Obama: Buying His Own Hype

Annie

Diamond Member
Nov 22, 2003
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Hubris is setting in, can't say I'm surprised. He couches it by way of expanding the analogy, but it's clear what he means:

http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/local/11992619.htm

Posted on Sun, Jun. 26, 2005


U.S. Sen. Barack Obama draws parallels to Lincoln

Associated Press

CHICAGO - Sen. Barack Obama sees parallels between Abraham Lincoln's life and his own, but he says the nation's 16th president might not have envisioned a black man occupying the seat he now holds.

Obama, who occupies the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois that Lincoln lost to Stephen Douglas in 1858, wrote about how Lincoln shaped his life in an upcoming special issue of Time magazine.

"In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat - in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles. He also reminded me of a larger, fundamental element of American life - the enduring belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams,"​
Obama wrote in a package dubbed 'Uncovering the Real Abe Lincoln,' on newsstands Monday....
 
Said1 said:
Blame Oprah, he was ok till he went on her show. :dunno:

Nah, I think it's his own personality, there is something there... At the same time, the DNC sees him as the 'Great Black Hope', who is one of their few bright lights.
 
Kathianne said:
Nah, I think it's his own personality, there is something there... At the same time, the DNC sees him as the 'Great Black Hope', who is one of their few bright lights.


I was kidding, I really know nothing about him.....other than a 5 minute clip.
 
Said1 said:
I was kidding, I really know nothing about him.....other than a 5 minute clip.

He's quite young, very educated and very bright. Very photogenic and has a great voice. Yet, something strikes me when I see/listen to him. I will try to catch him live, perhaps it's just weird to me that considering he was just entering the Senate, from a state that is overwhelming blue, running against a carpetbagger Republican, and was being brought up as a possible Presidential candidate for 2008...
 
Kathianne said:
He's quite young, very educated and very bright. Very photogenic and has a great voice.

That's the overall impression I was left with. Very charismatic and charming - which doesn't hurt of course. Since that's about all I know, I'll step out of this discussion. :cool:
 
Kathianne said:
Nah, I think it's his own personality, there is something there... At the same time, the DNC sees him as the 'Great Black Hope', who is one of their few bright lights.


Hence the importance placed on his winning this past election. He is being groooomed............ I can see it now Hillary/Obama 08 :stupid:
 
Bonnie said:
Ah go ahead say..................... :thup: :laugh:


Seriously though, something about this guy caught my attention and I pay about as much attention to politics at your state level as you guys do our provincial politics. He's so "slick", that's what makes me automatically suspicous - not just of him, of anyone like that in general. :terror:
 
Said1 said:
Seriously though, something about this guy caught my attention and I pay about as much attention to politics at your state level as you guys do our provincial politics. He's so "slick", that's what makes me automatically suspicous - not just of him, of anyone like that in general. :terror:
Yup, probably same vibes I'm getting. Great minds and all that! :thup:
 
Said1 said:
Seriously though, something about this guy caught my attention and I pay about as much attention to politics at your state level as you guys do our provincial politics. He's so "slick", that's what makes me automatically suspicous - not just of him, of anyone like that in general. :terror:

Most definitely, he could sell snow to Alaskans that makes him dangerous........
 
Looks like I'm in good company, ;)

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006884

PEGGY NOONAN

Conceit of Government
Why are our politicians so full of themselves?

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

What's wrong with them? That's what I'm thinking more and more as I watch the news from Washington.

A few weeks ago it was the senators who announced the judicial compromise. There is nothing wrong with compromise and nothing wrong with announcements, but the senators who spoke referred to themselves with such flights of vanity and conceit--we're so brave, so farsighted, so high-minded--that it was embarrassing. They patted themselves on the back so hard they looked like a bevy of big breasted pigeons in a mass wing-flap. Little grey feathers and bits of corn came through my TV screen, and I had to sweep up when they were done.

This week comes the previously careful Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better. "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles."

Oh. So that's what Lincoln's for. Actually Lincoln's life is a lot like Mr. Obama's. Lincoln came from a lean-to in the backwoods. His mother died when he was 9. The Lincolns had no money, no standing. Lincoln educated himself, reading law on his own, working as a field hand, a store clerk and a raft hand on the Mississippi. He also split some rails. He entered politics, knew more defeat than victory, and went on to lead the nation through its greatest trauma, the Civil War, and past its greatest sin, slavery.

Barack Obama, the son of two University of Hawaii students, went to Columbia and Harvard Law after attending a private academy that taught the children of the Hawaiian royal family. He made his name in politics as an aggressive Chicago vote hustler in Bill Clinton's first campaign for the presidency.

