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Saturday, February 23, 2008

Megalobamamania

Some people on the Left (and some extreme libertarians, too) believed that George Bush wanted to start a war in the Middle East to bring about the Second Coming. I wonder if they are as creeped out by Barack Obama. Listening to his wife, you might get the impression that the Messiah has arrived. She tells us that our souls are broken and that Barack is the only one who can heal our nation. It's hard enough to get government to fix potholes, but souls??

His rallies are more like Benny Hinn revivals, complete with swooning attendees. I heard a string of audio clips from different rallies where a nearly identical sequence of events occurs: somebody faints and he says some variation of, "Is somebody feeling a little faint?" "Just make some space." "Can we get a bottle of water?" It's almost like a script. Maybe he's like Michael Jackson or the Beatles and some people just get overcome, but there's something disquieting about the consistency of it. Once or twice I can understand, but six, seven, eight times?

Barack Obama is the ideal candidate for a generation trained to value emotion over reason. His policies differ little with Hillary Clinton's, but Hillary is a rationalist and doesn't have the natural emotional language necessary to compete with Obama. It's like Leon Trotsky versus Che Guevara. While they were both communists, you don't see "Viva Leon" t-shirts. The fact that Obama's biggest fan--or prophet--is Oprah is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that his appeal has little to do with reason. That's not all bad, but like faith in Christ, it must be bolstered with sound logic at some point. Religion without reason leads to all manner of bizarre doctrines, or to a faith that disappears at the first disappointment. The risk to those overcome with megalobamamania is that they will be dreadfully disappointed when his campaign based on hope crashes into the brick wall of the reality of what he can actually do as president.