The President Obama Thread: 'Super Bears!' Edition

[Marx]

probably.

I feel pretty confident in saying that there would be another President Clinton right now had it not been for the media's love affair with Obama.

 

[Kelly]

*sighs*

I don't want to talk about that....

 

[Kelly]

Maybe SNL was mimicking the right-wing media's interpretation rather than making a lone observation.

Actually no, it was a parody of the CNN debate where Campbell Brown almost jumps Obama's bones...

It was the CNN DEMOCRATIC DEBATE, there wasn't a Republican or right-wing media person in the room....

SNL saw the difference in how the media portrayed Obama in comparison to OTHER Democratic candidates.....had nothing to do with the Republicans or anything conservative.

 

[Kelly]

His detractors played just as much of a role in the creation of a 'messianic campaign' as anyone else.

Had the media not handled Obama in the way they did, his detractors would have had nothing to play off of.....EXCEPT the issues....but the media didn't play up his thoughts on the media....they played up the "feeling" not the "facts". And the detractors jumped on that...

 

[Marx]

Had the media not handled Obama in the way they did, his detractors would have had nothing to play off of.....EXCEPT the issues....but the media didn't play up his thoughts on the media....they played up the "feeling" not the "facts". And the detractors jumped on that...

This is alot like the chicken or the egg? Which came first?

 

[Matt]

This is actually a fairly simple thing to break down.

The media created this messianic image of Obama following his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, hailing him as the savior of the Democratic Party prior to him even winning his seat in the Senate.

Obama played into the image, doing things like going on Monday Night Football to joke about whether he would run for president, overseeing mass production and distribution of the 'hope,' signs, etc. Obama would have no responsibility for the messianic image if his campaign was what he claimed on The Daily Show a month ago, "Change, but it'll take some time." But that was never the statement of his campaign. Even if it was unspoken, the message was very clear, elect Barack Obama and all the world's ills shall be healed. That was the implied message of the campaign (though his supporters will now deny that).

Then the Republicans and conservative media began to jump on him for having this image and began to criticize and oversell it. At that point the campaign began to distance itself from this image saying that they never played into it, that Republicans were being disingenuine, etc.

All three parties involved played a role in creating this image.

 

[DACrowe]

You're falling into the same trap that tea partiers and independents who don't do their home work will, in regards to Schweitzer. He is actually pretty damn liberal. At least as liberal if not more so than Obama. Don't let his opposition to gun control fool you.

Besides, it won't take someone more liberal to beat him. Simply someone who can give the image of being different from Obama. Jim Webb or Evan Bayh could get both moderates and liberals behind them simply be not being Obama. The more Obama pisses off the far left, the more likely it is they'll vote against him out of either spite or simply stay home. Both of which will be disastrous for Obama. Obama has lost basically all credibility with moderates. He needs the far left, otherwise he will be vulnerable to basically anyone.




I'm not saying Obama will be a dream for Palin. If he runs against Palin, Bloomberg will enter and that'll be a whole different story. But if he is running against Barbour, Romney, Huckabee, or basically anyone else, he is making himself a dream opponent.



You underestimatem Schweitzer.

I know what you're saying, but I still think you're misreading the anger on the left. They're not upset because he isn't a competent moderate, they're angry because he made a competent moderate decision...this compromise infuriates them. Hence the wild (and ridiculous) rumors on the Internet that he needs to go. They're mostly angry about no public option and this compromise.

Getting a more moderate Democrat will not win them over. They want a fire-breathing liberal and that is not who your suggestions are. The far left doesn't care what independents actually think. They're either very condescending towards them as ignorant and fickle (there is a lot of truth to the latter, I will admit) or they actually think independents agree with them. They argue HCR would be overwhelmingly popular if Obama did not "cave" on the public option. They think the middle class would rally to their principled stand next year as their taxes go up month after month until the GOP would understand that everyone wants to end tax cuts with the rich.

Is this a realistic perception of the independents? No. But that is their perception and they're the ones who are trying to get a primary challenger. Someone who has a moderate view on gun control, foreign policy, the military, healthcare or the like will not suffice.

 

[Marx]

*sighs*

I don't want to talk about that....