You see the similarities.

There is nothing wrong with Barack Obama's résumé, but it is a log-cabin-free zone. So far it also is a greatness-free zone. If he keeps talking about himself like this it always will be.

Mr. Obama said he keeps a photographic portrait of Lincoln on the wall of his office, and that "it asks me questions."

I'm sure it does. I'm sure it says, "Barack, why are you such an egomaniac?" Or perhaps, "Is it no longer possible in American politics to speak of another's greatness without suggesting your own?"


Even so sober an actor as Bill Frist has gotten into the act. This is the beginning of his Heritage Foundation speech yesterday:

You might have been wondering these last few months: Why would a doctor take on an issue like the judicial confirmation process? About 10 years ago, I set aside my medical career to run for the Senate. But I didn't set aside my compassion. I didn't set aside my character. And I sure as heck didn't set aside my principles. I got into politics for the same reason I got into medicine. I wanted to help people. And I wanted to heal. I just felt that, in politics, I could help and heal more than one patient at a time.​

I admire Bill Frist, but can you imagine George Washington referring in public, or in private for that matter, to his many virtues? In normal America if you have a high character you don't wrestle people to the ground until they acknowledge it. You certainly don't announce it. If you are compassionate, you are compassionate; if others see it, fine. If you hold to principle it will become clear. You don't proclaim these things. You can't, for the same reason that to brag about your modesty is to undercut the truth of the claim.

And there are the Clintons. There are always the Clintons. The man for whom Barack Obama worked so hard in 1992 showed up with his wife this week to take center stage at Billy Graham's last crusade in New York. Billy Graham is a great man. He bears within him deep reservoirs of sweetness, and the reservoirs often overflow. It was embarrassing to see America's two most famous political grifters plop themselves in the first row dressed in telegenic silk and allow themselves to become the focus of sweet words they knew would come.

Why did they feel it right to inject a partisan political component into a spiritual event? Why take advantage of the good nature and generosity of an old hero? Why, after spending their entire adulthoods in public life, have they not developed or at least learned to imitate simple class?

How exactly does it work? How does legitimate self-confidence become wildly inflated self-regard? How does self respect become unblinking conceit? How exactly does one's character become destabilized in Washington?

The Supreme Court this week and last issued many rulings, and though they were on different issues the decisions themselves had at least one thing in common: They seemed to reflect a lack of basic human modesty on the part of many of the justices. Many are famously very old, and they have been together as a court for a very long time. One wonders if they have lost all understanding of how privileged they are to have lifetime sinecures of power and authority. Do they have any sense anymore of common human wisdom, of the normal human arrangements by which Americans live?

Maybe a lot of them aren't bothering to think. Maybe Ruth Bader Ginsburg is no longer in the habit of listening to arguments but only of watching William Rehnquist, and if he nods up and down she knows to vote "no," and if he shakes his head she knows to vote "yes." That might explain some of the lack of seriousness in the decisions. Local government can bulldoze Grandma's house because it's in the way of a future strip mall that will add more to the tax base? The Ten Commandments can appear on public land but not in a courthouse, but Moses, who received the Ten Commandments can appear in the frieze of the House but he'll be sandblasted off the Supreme Court? Or do I have that the other way around?

What are they doing? All this hair splitting, this dithering, this cutting and pasting--all this lack of serious and defining principle. All this vanity.

Perhaps Justice Ginsburg or Justice Stevens will retire soon and write a memoir: Like Jefferson I held to principle, and like Lincoln I often lacked air conditioning. But in my intellectual gifts I've always found myself to be more like Oliver Wendell Holmes . . .

What is in the air there in Washington, what is in the water?

What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No. 1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?
 
In Frist's defense, George Washington didn't have a partisan multimedia conglomerate screaming, a thousand times a day, that he was a no-good son of a bitch. Mass media has changed the world; the "quiet hero" finds himself shouted down and buried under an avalanche of lies pretty quickly.
 
I actually hope Hillary runs in 2008 because I think the fact that Bill is still having problems keeping his pants zipped up will cause the media to go against her.

I also think, JMHO that Guliani would make a good president. I know a few people from NY and they really respect what he did for the city.
 
