- Oct 7, 2011
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Interesting article by Yates Walker.
When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse, Osama bin Laden once said. Shortly thereafter, if campaign literature can be believed, bin Laden was found, seized, then torn apart, limb from limb by the bare hands of Barack Obama with no help from anyone else. Period. But despite the presidents heroics, he may be falling victim to the late terrorists proverb.
No one, not even the presidents most breathless, fervent supporters, could argue that Barack Obama was elected in 2008 on the strength of his resume. It wasnt strong. Obama could boast a little about his academic achievements, but, without releasing his college records, he couldnt say too much. His legislative career wasnt impressive either. And he had never held an executive position. Never. This is a truth that cannot be overstated. The most powerful nation on Earth elected to its highest office a man who had never managed, directed or overseen anything anywhere not a brigade, not a business, not a committee, not even a campaign for the Illinois state senate. In the autumn of 2008, the entirety of Barack Obamas leadership experience consisted of running a local voter drive in 1992.
But he won.
For various reasons that revealed more about the country than the candidate, Obama was vaulted to the highest echelons of power on little more than a promise of change. He was an unknown, a blank slate onto which 53% of the nation projected their hopes. More than half of the electorate millions of sensible, smart Americans, accomplished people with degrees and wealth and private property participated in contemporaneous mythmaking about their candidates potential and greatness and potential greatness. With vague but soaring rhetoric, Barack Obama rode those myths to victory, and, in so doing, fulfilled and crystallized a strange aura of inevitability.
The very fact that he was elected president became the reason he should be president. It was somehow proof of his excellence and genius. Yes, he had the entire media apparatus at his back, singing his praises, but the electorate wasnt stupid. The electorate was complicit in the mythmaking, stitching their best wishes over their candidates blemishes. Obama voters became invested in these myths many still are because they felt virtuous by voting for him...
Read more: Barack Obama, the weak horse | The Daily Caller
When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse, Osama bin Laden once said. Shortly thereafter, if campaign literature can be believed, bin Laden was found, seized, then torn apart, limb from limb by the bare hands of Barack Obama with no help from anyone else. Period. But despite the presidents heroics, he may be falling victim to the late terrorists proverb.
No one, not even the presidents most breathless, fervent supporters, could argue that Barack Obama was elected in 2008 on the strength of his resume. It wasnt strong. Obama could boast a little about his academic achievements, but, without releasing his college records, he couldnt say too much. His legislative career wasnt impressive either. And he had never held an executive position. Never. This is a truth that cannot be overstated. The most powerful nation on Earth elected to its highest office a man who had never managed, directed or overseen anything anywhere not a brigade, not a business, not a committee, not even a campaign for the Illinois state senate. In the autumn of 2008, the entirety of Barack Obamas leadership experience consisted of running a local voter drive in 1992.
But he won.
For various reasons that revealed more about the country than the candidate, Obama was vaulted to the highest echelons of power on little more than a promise of change. He was an unknown, a blank slate onto which 53% of the nation projected their hopes. More than half of the electorate millions of sensible, smart Americans, accomplished people with degrees and wealth and private property participated in contemporaneous mythmaking about their candidates potential and greatness and potential greatness. With vague but soaring rhetoric, Barack Obama rode those myths to victory, and, in so doing, fulfilled and crystallized a strange aura of inevitability.
The very fact that he was elected president became the reason he should be president. It was somehow proof of his excellence and genius. Yes, he had the entire media apparatus at his back, singing his praises, but the electorate wasnt stupid. The electorate was complicit in the mythmaking, stitching their best wishes over their candidates blemishes. Obama voters became invested in these myths many still are because they felt virtuous by voting for him...
Read more: Barack Obama, the weak horse | The Daily Caller
