Signs and Wonders in Week One of the Obama Era

American Thinker ^ | January 27, 2009 | J.R. Dunn

[neverdem]

Last week I enjoyed the honor of having my essay on "Bush and the Bush Haters" featured on both Democratic Underground and Daily Kos. Glancing over the comments (along with those in a similar vein on RealClearPolitics) I saw that with few exceptions, they were the standard run of viciousness, nastiness, and obscenity that we've grown used to from the left in recent years. But there was another quality too, one that took me a little while to identify. What struck me at last was this: the left are not acting like winners.

People basking in a long-sought victory -- a victory that they can bank on -- behave in a certain way. There's a sense of exhilaration, of smugness, of tolerant condescension for the losers.   But there's none of that in any of the hardcore left-wing comments. No arrogance, no lofty amusement, but something else entirely, something that can only be characterized as a sense of near-hysteria crossed with frustration. It's an impression of deep insecurity, of people afraid that their triumph is ephemeral and is going to be snatched away from them. In their moment of victory, the American left is no less than desperate. 

What have they got to be worried about? They've got a president with a solid, if not resounding victory. With a popularity rating of nearly 70%. A man with control of both houses of Congress, and the world effectively at his feet. A man confident enough to insult the opposition party to their faces while demanding their cooperation. What can possibility taint the victory of Barack Obama?                                                                   

For starters, let's take a look at Obama's first public effort -- his inauguration. As democratic ceremonials, inaugurations are supposed to be a little ragged around the edges. They're not "coronations" comprised of rituals of a millennium's standing and timed to the last second, much as the European papers like to make the comparison. Like political conventions, they're supposed to carry some of the air of frontiersmen dancing on the tables with the triple-X jug going from hand to hand. But I doubt that even Andrew Jackson or Teddy Roosevelt at their rowdiest ever foresaw an inauguration like this one.

* First there's the oath, the fumble that's fated to go into the books. The Dems and their media pets have blamed this on Chief Justice Roberts, with a dismissive air, as if Roberts is a known halfwit long noted for such gaffes. In fact, the video clearly shows Obama running over Roberts' presentation. A minor error, and one that might even have been charming if not for the characteristically vicious Democratic response. Obama later repeated the oath to make certain he was covered, a pretty sharp move for a guy who never got around to releasing a legible copy of his birth certificate.

*The purple ticket fiasco must have sent a nice sharp tingle of relief through Obama and everybody else involved. Something on the order of three to five thousand spectators became stuck in a tunnel going beneath the Mall, evidently because no one was manning the gate leading to their section. (We don't yet have a complete explanation. D.C. authorities answered with a claim that it never happened. We may as well get used to this.) The crowd was stuck for over three hours, and miraculously, not a toe was trod during that period, an outcome that at least one spectator attributed to O's beneficent spirit.

Now, this is the latest example of the mythic Obama luck in action. Crowds in tunnels are about as touchy as so much plutonium. Even the most stable individual will begin to feel trapped after a few minutes in such a situation, and all that is needed is one or two claustrophobes or neurotics to set off a stampede. This is exactly the kind of situation that causes mass deaths in Mecca during the Hajj year after year. Nothing of the sort occurred this time around, but I'm a little leery of the fact that every move that the Big O makes seems to be predicated on luck, aren't you?

*According to the NY Post's trustworthy and credible Page Six, Mariah Carey is all in a huff over her seating assignment. Evidently, she thought she'd be on the platform, if not in the pres's lap, and went ballistic when she discovered that she'd have to sit with senators and suchlike trash. Now, it's true that she is a diva, and what are divas for but to throw hissy fits? But it seems to me a no-brainer that Obama would in some way want to acknowledge another successful individual of mixed race -- perhaps by making a personal greeting or something similar. This has to be marked as a missed opportunity. Bad staff work on this one.

*Another such slip occurred when Obama failed to appear at the Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball, an event celebrating the country's Medal of Honor winners. Surely, this could not have been intentional -- it's what happens when you overdo the festivities and have too many things going on at once. But all the same, Obama is the first president to skip the ball since its establishment in 1953. Not good.

*The indispensable Newsbusters gives us a related incident that went unmentioned in every other media outlet. It seems that a promoter named Dante Hayes skipped town after failing to make the arrangements for a promised Veterans Ball, leaving high and dry the hotel, the scheduled bands and performers, and "17 to 25 beauty queens", which must be some kind of record. The event was intended to raise up to $10 million for veteran's causes. How much of that Hayes made off with is uncertain.

