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2009-07-31 Home Front: Politix
Obama: "Behold, a god who bleeds!"
Jonah Goldberg, National Review

In one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, Captain Kirk is mistaken for a god by inhabitants of a planet of Native Americans (it’s a long story). The illusion works for Kirk until a jealous shaman cuts Kirk’s 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, let’s be fair, it is — but I keep thinking of that episode when I look Barack Obama’s poll numbers these days....All presidents go through rough patches, and Obama’s 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 isn’t 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 Obama’s 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, he’s sort of God.” Well, now he’s the god who bleeds, and once you’re the god who bleeds, it’s 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 2009-07-31 09:48|| || Front Page|| [11133 views ]  Top

#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.
Posted by Penguin 2009-07-31 10:27||   2009-07-31 10:27|| Front Page Top

#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.
Posted by Iblis 2009-07-31 13:02||   2009-07-31 13:02|| Front Page Top

#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 2009-07-31 13:42||   2009-07-31 13:42|| Front Page Top

#4 He's Zero, not The One!
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2009-07-31 14:06||   2009-07-31 14:06|| Front Page Top

#5 It takes a special kind of guy to achieve gridlock when he's got a filibuster-proof majority of his own party in Congress.
Posted by Matt 2009-07-31 15:03||   2009-07-31 15:03|| Front Page Top

#6 I'm waiting in vain for someone to point out that Christianity does have a God that bleeds, a _lot_...
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-07-31 15:24||   2009-07-31 15:24|| Front Page Top

#7 

Kirok is not amused.
Posted by Mizzou Mafia 2009-07-31 19:14||   2009-07-31 19:14|| Front Page Top

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00:40 Frank G









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