The Obama has been out of the news for the last couple days. I sure hope Anna Nicole Smith didn’t die again. The current media fawning over John Edwards' wife and his decision to continue to campaign is nothing less than I would expect from a lawyer of the lowest ilk. So The Obama Report looks back into the buildup of our subject's media platform.
Back in the 2004 Senate election, The Obama and Jack Ryan went head to head. The media remarked on how different the two candidates were. I don’t know what election they were watching, because Obama and Ryan were both Harvard lawyers who could have been on the cover of Men’s Vouge (which Obama was). The only real difference between the two men is in the fact that The Obama had a name that sounded a little too much like the FBI’s #1 and Ryan shared a last name with the most dispised Governor Illinois had seen in a long time.
I remember one particular picture of him that ran in the Sun Times or Tribune, where on the campaign trail, The Obama has stopped to use a pay phone at a roadside gas station. I thought to myself, "What a phony! I’m supposed to believe that this very money-laden candidate didn’t have a cell phone, and nobody else in his entourage had a cell phone, and the driver of his limo was without a cell phone! I bet the photographer used his cell phone right after that to tell his editor to hold the front page for him." Maybe this was his Adlai Stevenson moment.
In a November 1st Washingtonian article (two years from the next general election) Garrett Graff makes quite a buzz about the junior senator, and begins to set the stage for the media hype in a piece titled "The Legend of Barack Obama." There was one part of the coverage that reminded me of that phone booth picture.
As a member of the Foreign Relations committee, Obama is moving onto the world stage. An August trip to Africa found him visiting the cell where Nelson Mandela was held, talking terrorism in Djibouti, taking an AIDS test in Kenya, and visiting the rural village where his grandmother still lives...—it was Obama as beacon of American hope and optimism.
An AIDS test? So if he were visiting an inner-city Planned Parenthood, would he take a pregnancy test? (Good news Senator, the rabbit didn’t die.)
However the best line in the piece came in the form of a quote from The Obama’s own team.
Much of Obama’s allure is that he is new and exciting enough to be a sort of blank canvas onto which activists of all kinds can paint their aspirations. Says Chris Lu, his legislative director, "He’s like a Rorschach test——you see in him what you want."
Graff has hit the nail on the head. This mind-set is what fuels The Obama machine. When I look at The Obama, I see the new politician, a beta-tested Bill Clinton.
23 March 2007
21 March 2007
A Day at the Races
The March 12 issue of USA Today ran a fetching headline and image collage of Presidential buttons with all of the current (according to useless polls {at this useless stage of the game}) front-runners for the ‘08 Presidential election. I can only imagine the layout editor from TV Guide was brought in for this one. Every face on every button was a first. Hillary Clinton: First Woman. Mitt Rommey: First Mormon. The Obama: First Black (African-American). John McCain: first over 70(years of age). Rudy Giuliani: First Italian.
As an American who knows anything, I saw right through this ridiculous media hype.
-For the record, the first woman to run for President was Victoria Woodhull, in 1872. And just last cycle, former Illinois Senator Carol Moseley-Braun ran for the Democratic nomination. What the hell? Try this one on for size USA Today: First First Lady to run for President
- Mitt Rommey is not the first Mormon to run for President. In fact the First Mormon himself, Joseph Smith Jr. ran for President in 1844. Perhaps Mitt can be the first Mormon to run for President who does not get lynched.
- As short as your memory may be, you must have some recollection of another black man running for President. I’m just gonna toss out a few names, and you tell me when they ran for president: Rev. Jessie Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Ambassador Allen Keyes.
-The first man over 70, in recent history was of course Sen. Bob Dole. But if you want to get technical, President Regan was over 70 when he ran for re-election in 1984(and they do mention that in the article). I wonder if the title of First Vietnam P.O.W would intrest the editors. Anybody? No, but really, that might mean a damn.
-And the first Italian to run for President was back in good old 1928. A man with the strangely Anglo-Saxon name of Alfred E. Smith.
In any case, I'm going to buy my velour joging suit now. (and I wonder if Wikipedia can tell me who the first harp Presidential candidate was.)
