Posted on 12/29/2006 11:14:59 PM PST by jdm
Barack Obama visited New Hampshire, wowed the Democrats there and jumped up more than 20 points in the polls to a tie with Hillary Clinton, all of which means he could be in for it. “Where’s the beef?” more and more people will ask and already are asking, even including Gary Hart, the most famous political target of that withering inquiry.
In 1984, when he was trying to wrest the Democratic nomination for president away from Walter Mondale, Hart talked endlessly about the need for new ideas, even though it was not apparent he had any. Mondale noticed as much, and picked up on a humorous, then-famous Wendy’s TV ad ridiculing a competitor for having big burger buns with little in between. Hart, who never quite recovered, poses the question about Obama in far loftier terms in a piece on Obama’s latest book in The New York Times [NYT] Book Review.
“Truly great leaders possess a strategic sense, an inherent understanding of how the framework of their thinking and the tides of the times fit together and how their nation’s powers should be applied to achieve its large purposes,” Hart writes. “ ‘The Audacity of Hope’ is missing that strategic sense. Perhaps the senator should address this in his next book. By doing so, he would most certainly propel himself into the country’s small pantheon of leaders in a way that personal narrative and sudden fame cannot.”
“Beef” and “strategic sense” are here synonymous, as you doubly realize because Hart also instructs us that Obama is merely echoing 1970s neoliberalism when he advocates increased government spending on education, science and technology.
Hart praises Obama for some of his purposes - such as the inane notion of taxing oil companies more at a time we need their expensive, exploratory vigor - while concluding that Obama “has made himself into a figure of national interest, curiosity and some undefined hope.”
Undefined? Not really. It cannot have escaped the attention of many that we Americans are pretty unhappy with one another right now. We seem more partisan than ever, more divided, more ideologically separated, more angry at “the other side” than anytime since the ’60s. Then comes Obama, who gave an inspiring speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 about rediscovering our shared values - about being “a single American family” - and has since repeatedly argued in a personable, winning way that along with sticking to our individualism, we brothers and sisters can and must watch out for one another. That’s stirring stuff from a bright guy, and so you go exploring to see if he has himself shed ideological dogmatism and partisan backbiting, and here and there you are encouraged.
He’s not the kind of party man who never budges - he agrees with conservatives, for instance, that small businesses are over regulated and that liberals often turn shamefully to the courts when they lose in legislative bodies. But he ducked tricky positions in the Illinois Senate and his voting record in his two years in the U.S. Senate is pretty much what you would expect of any dyed-in-the-wool leftie.
And you sometimes find him as willing to swing an elbow at an opponent’s chin as Rush Limbaugh on his grouchiest day.
Instead of arguing cogently about the war in Iraq, he once called it an “attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.”
The Human Events article that alerted me to this demagogic trash talk also pointed out that Obama himself has conceded that Saddam Hussein was a mass-murdering seeker of WMD.
The truth is, Obama has nothing particularly original or interesting to say on any issue I’ve checked out - his immigration stance is roughly President Bush’s initial program of getting tough on illegal aliens by postponing their amnesty, for example.
Concerning those who say of his inexperience that Abraham Lincoln was also inexperienced, Peggy Noonan observes that “Lincoln had become a national voice on the great issue of the day, slavery,” and “rose with a reason.” Not so Obama. A piece in the New York Review of Books called my attention to the observation of an LA Times writer that Obama is “that oddest of all creatures: a leader who’s never led.”
He does seem capable of inspiring, and that can mean a lot. It would help if he would add some beef to the mix.
...the observation of an LA Times writer that Obama is “that oddest of all creatures: a leader who’s never led.”
I wonder...Who was the last Democratic President with substance? Truman maybe.
Obama is still in the "God bless Mom and Apple pie" stage. It
is pleasantry and bromides for now. Sooner or later he will need to ante up.
A white granular powder?
More like brown sugar. A man with nothing to qualify him for President.
But then he's facing a woman with nothing to qualify her for anything - except perhaps prison.
if the gop runner in the 2008 election is particularly weak, obama could be a jimmuh ii. i think he would sell better than hillary.
I am starting to get sick about now
Without using his full complete legal name, how can we tell?
"I wonder...Who was the last Democratic President with substance?" - clinton, but his substance was a prohibited one.
It's hard to have substance when all you are is Turban Durbin's sock puppet.
Obama is so very liberal when the real campaigning gets going he'll sink like a rock.
Obama is the Dems "Anyone but Illary Candidate" and the beauty of it is that she KNOWS it too!
How is she and her war room gonna go out there and blast/destroy a BLACK when her Hubby was the 1st BLACK Prez???
He can't serve what he doesn't have.
Pretty soon he will qualify for only initials in headlines, and that way they will not be able to avoid the "Hussein" word. Why? Because it must be "BHO" and not merely "BO."
About the title, isn't that the case for a lot of politicians, and especially Democrats? (rhetorical).
""...the observation of an LA Times writer that Obama is “that oddest of all creatures: a leader who’s never led.”"
I cannot think of a Senator who has led. That's why they are Senators and not Governors. Hillay led nothing. Obama led nothing. Biden, Dodd, Kennedy, Edwards.. Nada, zippo.
At least Richardson and Vilsak have led. These two might be the only ones that would have a shot with maybe a Senator on the ticket as a VP.
The only thing that Obama might have working for him is that he isn't a Washington insider so his idea for corruption at the local level probably wouldn't carryover to the Whitehouse. Everyone else is a POS.
POP QUIZ! When Barak Hussein "converted" to Christianity, what Christian name was he given or did he take? William? John?
Anyone? Bueller?
Does he now go by Robert Obama?
Anyone?
(crickets..)
LOL...Good one. His substance was a "controlled substance."
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