Who is he?

The unprecedented strangeness of the current circumstance is that we don’t know who the president-eleet is and what he believes in. Is he a radical? A moderate? A resenter of white America? Beyond all that? An empty rhetorician? A man with a plan? A genius? A bumbler? Given the multitude of contradictions he presents,—the most dramatic being his twenty years at the feet of a vicious race-hater, combined with his own moderate and pleasant personality—the truth is that we don’t know and can’t know who he is until he becomes president.

- end of initial entry -

E. writes:

I have changed my mind about Obama starting about a month before the election and continuing since the time after the election. As you well know, the mainstream media didn’t inquire much about Obama for the entire year he was running against Hillary and then against McCain, so those of us who cared were left to gleaning a tidbit here and there, mostly from his past life. I assumed that his past life told his story. Therefore I assumed that his community organizer activities and his local ward politics in Chicago and his association with Rev. Wright more or less defined who he was. I’ve known many Negroes in my life who fit this mold——endless resentments. Also, his wife was clearly a dyed in the wool Negro victim extraordinaire, who had nothing to her credit other than having been affirmative-actioned into all the best universities in America and some plush high-paying for no output jobs in the Chicago hospital systems. For all of this, she returned the favor by hating whites, which I’m sure she still does. So, I had assumed he was like his wife, since that is what the evidence showed. HOWEVER, since October or so, he has been a bit more in the national spotlight, and, since the election, he has been choosing advisors and Cabinet members. So … I’ve changed my mind. Although I think Michelle is what she seems to be, I now think that Barack is more like an empty slate who takes on whatever colorings suit his needs to be the most popular guy around. In other words, I don’t think we know his core beliefs because he has no core (beliefs or otherwise). He’s slick Willy (Clinton) to the power of ten, because Bill actually had core beliefs, maybe subsumed under his all-consuming desire to be on top, but Obama has only the all-consuming desire. He’s most easily compared to the girl in your high school class who would do anything and say anything and date anyone to be the Prom Queen. There is no there there.

Now this character is a first in an American president. OK. They’re all a bit full of themselves, but all the others had some point of view in regard to how they thought the country ought to be led. Obama has only his desire to be liked (loved) and to be numero uno. That’s why he seems (to you and me anyway) completely adrift now that he’s about to take charge. He does not have a clue as to how he thinks he ought to lead, so he’s entirely dependent upon the advisors he has chosen. This is like W. compounded by an order of magnitude.

LA replies:

Well, I’ve often said, among several other possibilities, that Obama could be a Zelig. That’s somewhat similar to what you’re saying.

Jim N. writes:

It seems to me that what E. is saying is that if Obama’s not a raging left-wing radical now, well, he soon will be. Here’s why I say that: The environment Obama’s taking charge in is completely unlike that into which Clinton entered. Although the House was still Democratic when Clinton took office, there was a reasonably healthy, outspoken conservative opposition for him to contend with, and of course after ‘94 that turned into a majority-driven congressional roadblock. Clinton was forced to govern from the middle/right. He simply had no choice, no matter what his core convictions were, short of throwing up one thing after another just to watch it die.

Obama, on the other hand, has no such effective opposition in his way, nor does there seem to be any reasonable prospect for any in the near future. For now, there is only clear, blue sky as far as the leftist eye can see, and the giddy collectivists and totalitarians are going to be the ones surrounding Mr. Obama in Washington—not just in the White House, but at cocktail parties, diplomatic tete-a-tetes, and all the rest. Hence, if he’s a Zelig who is going to be taking on the character of those around him, that’s hardly a comforting thought.

But then I don’t buy E’s blank slate theory, anyway. What he’s taking for a blank slate in Obama I see as little more than a poker face. I mean, I think Obama’s a genuinely amiable guy, and if anything is going to be our saving grace it will be that, because honest human friendship and good will wins out over ideology every time. But at the same time I have no illusions about the training he has received (i.e. his “education”) nor about the significance of the company he has kept. He has been raised and pampered by the left and will tend unerringly in that direction.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 08, 2009 08:48 PM | Send