Now -- doesn't anyone do a check on these people? Are there no such things as deposits or bonds? This may be a first -- I'm not certain I've ever heard of the like occurring at any previous inauguration. Again, lousy organizational work, and an embarrassing precedent in a week in which O has chosen to hard-pedal ethics.

*Another underreported story involves the response to Obama's making a point of saluting atheists in the line, "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers." A number of pastors, largely from black churches, have chosen to protest. It's difficult to grasp how somebody who was raked so badly and repeatedly concerning religion during the campaign would eagerly stick a foot into that bonfire once again, but that's what he did. It's also a bad move to alienate one of your most faithful followings, particularly since one clergyman, Rev. Cecil Blye, took the opportunity to give a well-aimed kick at O's abortion policy.

*And finally we have the market's spectacular kamikaze dive right in the middle of the celebration. This is easily explicable: Obama was supposed to come out and sprinkle fairy dust over the economy, ask everyone to believe real hard, and things would become all better again. For some reason this failed to occur, and Wall Street decided to take a brody.

It's difficult to see, lacking an easy supply of fairy dust, how Obama could have avoided this. But it does underline something that has been overlooked throughout the current slump: the fallacy of the Economic Man argument. Human beings are not economic robots mindlessly following ironclad laws. They are, in Isaiah Berlin's acute formulation, "Kettles that watch themselves come to a boil". Most of the problems of today's economy aren't economic at all, but functions of mass psychology. We'd be far better off if people like Bernanke, Greenspan, and Obama himself weren't continually quoted about how bad things are and how much worse they'll get, if reporters who insist on using the verb "deteriorate" were treated the same as the Iraqi shoe guy, and if the president's entire economic staff were given copies of Canetti's Crowds and Power and Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. 

All this is nonsense, my fans at DU and Kos will insist. (Or, as one modern Cicero put it, "batshit crazy whining".) A load of trivial incidents strung together at random that mean absolutely nothing. But in truth these things matter far more than we think they do. In 1916, the Emperor Karl of Austria-Hungary was leaving his palace for his coronation when the dynasty's two-headed eagle symbol fell clattering to the pavement. Two years later, the Hapsburg Empire was history, and Karl was just another Charley trying to get by amid the ruins of Europe. We were reminded this week by David Warren that, "The liberal mind -- now fully restored to power in the United States -- is in love with symbolic gestures."

Symbols cut both ways, whether the Dems like it or not, and the fact that we've just been through the most messed-up inauguration on record does not bode well for the American Moses.

Obama got through his "perfect campaign" (if we overlook Joe the Plumber, the birth certificate, and the Berlin Speech among other incidents), and the "flawless transition". (Putting to the side Bill Richardson, Blago, and Timothy Geithner) But eventually, despite the media's best efforts, his gaffes are going to catch up with him. (Particularly if he continues pulling things like last week's staring contest in the White House press room -- Mussolini used to do that too.) People are going to begin asking, where is the flawless superman we voted for, where is the miracle worker, where is man with an answer for everything?

Several months ago, I wrote a piece  for AT defining Barack Obama as a flake. People have asked me since, do I still believe that?

As the lady said: you betcha.

It's going to be a great four years.

J.R. Dunn is consulting editor of American Thinker.

[shibumi]

"People basking in a long-sought victory -- a victory that they can bank on -- behave in a certain way. There's a sense of exhilaration, of smugness, of tolerant condescension for the losers. But there's none of that in any of the hardcore left-wing comments. No arrogance, no lofty amusement, but something else entirely, something that can only be characterized as a sense of near-hysteria crossed with frustration. It's an impression of deep insecurity, of people afraid that their triumph is ephemeral and is going to be snatched away from them. In their moment of victory, the American left is no less than desperate."

Considering the manner in which this election was "won" and the office of POTUS usurped, it could be that the left is finding out that Ill-gotten gains are never as satisfying as those honestly earned.


.....or it could be that they're just jerks.

[dr_lew]

What would you call it when someone reacts with outrage--and it's characterized as some major slam against believers --because a segment of Americans who have always been here and contributed to the greatness of of the country is merely mentioned? You don't think that's petty and childish?

They weren't "merely mentioned", they were elevated to the same status as believers, which has never been done in Presidential discourse, AFAIK. Well, unbelievers have their rights, to be sure, but to equate unbelief with belief is indeed a slam against belief. It demotes it to nothingness, to be honest, mere personal whim.

