|
Post by concerned on Feb 17, 2008 12:03:04 GMT -5
www.crooksandliars.com/2008/02/16/the-cult-like-attack-of-obama/L.A. Times columnist Joel Stein is cited, calling it “Obamaphilia. Then two of the very serious people sect have their opinions presented, Conservative columnist David Brooks in the NY Times, through his alter-ego Dr. Retail: Meanwhile, Obama’s people are so taken with their messiah that soon they’ll be selling flowers at airports and arranging mass weddings. There’s a “Yes We Can” video floating around YouTube in which a bunch of celebrities like Scarlett Johansson and the guy from the Black Eyed Peas are singing the words to an Obama speech in escalating states of righteousness and ecstasy. If that video doesn’t creep out normal working-class voters, then nothing will.
|
|
|
Post by dgriffin on Feb 17, 2008 15:07:33 GMT -5
".... selling flowers at airports..." That's a funny line. On balance, though, this sounds pretty normal to me in regards to any candidate who attracts young and ideal folks. Not that all Obama supporters are young and idealistic, but those who would sell the flowers would be. I remember going to a Jack Kennedy rally in Utica in 1960. All the high school girls had just learned only a couple of years before through Elvis that they could scream in a group and get away with it. Kennedy got the benefit of it, whatever that amounted to. Obamaphilia .... sounds like a diagnosis.
|
|
|
Post by frankcor on Feb 17, 2008 15:52:51 GMT -5
How is it that if you criticize Obama's chant "yes we can" because to date it has been devoid of substance, you are labeled a cultist? How's that for substantive debate?
I like the quote from Will Bunch at the bottom of the article:
"But the real takeaway here is that passion + politics = cult.
God — the real one — save our political discourse."
|
|
|
Post by dgriffin on Feb 17, 2008 16:09:08 GMT -5
There is little discourse in modern poltics. Maybe there never was. Candidates don't debate real issues. They one-liner each other or creatively amend their "accomplishments." And they do it because the media lets them, without challenging them, right away, right now. I have to wait a few days to read about it on FactCheck.Org instead of hearing about it from the Newsitute.
|
|
|
Post by frankcor on Feb 17, 2008 16:12:08 GMT -5
I believe there was once discourse. Television ended all that, I think, when Nixon's beard made Kennedy a shoe-in.
|
|
|
Post by dgriffin on Feb 17, 2008 16:26:05 GMT -5
And when Reagan hired an advertising agency for his run for California governor. Wow, I'd almost forgot about Nixon's beard.
|
|
|
Post by rrogers40 on Feb 17, 2008 16:29:10 GMT -5
I believe there was once discourse. Television ended all that, I think, when Nixon's beard made Kennedy a shoe-in. No I disagree- before television you had things such as the "I Like Ike" "54 or Fight" and the ever popular "Ma, Ma where's my Pa?" of the 1884 election. Its never been about the issues- if it was half the people elected would never even gotten close.
|
|
|
Post by frankcor on Feb 17, 2008 16:32:48 GMT -5
rrogers, your evidence is compelling, I must agree.
|
|