I have read several items and profiles of Obama. He strikes me as extremely rational, intelligent and ambitious. The reason many conservatives are unfamiliar with Obama is that he sits near the middle of the road and only rarely speaks out on divisive issues. He rarely ventures into party bashing.
Just my opinion here, but I believe Obama is seriously considering a run for the Democratic nomination in 2008. He might emerge as a compromise candidate.
Obama could be a formidable opponent. He is well liked among white and ethnic voters. He has (at this point) a fairly untainted past and does well in debates.
Hillary Clinton is a good talking point, but she will never get serious consideration. For one, she is a lightning rod that would unite both Republicans and moderate Democrats who disliked Bill Clinton. Even if Hillary somehow garnered the nomination, she would be slaughtered in the general election.
 
Obama seems to be a racialist first and a Democrat second. A Jewish Presidential candidate who used his time in power to focus on Jewish issues in America, and compared himself to Roosevelt or some other nonesense wouldn't have a chance in hell to win the trust of a majority in this country. The same goes for a White leader who made it clear he would fight for more White leadership in this country. At least this half white/black Great Dem Hope (Mother: Ann Dunhill, Hawaii) had the sense to marry into his black race to at least appear consistent about who he is really in the Senate to represent.

http://obamablog.com/images/thankyou.jpg


From the original link:

Obama, a Chicago Democrat who is just the fifth black senator in U.S. history, also raised questions about Lincoln's role in ending slavery.

"I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator," Obama said. "As a law professor and civil rights lawyer and as an African-American :smoke: , I am fully aware of his limited views on race. Anyone who actually reads the Emancipation Proclamation knows it was more a military document than a clarion call for justice."

Hilarious, since he is (half) African-American, his genetics has somehow endowed him with clairivoyance in speaking with former dead White Americans and their original intent. Beautiful!!! :laugh:

And as for what Lincoln may have thought about Obama's election to the Senate in 2004?

*Obama consults the spirits who lurk in his half black genes*

"He may not have dreamed of that exact outcome. But I like to believe he would have appreciated the irony," Obama said.

:poop: :puke:

Calling out Lincoln (who is long dead) on how his vision for Liberty for all men was really not about Black people? And this is the next Great Dem Hope??? OMG! :puke3:
 
Obama's Wikipedia entry gets more interesting:

Early life

Barack Obama was born at the Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii to Harvard University-educated economist Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a native of Kenya, and S. Ann Dunham, of Wichita, Kansas. Ms. Dunham is a distant descendant of Jefferson Davis, :banana: the first and only president of the Confederate States of America; she is also part Cherokee Indian [1]. :thup:

Massive racial credentials!!! But he is an African-American, because I guess if your part black and part white and part Cherokee, well, your still black, RIGHT OBAMA? But isn't that the stereotype we wish to end in this multicultural, all men equal, melting pot???

At the time of Obama's birth, both his parents were students at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "Barack" means "blessed" in Swahili. It is derived from the Arabic verb baraka, "to bless." In Islam, "Barakah" is a common masculine name of the same origin. [2][3]

Oh, that's just FANTASTIC to know that your name means something in Islam. And in Swahili. But in Hawaii it means gibberish. If I had to think of a Presidential candidate who was less well connected to any part of America through his cultural connections, you'd be it.

Of his years in Hawaii, Obama has written, "The irony is that my decision to work in politics, and to pursue such a career in a big Mainland city, in some sense grows out of my Hawaiian upbringing, and the ideal that Hawaii still represents in my mind."

Ahh yes... the struggles of Black People on the streets of Honolulu, I remember it well too.

When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father eventually returned to Kenya, and he saw his son only once more before his death in 1982. Ann Obama married another East-West Center student from Indonesia. The family then moved to Jakarta,

At the very least, he spent his formative years spent in an Islamic country with an Islamic name. My own Ango-Saxon name would get me an ass-kicking in such a countries Islamic society.

where Obama's half-sister Maya was born (Obama has other half-siblings from his father's later marriages).

This seems confusing... why mention how this Jakarta Stepdad becomes 'his Father' while the real Father is now tilling the soils (or tolling those tilling) in Kenya. I have to assume this Jakarta stepdad of Obama married several wives AFTER his marriage to the white American woman he woo'ed from Hawaii, Ann Dunhill, originally from Witchita, Kansas, who was left by her Black husband to raise her son on her own, penniless, perhaps. I don't know. Really, it all sounds peculiar. Was this Jakarda stepdad was some extremely wealthy shiek who simply earned the title of "Father" as long as Ann Dunhill was kept in the household? It's obvious the Mother was running in Islamic circles to have married into it twice, and there is no secret to how this system works to the detriment of both Western Women and their half-black offspring. So obviously both the Mother and the Son eventually returned to America, where real freedom and equality of races are maximized. I suppose they weren't happy in Jakarta, even with an extremely weathly and multiple-wived patron. :dunno:

When Obama was ten he returned to Hawaii under the care of his grandparents,

And then the Mother escaped her captor in Jakarta!!!

and later his mother, for the better educational opportunities. He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School, a prestigious academy that once taught the Hawaiian royal family. He graduated with honors.

