation proposal.
End abuse of no bid contracts.
Release presidential records in a more timely fashion.
Prevent political appointees from working as lobbyists within two years after employment has ended.
Reform political appointment process.
Sign ethics legislation that he proposed as a Senator with Russ Feingold.
Obama sponsored a bi-partisan bill allowing regular people to track federal grants.
Take leadership in the global fight against AIDS.
Provide tax cuts to small businesses.
Provide income tax cuts for all senior citizens making $50,000 a year or less.
Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Protect workers from caregiver discrimination.
Increase mentoring programs for beginner teachers.
Provide universal health care for all Americans within 4 years.
Combat fraudulent subprime loans.
Expand Nurse Family Partnership.
Provide automatic workplace pensions for workers.
Expand savings credit for retirement accounts.
Reinstate pay as you go budget rules.
Repeal Bush tax cuts for top 1% which led to lower middle class standard of living.
Slash earmarks to pre 2001 levels.
Abolish obsolete wasteful government programs.
Voted against raising the minimum debt in 2006.
Supports wiping out Al Qaeda wherever they may be.
Opposed Kyl Lieberman.
Supports tough attempts at diplomacy with Iran to protect America's interests.
Will work to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Restrengthen NATO.
Passed a bipartisan law with Senator Lugar to prevent smuggling of WMDs.
Introduced a bill with Senator Hagel to reduce nuclear arsenals around the globe.
Supports securing loose nuke arsenals from the former Soviet Union and elsewhere.
Strengthen Non Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.
Expand size of Army by 65,000.
Expand size of Marines by 27,000.
Provide our troops with new equipment and the tools they need.
Provide National Service troops with adequate leave time.
Will insulate the Director of National Intelligence from partisan politics.
Guarantee that health care can never be denied because of a pre-existing condition.
Introduce a health care plan similar to the one members of Congress have and give all Americans access to this plan.
Simplify the paperwork in health care costs.
Make premiums and co pays affordable.
Require mandatory coverage of all children for health care.
Expand SCHIP.
Expand Medicaid.
Reduce costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and employees.
Support disease management programs.
Require hospitals and providers to have full transparency over costs.
Promote patient safety by requiring providers to report medical errors.
Establish an independent institute to guide reviews + research on comparative effectiveness in health care.
Strengthen anti trust laws to prevent insurance companies from gouging medical providers.
Lower medical costs by having electronic health info systems.
Increase competition in prescription drug markets.
Advance biomedical research field.
Improve mental care coverage.
Reduce mercury deposits to help prevent miscarriages.
Increase funding for autism research.
Cosponsored Healthy Kids Act of 2007.
Cosponsored reauthorization of SCHIP in 2007.
Obama introduced legislation to establish guidelines to monitor fuels from nuclear power plants.
Sponsored a bill with Senator Lautenberg to protect chemical plants from possible terrorist attacks.
Introduced legislation to upgrade monitoring of water supplies.
Introduced legislation to protect localities from radioactive leaks.
Create secure borders with additional personnel and infrastructure.
Remove incentives for people to enter this country illegally.
Crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.
Invest in transitional jobs.
Improve transportation access to jobs.
Fully fund community block grants.
Create an affordable housing trust fund.
Establish a program called 20 Promise Neighborhoods.
Invest in rural areas, especially small businesses, schools, and doctors.
Implement a payment limitation program to help small farmers.
Protect family farms from anti-competitive monopolies.
Implement tough fines for CAFO violations.
Establish country of origin labeling for all products.
Support regional food systems.
Encourage organic farming.
Provide tax credits for young farmers.
Increase capital for small farmers.
Modify FCC so all rural residents have access to modern communications.
Upgrade rural infrastructure.
Supported legislation to reverse 2 billion dollars of agriculture cuts under Bush.
Cosponsored Emergency Farm Relief Act of 2006.
Sponsored a bill to combat the scourge of methamphetamines.
Expand Americorps.
Double the Peacecorps in 8 years.
Expand Service learning in all our schools.
Offer an opportunity tax credit for college students in exchange for 100 hours of community service.
Promote college work study programs with public service.
Expand on the YouthBuild program.
Create a Social Investment Fund Network.
Create a non profit entrepreneur agency.
Protect Social Security.
Reform corporate bankruptcy laws.
Strengthen laws protecting against age discrimination in the workplace.
Ensure heating assistance for senior citizens.
Protect the openness of the Internet.
Encourage diversity in media ownership.
Protect children from Internet predators with strict law enforcement.
Support transition of the internet into the digital world.
Preserve artistic expression.
Keep inappropriate advertising away from programs for children.
Enhance safety standards for toys imported into this country.
Protect the right of privacy of every law abiding American.
Update surveillance laws under the rule of law.
Higher salaries for teachers.
Work with the FTC to cut down on cyber crimes.