The Obama fares most poorly in this history lesson, because his category was most recently dispelled in the 2000 election. And this by the candidate who ran against him for the senate seat he now holds. (best debate ever)
I remember not too many months ago when much ado about nothing was being made about the "firsts" of Super Bowl XLI. The sports "news" media was compelled to say that this was the first time two black(African-American) head coaches were going head to head.
The only real first The Obama holds, is that of the first half-black Presidential candidate.
(For clarification, I have never been the one to make race an issue. I have never personally researched the percent German, or English, or Jewish I am to receive scholarships, not that I have even looked for the opportunity. I have followed the thought that a man should be judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. But that belief goes against our current system of institutionalized racism.)
As an American who knows anything, I saw right through this ridiculous media hype.
-For the record, the first woman to run for President was Victoria Woodhull, in 1872. And just last cycle, former Illinois Senator Carol Moseley-Braun ran for the Democratic nomination. What the hell? Try this one on for size USA Today: First First Lady to run for President
- Mitt Rommey is not the first Mormon to run for President. In fact the First Mormon himself, Joseph Smith Jr. ran for President in 1844. Perhaps Mitt can be the first Mormon to run for President who does not get lynched.
- As short as your memory may be, you must have some recollection of another black man running for President. I’m just gonna toss out a few names, and you tell me when they ran for president: Rev. Jessie Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Ambassador Allen Keyes.
-The first man over 70, in recent history was of course Sen. Bob Dole. But if you want to get technical, President Regan was over 70 when he ran for re-election in 1984(and they do mention that in the article). I wonder if the title of First Vietnam P.O.W would intrest the editors. Anybody? No, but really, that might mean a damn.
-And the first Italian to run for President was back in good old 1928. A man with the strangely Anglo-Saxon name of Alfred E. Smith.
In any case, I'm going to buy my velour joging suit now. (and I wonder if Wikipedia can tell me who the first harp Presidential candidate was.)
The Obama fares most poorly in this history lesson, because his category was most recently dispelled in the 2000 election. And this by the candidate who ran against him for the senate seat he now holds. (best debate ever)
I remember not too many months ago when much ado about nothing was being made about the "firsts" of Super Bowl XLI. The sports "news" media was compelled to say that this was the first time two black(African-American) head coaches were going head to head.
The only real first The Obama holds, is that of the first half-black Presidential candidate.
(For clarification, I have never been the one to make race an issue. I have never personally researched the percent German, or English, or Jewish I am to receive scholarships, not that I have even looked for the opportunity. I have followed the thought that a man should be judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. But that belief goes against our current system of institutionalized racism.)
Forum over Function
Last Friday’s New York Times discussed the lack of experience in the current field of Presidential nominee candidates. All seemed to have political shortcomings. Former Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards, serving only one term in the senate. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Rommey, serving only one term. The Obama, still in the first term of his seat, with only nine years in the state legislature. (The article did not mention the fact that Sen. Clinton was also in her first term as a senator, the first elected position she has ever held. Ever! Ever! Ever! Ever!)
Of course, The Obama’s lack of experience was compared to that of President Kennedy, who is now considered generally a Washington outsider at the time of his presidential run. Kennedy did, however, have the experience of 14 years on Capitol Hill, and he was a decorated war veteran. Kennedy also had the backing of his father Joseph Kennedy, autocrat and Nazi sympathiser.
Comparing The Obama to Kennedy is a far stretch as far as I can see. Kennedy’s politics today would be called conservative, to put it liberally. Kennedy sold himself as the "All American." The only real comparison I can make between the two, is the way they could make love to a cold convex lense.
Is The Obama a Jack Kennedy? Perhaps only Lloyd Benson knows.
Of course, The Obama’s lack of experience was compared to that of President Kennedy, who is now considered generally a Washington outsider at the time of his presidential run. Kennedy did, however, have the experience of 14 years on Capitol Hill, and he was a decorated war veteran. Kennedy also had the backing of his father Joseph Kennedy, autocrat and Nazi sympathiser.
Comparing The Obama to Kennedy is a far stretch as far as I can see. Kennedy’s politics today would be called conservative, to put it liberally. Kennedy sold himself as the "All American." The only real comparison I can make between the two, is the way they could make love to a cold convex lense.
Is The Obama a Jack Kennedy? Perhaps only Lloyd Benson knows.
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