All rich kids graduate with some kind of honors from Private schools. I don't see any kind of scholarship claim here so maybe the shiek in Jakarta was being pumped of cash in return for Ann being hush-hush about the multiple wife situation back in Indonesia. I hope that's not over the top. Is it?

College and career

Upon finishing high school, Obama studied for two years at Occidental College in California, before transferring to Columbia University.

Whoa! No one transfers to Columbia mid-study without having a serious kick in the pants from someone powerfull. Then again, affirmative action is not to be discounted. But still, good on Obama for maximizing his possibilities.

There he majored in political science, with a specialization in international relations. Upon graduation, he moved to Chicago, where he took up community organizing in the Altgeld Gardens housing project on the city's South Side. It was during his time spent here that Obama officially converted to Christianity (from being formerly secular) and joined the United Church of Christ.

:lame2:

The man with a plan did this to position himself for power, much like Clinton did to appease the religious majority in America. Yawn.


He left Chicago for three years to study law at Harvard University, where he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

Umm... that would be *First* half black(Pure Kenyan)/white(+Presidential heritige) + Cherokee President of Harvard Law Review. But as long as there is any Black then he *is* black, .... RIIiiiiight??? Or are the Libs the only ones who live by this rule?

He graduated Magna Cum Laude. While working one summer at a corporate law firm in 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson, whom he married in 1992. Robinson is also a graduate of Harvard Law.

Probably the sum of his entire experience in private enterprise, as a three month intern, in the Summer no less, who didn't return for a real job there later, offerred or not.

While in Chicago as a community organizer once again, Obama organized an aggressive voter registration effort that aided in the election of President Bill Clinton and Senator Carol Moseley Braun.

Meaning, something about getting out the Black vote. No problem with that, except that any other race in this country, like say, a Jew candidate who was 'getting out the Jewish vote' would also be viewed with the same wary eye from others, and would not be deemed suitable for a figure which would act in the best interests of all races and religions and creeds in America.

The campaign registered over 100,000 voters. Soon after, his talents earned him a position at a local civil rights law firm, and he became a lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, where he served as a professor until his election to the U.S. Senate.

I still don't see any real jobs, just state funded apparatti. And this Obama had the pretentiousness to actually relate to the Chicago Blacks in the ghetto?

Illinois General Assembly

In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate from the south side neighborhood of Hyde Park, in Chicago. He served as chairman of the Public Health and Welfare Committee when the Democrats regained control of the chamber. The Chicago Tribune called him "one of the General Assembly's most impressive members."

Regarded as a staunch liberal during his tenure in the legislature, he helped to author a state Earned Income Tax Credit which provided benefits to the working poor. He also worked for legislation that would cover residents who could not afford health insurance. Speaking up for leading gay and lesbian advocacy groups, he successfully helped pass bills to increase funding for AIDS prevention and care programs.

So utterly boring and contrived. "Impressive" he was not.

In 2000, he ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for Illinois' 1st Congressional district against incumbent Representative Bobby Rush. Rush received 61% of the vote, while Obama received 30%. [4]

After the loss, Obama rededicated his efforts to the state Senate. He authored one of the most progressive death penalty reform laws in the nation, under the guidance of former U.S. Senator Paul Simon. He also pushed through legislation that would force insurance companies to cover routine mammograms.

Yawn... yep, that about covers the whole Liberal agenda. All 14% of them who universally poll on such issues in America.

United States Senate campaign

Barack Obama joins his wife Michelle and U.S. Senator Richard Durbin

Now there's a iron weight on his future candidacy. The Senator who said something so irresponsible, he was forced to publically appologize for his remarks. Is Obama going to apologize for his remarks about Lincoln? Of course not, HE'S BLACK. (or half White and part Cherokee too), but regardless, he gets a pass. :banana:

for a parade on July 4, 2004 in Wheaton, Illinois.In 2004, Obama decided to run for the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, who chose not to run for re-election. In the Democratic primary, he trailed business tycoon Blair Hull and Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes. However, Hull was soon embroiled by allegations of domestic abuse. As Obama's name recognition rose, voters took a liking to the bright, charismatic senator.