Eliminate teach to the test curriculum and restore true learning to the classroom.
Open up government to citizens by providing transparency.
Provide all our schools with broadband technology.
Modernize public safety networks.
Make the research and development tax credit permanent.
Protect intellectual property at home and abroad.
Reform the patent system to encourage innovation.
Allow all veterans back into the VA.
Strengthen VA care for all veterans.
Fight veterans employment discrimination.
Fix the benefits bureaucracy to help veterans.
Expand vet centers across the country.
Obama passed legilsation to slash red tape to help wounded soldiers at Walter Reed.
Introduced legislation to direct the VA and Pentagon to fix its veterans record systems.
Introduced legislation to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Rebuild the roads and bridges that need to be rebuilt.
Will end the genocide in Darfur.
Will restore habeas corpus to America.
Reject torture.
Close down Gitmo.
Pledges to obey the Constitution of the United States.
Will fully implement and enforce the Equal Pay Act.
End tax breaks for US companies sending jobs overseas.
Voted to reinstate 1.15 billion to the COPS program to reduce crime.
Wants to keep drinking age at 21.
Supports grants to local educational agencies.
Voted to protect ANWR.
Voted to protect the Great Lakes from polluters.
Favors labor and trade standards with trade with China.
Opposed CAFTA which hurts American workers.
Voting to give the District of Columbia its proper vote in Congress.
Voted to expand enrollment period for Medicare Part D.
Favors repealing the discriminatory don't ask don't tell policy.
Provide first responders with the health care and equipment they need.
Voted to implement the 9/11 commission recommendations.
Voted to restore money to ports and first responders.
Voted to establish a Guest Worker program.
Voted to increase the minimum wage.
Voted against anti-Constitution radicals Alito and Roberts.
Voted against the repeal of the estate tax that only applies to 1% of the wealthiest of estates.
Supports the first amendment freedom of religion clauses and establishment clauses.
Introduced a bill requiring public companies to give shareholders an annual nonbinding vote on executive compensation.
Protects our schools by opposing voucher schemes.
Introduced Biofuels Security Act in 2007.
Favors closing corporate tax loopholes.
Understands that global warming is a real problem that must be addressed.
Supports civil unions for LGBT couples.
Favors the death penalty in the rarest but appropriate of circumstances.
Comment by elvis22 | February 20, 2008
I presume comment 3 was meant to show the “substance” of the O-Man. Notwithstanding the fact that there’s no calculation as to how all the new programs will actually be funded (other than ‘tax the rich’, which is a slogan not a program), let’s take a couple of these substantive items and see if there is any “there” there.
Supports capturing and killing Osama Bin Laden.
** How? Invade Pakistan? Add X new troops to Afghanistan (what is “X”), etc? Get the UN’s permission first (and if not, why not?)
Amend NAFTA to protect American workers.
** What Amendments?
Expand Broadband into every community.
** How? Does the Federal Government do this? If not, which private sector companies do it? How much will it cost? How does this reflect the fact that the private sector is already doing this throughout the US?
Provide high quality affordable child care to families.
** Define “high quality”. Where will the people come from? How much will it cost? How will it be regulated? Will it be mandated?
Confront deforestation.
*** Like, walk up to a tree and say, “stop”?
Slogans and wishes are not actual policies.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | February 21, 2008
Posters who call Obama and empty suit haven't done a stitch of homework. Clinton is far less accomplished and only has name recognition.
So, here's some help (if you don't mind READING):
http://www.democrats.org/page/community/post/elizabethberr y/CtGQ
During the first 8 years of his elected service he sponsored over 820 bills. He introduced
233 regarding healthcare reform,
25 on poverty and public assistance,
12 crime fighting bills,
97 economic bills,
60 human rights and anti-discrimination bills,
21 ethics reform bills,
5 gun control,
6 veterans affairs and many others.
Empty suit? Only to the poorly informed…
Comment by Barry | February 21, 2008
Barry. I don't care what Obama did in the Illinois state government. What I want to know is what he intends to do as President of the United States, other than speak in platitudes about "confronting deforestation" and "capturing Bin Laden". "Change" is not a destination point, it's a process. We still have no idea about what these and other empty suited platitudes mean in actual policy terms. Slogans are not policies.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | February 21, 2008
My requirements are simpler. Would the author of comment number three please alphabetize these? It won't be any more precise or concrete, of course, but it will seem more organized.
Comment by MCSpearing | February 21, 2008
Barry — is sponsoring legislation the same as passing legislation. How many of those bills passed.
Comment by stutzenbach | February 22, 2008
Stutz: Don't you know that in Liberal Land, it's intentions (not results) that matter?
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | February 22, 2008
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Pingback by Stop The ACLU » Blog Archive » The Cult of Obama | February 26, 2008
“Barack Obama is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
Comment by horatiolust | February 26, 2008