[Darkwolf377]

America was explicitly founded on a belief in God, so it seems to me that if you deny God, you deny the founding principles of America, and indeed the very idea of The United States of America, as conceived. You're left with a rationalistic judgement that everything worked out great, but nothing like a belief in America, AFAICT.

That's a very creative and tortuous logic you've got going there. I happen to not believe any of it, and fortunately it is entirely useless and meaningless, as you are addressing something you know nothing about.

You are free to believe that I don't believe in America--a truly bizarre assertion to make. And talk about judgment--based on a couple of posts, you're able to judge my patriotism and most basic beliefs. I look back with nostalgia your fury at my making a single judgment about a comment, as opposed to a person's soul.

I am still bewildered by your intense reaction to my position, though I have a definite idea as to why you've reacted this way--it's pretty obvious, actually. But let's not get into that.

Take care.

[Darkwolf377]

They weren't "merely mentioned", they were elevated to the same status as believers, which has never been done in Presidential discourse, AFAIK. Well, unbelievers have their rights, to be sure, but to equate unbelief with belief is indeed a slam against belief. It demotes it to nothingness, to be honest, mere personal whim.

Not at all, it points out that belief is a choice. It is that or a form of slavery--you're not making the case that belief overtakes one ala possession? In that case, there would be no freedom of choice, and without that, belief is meaningless, more, it is offensive to the concept of one's god.

To claim that nonbelief is a whim would be offensive were I to care what others think. It is only offensive to the nature of belief itself, which you seem to think is a value on its own(Nazis, Islamists and Liberals believe, too--but then, you're more offended that I, a pro-life, pro-American conservative is allowed to be mentioned in the same breath as Muslims).

You are either confused or playing wordgames here. Belief is a choice of a personal view of the universe, based on personal experience and consideration, one the believer believes is the truth; nonbelief is a choice of a personal view of the universe, based on personal experience and consideration, one the believer believes is the truth.

I must say, your reaction is most interesting.

[Darkwolf377]

Considering the manner in which this election was "won" and the office of POTUS usurped, it could be that the left is finding out that Ill-gotten gains are never as satisfying as those honestly earned. .....or it could be that they're just jerks.

I think their reaction as described above is proof of what we FReepers have always maintained, based on the DUmmie FUnnies comments, for example.

Liberals are miserable, powerless people who believe they should be running the planet, and they would be, if only this world wasn't so unfair.

Combine that with hero adulation, which is a sign in men of a failure of masculinity and maturity, and you've got an anxious bunch who can only be made happy by something that will never, ever happen: They will not be getting phone calls from Obama putting them in some bureaucratic post ala the Soviet Union promotion of party apparatchiks with no experience to positions of authority over those who might have wronged or ignored them in the past.

The Obama fans aren't happy sitting in the basement watching this stuff happen, they want to be in on the decisions--yet I suspect most of them never get off their butts and talk to people not like themselves.

This is why you don't find as many on the right getting as wrought up. A true conservative put in a place of power would react in the exact opposite manner of a liberal. Instead of being thrilled at being in a position to control others, he would be anxious to do his necessary duty and then get back to LIVING. A true liberal would live in DC forever, making laws and more laws, shaping the lives of others too blind to live for themselves; a true conservative would run for office only to throw roadblocks in the way of such people, and hope more will follow him so he can get the heck out of DC and get back to the life he wants to live--without interference from anyone (other than those necessary things only government can do, defense, etc.).

So I guess this is a loooong way of saying yeah, they're just jerks.

[Darkwolf377]

“As the Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. . . .” —John Adams, the Treaty of Triploi

You should also look into the beliefs of Adams and Jefferson, whose beliefs in Christ’s teachings were more about their ethical foundation, as opposed to religious doctrine.

I am not saying nonsense like the Founding Fathers were not believers. I am merely pointing out that their belief in what makes an American is a lot broader than your own, apparently.

I’ll go with them over you.

(I suppose I should be grateful you’ve lowered yourself to spend all this time talking to a lowly non-American non-believer or whatever I am supposed to be, but...I don’t really care.)

Have a good day.

[dr_lew]

To claim that nonbelief is a whim would be offensive were I to care what others think. It is only offensive to the nature of belief itself, which you seem to think is a value on its own(Nazis, Islamists and Liberals believe, too--but then, you're more offended that I, a pro-life, pro-American conservative is allowed to be mentioned in the same breath as Muslims).

Muslims are the same wild card as nonbelievers. It's a question of communal understanding, a common language. If individuals have their personal doubts, that's their business, but the community must acknowledge a common spiritual bond, or else there is no community, and this is where we stand today. The "religious right" is a sort of rump parliament.