Oh sure, we get a real rise over seeing such an intelligent, charismatic Senator on the TV screen. Yep, us 'Mericans sure love what the media tells us 'Mericans.

He won decisively in the March primary, dispatching the other six candidates easily, and winning more than 50 percent of the vote. His primary political consultant and message strategist was David Alexrod, whose firm, AKP Message and Media, produced the campaign's television ads.

I'd like to see the sources of these Hull allegations, but I'm sure they were typed out from the original memo and then the original was destroyed...

Entering the U.S. Senate campaign, Obama had become a national Democratic star. :alco: He squared off against former Goldman Sachs partner and teacher Jack Ryan, the winner of the Republican primary. Ryan trailed Obama in the polls, and Obama opened up a twenty point lead after the media reported that Ryan had assigned an aide to stalk Obama

Holy crap, Obama had the media on his side! Who woulda thunk it!

In addition, during the campaign, a California court ruling opened custody files from Ryan's divorce from actress Jeri Ryan, in which she alleged that he had brought her without her knowledge to sex clubs, intending for her to have sex with him in public. The files, which were part of the custody proceedings regarding the Ryans' young son, were opened as a result of a lawsuit brought by the Chicago Tribune and WLS-TV, a local ABC affiliate. Ryan had insisted that there was nothing damaging in the files, and many Republican leaders openly questioned Ryan's integrity following the release. Ryan was forced to leave the race on June 25, 2004, leaving Obama without an opponent.

Ohh, yes, I remember Seven of Nines assimilation of the evil Republican candidate against Obama WELL. This wasn't just State news, but INTERNATIONAL NEWS, as the Liberal media went into an orgasmic frenzy feeding over this allegation, which is still, well, just an unproven allegation. But everyone here remembers how the media brought down the Republican party in this state to make way for... OBAMA!!!!

And nobody in their right mind would piss of Seven of Nine. Resistance is futile. :ssex:


A campaign banner used by Obama supporters during his 2004 bid for the Senate. Former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka had considered running as a Republican to replace Ryan, but ultimately opted not to, citing family and business considerations. After many more candidates turned down the Illinois GOP, Republican state Chairwoman Judy Baar Topinka announced two possible replacements: Alan Keyes, a former ambassador residing in Maryland, and Andrea Barthwell, a DEA official. After much deliberation, Keyes was chosen, and he officially accepted the nomination on August 8. He had gained much attention as a conservative firebrand in his unsuccessful presidential campaigns in 1996 and 2000. The nomination was widely viewed as a victory for the more conservative wing of the party, and a loss for the more moderate Topinka.

Alan Keyes, that hatefull Republican who never had a real job a day in his live, who is the same as every other White Republican who cares nothing for the minorities of this country.

Keyes, a black conservative Republican, had an uphill battle, as Obama had high popularity across the state and Keyes had no ties to Illinois politics. During the time when he had no opponent, Obama campaigned across more conservative downstate areas that ordinarily served as the base for the Republican nominee. A Marylander, Keyes had established legal residency in Illinois with the nomination, the only requirement to run for office. The Chicago Tribune sarcastically greeted Keyes by editorializing: "Mr. Keyes may have noticed a large body of water as he flew into O'Hare. That is called Lake Michigan." [5]

Keyes's previous comments about U.S. Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton's run for Senate in New York, ("I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton's willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there, so I certainly wouldn't imitate it,") led many to call Keyes hypocritical. Keyes often rebutted this by pointing out that he was invited to run for the position in Illinois, whereas he claimed Clinton was not.

After a campaign in which Keyes called Obama's position on abortion "the slave-holder's position", accused gays and lesbians of being "selfish hedonists", and also claimed that Jesus would not vote for Obama, Obama won handily in the general election. Obama received 70% of the popular vote, to Keyes' 27%.

In conclusion, Keyes seemed like an idiot in this campaign, and Obama is certainly a charismatic and intelligent figure. But there are really only two positions to logically arrive at with respect to Obamas actions to his rise to power.

He is either identifying with his black heritage and challenging long-held White Liberators of this country purely out of intellectual saavy in order to position himself for maximum appeal in any upcoming Presidential election, or worse, he is honestly afflicted with the black (or Islamic) victimization in which America(having such a problem with this issue compared to the rest of the world) must spent a predominant amount of time and resources to rectify, War on Terror, or other genuinely bold positions Obama could choose to take, all them be damned compared to the 'unresolved' black/slavery issue.

Either way he is simply on the wrong track, and this man certainly doesn't have what it takes to earn the respect of Americas' majority.
 

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