Going to try to keep the politicking to a minimum today.
Had the tele on last night, and would you believe the fawning the major network news people are doing over Obama's Excellent Adventure? It was non-stop, apparently with every major journalist at ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN getting on planes, boats, hot air balloons, what-have-you, to try and follow His Grace on a trip overseas. I mean, how are they going to get any shots of adulation and worship from the Germans or French, when He is surrounded constantly by an adulating mass of journalists?
It strikes me as borderline offensive. No one cares when Bush, McCain, or even the heretofore unflappable Senator Clinton take trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. McCain went to Iraq eight times before now, I believe, and I'm unsure how many times he's been to Afghanistan.
But take a lawyer/alderman from Chicago, let Him serve for the grand sum of 143 days in the Senate, put Him on the ground for a few hours in Iraq or Afghanistan, and you will soon witness an adoring press corps fawning over His every suggestion, as the voice of Wisdom and Experience. Boggles the mind.
Limbaugh had a comical analogy for the behavior of the news networks; he called them helicopter parents, like Obama is their well beloved son going off to summer camp, with his doting, well-wishing parents hovering just behind, watching his every move and hoping he succeeds.
7 comments:
So in other words, the media was acting normal.
He's a good public speecher. That's about it, really. It's not like he's writing his own speeches or concocting his own policies. He speaks well and gives people warm fuzzies from their hearts to their heads. He's the 'new Kennedy'. Black Irish? Perhaps not.
I think that the saddest part of this is how little time he is actually spending on his short photo-op. Taking a gander at the lay of the land is hardly and investment. I despise McCain almost as much as Obama but I must give him credit for the amount of time he has spent in the Middle-East the last few years.
It will be interesting to see how true Obama will be to the kind words he gave to Israel.
I catch about the first 1/2 hour of Limbaugh's show, and he played, in contrast, snippets from Reagan's and Kennedy's speeches in Berlin. JFK was humourous because in almost all of his speeches, he ends up sounding more conservative than McCain, and he offers up fiery anti-communist rhetoric that would cause any modern democrat to blush. The party of Kennedy wants nothing to do with the ideologies he espoused, it seems...they just want his cultural appeal and legacy. "Let him come to Berlin!"
Ronaldus Magnus' exhortation to Gorbachev...I admit, we've all read and heard it a thousand times, but hearing him utter those words again, challenging Gorbachev to come to the gate, and open the gate, the electricity and genuine zeal of the crowds response to that challenge, it literally gave me chills or something like it. Simple phrases, but in context, it was impressive.
"General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Contrast the above with the Oprah-fied drivel that is streaming out of Berlin now:
'People of Berlin -- people of the world -- this is our moment. This is our time.'
What the HELL...does that mean?
This is our time? This is our moment? For what exactly?!
The brilliance of Obama's appeal is that he deals only in vague abstracts, which enable the simple-minded to fill in the blanks with whatever they desire.
And I don't think anyone should put too much stock in a horde of Germans applauding a public speaker at the Siegessäule. Last time they did that, it was for another brilliant public speaker, and he certainly brought "change" to Western Europe in the 1940s...
I despise Daniel Schorr for his constant hatred for everything. The interesting thing is that when you hate everything sometimes you land on a place of relevancy. If you have the opportunity listen to his extremely cynical view of Obama's Berlin speech (only like three minutes)it might be worth it.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92881887
Maybe its just me but Schorr's take was a lot milder, perhaps, than my take on it!
I'm a cynic at heart, but also an optimist. The Happy Skeptic, I suppose!
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