In one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, Captain Kirk is mistaken for a god by inhabitants of a planet of Native Americans (its a long story). The illusion works for Kirk until a jealous shaman cuts Kirks hand, revealing that the divine being is just a man after all. Behold! A god who bleeds! the shaman mocks, exposing Kirk as a fraud to the rest of the tribe.
It may sound like a stretch and, lets be fair, it is but I keep thinking of that episode when I look Barack Obamas poll numbers these days....All presidents go through rough patches, and Obamas no exception. Odds are his poll numbers will get better and worse in the years to come. All of this is typical.
But this misses a crucial point: Obama isnt supposed to be a typical politician. He was supposed to be The One. He was supposed to change Washington. Transcend race. Fix souls. Bake twelve-minute brownies in seven minutes.
Oprah promised Obama would help us evolve to a higher plane. Deepak Chopra said Obamas presidency represented a quantum leap in American consciousness. Last month, Newsweek editor Evan Thomas proclaimed that Obama stood above the country, above above the world, hes sort of God. Well, now hes the god who bleeds, and once youre the god who bleeds, its hard to get the divinity back in the tube, as it were.
Obama undoubtedly has major accomplishments ahead of him, but in a real way the Obama presidency is over. His messianic hopey-changiness has been exposed for what it was, and what it could only be: a rich cocktail of pie-eyed idealism, campaign sloganeering, and profound arrogance....
Posted by: Mike ||
07/31/2009 09:48 ||
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#1
Jonah Goldberg should read Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King" because that is where Star Trek got the bleeding god literary device.
#2
Obama undoubtedly has major accomplishments ahead of him...
Let's hope not. The key to Clinton's presidency was that he never got anything done. Newt was running the country and things were OK. Not great, but OK.
#3
I don't understand why Goldberg thinks the President's numbers are going to get better. The Democrats selected a candidate based on his ability to win the office, not on his ability to serve. The guy knows how to assemble a super campaign team and knows, himself, how to campaign well. But, with no real executive experience, little legislative experience and few close friends that can help him with these serious flaws, the gaffs will continue and get even more bizzare. We are paying a huge price for his mistakes and there will be many more.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/31/2009 13:42 Comments ||
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he nominates one-time United Nations 'Human Rights Commissioner' and President of Ireland Mary Robinson for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Mar never met a Durban conference or Hatin' Juice cause she couldn't get behind. By the way good pic at the link for Dr. Steve or Fred to steal
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/31/2009 18:55 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Jonah Goldberg, National Review