[Darkwolf377]

the community must acknowledge a common spiritual bond, or else there is no community

So Jews aren't 100% Americans either?

What are we atheists and Jews, 3/5th American?

Goodbye.

[kevinm13]

Although President Bush has left Washington, it seems that Bush Derangement Syndrome lives on at the left’s favorite websites. I hope it eats up the left taking Barry with them.

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

They weren't "merely mentioned", they were elevated to the same status as believers...

LOL, "status"!

[raybbr]

What struck me at last was this: the left are not acting like winners.

Where has this guy been for the last thirty years?

[Carley]

The left is the party of the perpetually pissed off.

[EBH]

We were reminded this week by David Warren that, "The liberal mind -- now fully restored to power in the United States -- is in love with symbolic gestures."

Here indeed is the catch, the importance of symbols to fascist regimes. 0bama is a symbol to the democrats. Listen carefully to them speak of the 0. He represents this, that, etc.

Now we have a group pulling together the 0 Little Blue Book of quotes. Symbols, words and as many here realize, empty rhetoric. Mussolini rose to power on rhetoric.

We didn't have the organization to stop 0bama's rise during the election cycle. The Clinton machine was effectively silenced and defeated. Democrats underestimated Bush, Republicans and Conservatives need to be very wary not to underestimate 0bama. He is slick, savy, arrogant, and plays the game not just to win.

Congressional Republican opposition is not enough to stop them. 0bama already has control over congress. Now he has fired the warning shot across the bow of Free Speech in attacking Rush Limbaugh. He will start to silence his critics and the people will approve.

They will approve because the symbol, the man who represents their future cannot fail. He is not inspiring faith in America, he is inspiring faith in failed men.

We failed to stop his election. There is no shame in failure, but what did we learn and how can we exploit that new knowledge? We know he and his ilk are using Alinsky rules, how does a freeman counter those tactics? We know he is developing a civilian corp., what should freemen be doing? We observe the rise of the challenge to Free Speech, shall we all become pamphleteers? The MSM is know propagandists, why do we still sit and not create our own media for public consumption?

[sirchtruth]

American can not exist without a belief in a creator, because it's the creator who gives inalienable rights. Even as an Atheist you must recognize this.

It's imprinted all over our history some of the founders were deist, but most were Christian. People who try to deny this country was founded on Christian principles, are ignorant of history or just plain try to deny the fact.

My question is "what" do you as an Atheist recognize as your "creator?"

[LS]

What were they promised? Rainbows, unicorns, falling sea levels, global harmony. Oh yeah, pie.

Well, I darn sure know what I was promised, and I'm searching like heck on the government websites for the Office of Individual Bailouts (OIB), but still can't find the dang thing.

[Just mythoughts]

While I should have known better, I was expecting more out of the left in their victory than what they have displayed. The real fight begins as these victors attempt to take the spoils.

The real ugly part is only about to begin as these ‘coalitions’ now have to fight each other over who paid more to get to play. The cast of characters on stage putting on this show do not particularly like each other all that much.

[Moonman62]

As the debt grows and the dollar falls...

That sounds like the W presidency to me.

[sergeantdave]

Leftists are incapable of rational thought. We saw it in Hitler as he overuled his military commanders and sent his divisions into suicide missions on the Russia front. That, arguably, lost him the war.

But leftists are, if nothing else, ego-maniacs. Nobama will crash and burn, along with his followers. Once they are inevitably caught up in their self-designed Blut und Boden rage, mistake after mistake will follow along with their eventual defeat and the movement’s death.

Nobama will mirror Lincoln in at least one aspect - he will be a president much hated in his time. He will go down in history as the anti-Lincoln as he tries to re-institute slavery on the American population with his Marxist philosophy.

This will be followed by a great re-awakening of American liberty and freedom. The pendulum will swing - that I believe. We are watching the imminent death of irrational leftism and blind hatred in America.

[depressed in 06]

True to their anarchist’s roots, the left has no end game. Their only objective is to destroy.

[the invisib1e hand]

this guy writes fairly well and it seems he knows it, which taints his material; he also seems to leverage the unprovable at times which is not good for credibility.

That notwithstanding, an image was called to mind while reading about the disappearing promoter: There's a scene in "Trading Places" in which Billy Ray Valentine invites all his friends from the 'hood to a par-tay in the mansion he's just been given the run of. It's a very socially telling scene.