The magic is gone
Bookworm on Dec 14 2009 at 8:58 am | Filed under: Barack Obama
There’s a certain romance to a dramatic flame-out. When a celebrity simply becomes passe, though, that person becomes as much a joke as Andy Williams or the Bay City Rollers. Enter Obama, according to Rich Lowry:
Barack Obama’s vibe used to be a cross between JFK and Beatlemania. Now it’s fading into “Oh, him again?”
There’s nothing wrong with a boring politician. But Obama isn’t becoming boring in a stolid, dependable Angela Merkel kind of way. He’s not boring like a mannerly George H. W. Bush or a thoughtful Bill Bradley. He’s boring like yesterday’s celebrity.
He’s the teen heartthrob who’s grown a little too old. He’s the star from The Real World Denver — three years ago. The cruel vicissitudes of the celebrity culture apply to everyone. If Paris Hilton can be overtaken by the even-more-pointlessly famous Kim Kardashian, no one is safe.
[snip]
An American president is almost by definition overexposed. But Obama has jammed a full term’s worth of exposure into a mere eleven months. Michelle Obama notoriously said during the campaign, “Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.” What she really meant, apparently, was that Barack would never again allow us to turn on the TV without seeing or hearing Barack.
The historic, high-stakes Obama speech is practically a fortnightly experience. Given the frequency, they can’t all be interesting. But in their tendency toward the crashingly banal, they all run together into the same mind-numbing oration.
In Oslo, his Nobel speech contained an admirable vein of realism. But he still dazzled with the obvious — war has been endemic to human history. He awed with the unconsciously egomaniacal — “I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.” (Did he really think that disclaimer necessary?) He sparkled with borderline nonsensical faux profundity — “we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected.”
Read the rest here. It’s funny, and right on point, as people become bored with their condescending, dithering, Leftist lecturer in chief.
Mark Steyn, of course, using Lowry’s article as the starting point, provides the perfect wrap-up to the self-involved boringness that is Barack Obama:
[T]he point of Barack Obama is to dazzle. That’s why he got all the magazine covers of him emerging topless from the Hawaiian surf as if his beautifully sculpted pectorals were long-vanished Pacific atolls restored to sunlight after he’d fulfilled his pledge to lower the oceans before the end of his first term. The squealing Obammyboppers of the media seem to have gotten more muted since those inaugural specials hit the newsstands back in late January. His numbers have fallen further faster than those of any other president — because of where he fell from: As Evan Thomas of Newsweek drooled a mere six months ago, Obama was “standing above the country . . . above the world. He’s sort of God.” That’s a long drop.
The Obama speechwriting team don’t seem to realize that. They seem to be the last guys on the planet in love with the sound of his voice and their one interminable tinny tune with its catchpenny hooks. The usual trick is to position their man as the uniquely insightful leader pitching his tent between two extremes no sane person has ever believed: “There are those who say there is no evil in the world. There are others who argue that pink fluffy bunnies are the spawn of Satan and conspiring to overthrow civilization. Let me be clear: I believe people of goodwill on all sides can find common ground between the absurdly implausible caricatures I attribute to them on a daily basis. We must begin by finding the courage to acknowledge the hard truth that I am living testimony to the power of nuance to triumph over hard truth and come to the end of the sentence on a note of sonorous, polysyllabic, if somewhat hollow, uplift. Pause for applause.”
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While watching the One I have wondered why SNL doesn’t copy that swing of the head as he goes back and forth to the teleprompters. I’ve also wondered why they haven’t noticed that fabulous cadence comes from reading line to line. Maybe more people are picking up on it.
As for what he actually says, the Nobel speech sounded good if you had been looking to have him finally say something nice about the USA. But the reality is he knows he is in deep trouble with the polling coming in so down. He has to triangulate. Do you think we will fall for another triangulator? I hope not.
More things to spoof: ping pong head from alternating teleprompters, whistling his s, and a clip of da da da da dum, with a rise and a drop on dum.
We occasionally watch sports competitions on a channel called Universal Sports. For months we have seen an Obama commercial (at taxpayer expense) for his US Service organization. The words couldn’t sound prettier and be more vapid.
Here they are:
“America’s greatness was not crafted in skyscrapers alone but on the ground by those who could see what needed to be done. Volunteers who had service stepped forward onto the dust of the moon (picture of moon) on the levy of the heartland (injured people on stretchers), the marble steps of a dream (MLK in WDC). You may ask yourself, where’s my moon, my levy, my dream. Well, it’s here. With you.
Step forward. Help renew America with US Service.org.”
The problem with this insipid ad is that when you hear it over and over it you notice his cadence and the shallowness of his words, even their illogic. Who thought America’s greatness was only in our skyscrapers? Huh?
My kids hear the question we so often ask ourselves (lol)- “Where’s my moon? My levy?” and they groan. They SEE it. He looks worse in repetition for sure.
I forgot to mention that sssss, do you think maybe he has false teeth.
Blues for Obama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vWL8jAWbP8&feature=related
I suppose we should be grateful that President Obama defended the record of the American people before the world, marking the first speech given on foreign soil that didn’t include a lengthy list of our failings.
But, like a classical leftist, President Obama heads into typical territory– tortured logic, vapid rhetorical flourishes, bent history– proving my supposition that leftists must have skipped science and history classes in favor of those of the “studies” sort– ‘The History of the Comic Book’ or ‘Deconstructionism for Fun’.
Here President Obama heads into the realm of history and philosophy, at which he is particularly weak:
“With the American Revolution, the notion of a “just war” (although the Founding Fathers did not use that name) first emerged. The just war contemplates a war fought primarily to advance individual freedom. In addition to having freedom as its centerpiece, a just war must be waged as a last resort or in self-defense; use proportional force; and, when possible, spare civilians.”
Possibly it’s only “mis-remembering” rather than willful misuse of history, but it does reinforce BW’s assertion that Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.
There is hope the Al Gore balloon may be deflating also. One of the GW scientists did a smackdown on him in Copenhagen.
Heh.
http://www.4-blockworld.com/2009/12/the-paradox-of-eloquence.html
Suek,
Right on!
I noticed that in the Alumni Updates in the State U Alumni magazine I receive, one alumnus included a photo of himself with Obama. The One had a Jimmah-quality smile. Will the alumnus include the Obama photo when he updates a year or two from now?