It's depressing to think about. I wanted a 'President Hillary Clinton'.

 

[Youk]

This is actually a fairly simple thing to break down.

The media created this messianic image of Obama following his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, hailing him as the savior of the Democratic Party prior to him even winning his seat in the Senate.

Obama played into the image, doing things like going on Monday Night Football to joke about whether he would run for president, overseeing mass production and distribution of the 'hope,' signs, etc. Obama would have no responsibility for the messianic image if his campaign was what he claimed on The Daily Show a month ago, "Change, but it'll take some time." But that was never the statement of his campaign. Even if it was unspoken, the message was very clear, elect Barack Obama and all the world's ills shall be healed. That was the implied message of the campaign (though his supporters will now deny that).

Then the Republicans and conservative media began to jump on him for having this image and began to criticize and oversell it. At that point the campaign began to distance itself from this image saying that they never played into it, that Republicans were being disingenuine, etc.

All three parties involved played a role in creating this image.

now you're taking a it a bit too far. you may not like him as president, but don't project your feelings into this and call them reality.

 

[Matt]

now you're taking a it a bit too far. you may not like him as president, but don't project your feelings into this and call them reality.

It absolutely was the implied message of the campaign, this whole transcending, above Washington politics, able to work without any constraints of party politics, loved by the international community image was purported by him and his campaign. And in terms of politicians, that is pretty damn messianic.

 

[Marx]

It's actually pretty damn common. Politicians have always claimed to be uniters and have the ability to work beyond party lines. Just because Obama was better at it doesn't change the fact that his basic message is a common tactic in politics.

 

[Youk]

It absolutely was the implied message of the campaign, this whole transcending, above Washington politics, able to work without any constraints of party politics, loved by the international community image was purported by him and his campaign. And in terms of politicians, that is pretty damn messianic.

just because he promised to try to move us past the divisive politics of the bush administration and actually make attempts at bi-partisanship, doesn't mean he claimed he could cure cancer. take it down a notch, dude.

 

[Matt]

Please show me where I said that Obama claimed to be able to cure cancer.

 

[Youk]

Please show me where I said that Obama claimed to be able to cure cancer.

not literally, of course. i was making a point that you're painting his campaign in unfair light

 

[Matt]

not literally, of course. i was making a point that you're painting his campaign in unfair light

Funny how you're complaining about someone else using hyperbole by using hyperbole. And I'm really not being unfair. His campaign was overly messianic, something Obama himself recently conceded on The Daily Show and said his message should've been, "Change, but it'll take some time."

 

[Youk]

Funny how you're complaining about someone else using hyperbole by using hyperbole. And I'm really not being unfair. His campaign was overly messianic, something Obama himself recently conceded on The Daily Show and said his message should've been, "Change, but it'll take some time."

i was trying to illustrate my point by adopting your tactic. it's really not that hard to understand.

oh really? obama actually conceded that his campaign was "overly messianic". can you show me the quote for that? "change, but it'll take some time" sounds nothing like that. what it sounds like to me is, "yeah, we're still trying to change the tone of washington, but it's not going to happen overnight.", which sounds pretty rational to me. whether it'll actually happen remains to be seen, but it's nowhere as exaggerated as you make it out to be.

can we not move on? the campaign is over, so it really doesn't matter at this point how you perceived it.

 

[DACrowe]

Please show me where I said that Obama claimed to be able to cure cancer.

You hold him to that standard. Not with optimism. You've hated the man since 2007 and try to hold him to hold him to the level of messiah that some (on both sides) labeled him as in 2008. And so when he falls short, you gleefully point out the obvious. You make mountains out of holes in the ground was his point. And it is fair, in my opinion.

 

[Kelly]

It's actually pretty damn common. Politicians have always claimed to be uniters and have the ability to work beyond party lines. Just because Obama was better at it doesn't change the fact that his basic message is a common tactic in politics.

Better at what? working beyond party lines? Are there examples....honestly I knew very little of him as a Senator.

 

[Kelly]

"I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God." - Evan Thomas, Newsweek

"Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway...Dismiss it all you like, but I've heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who've been intuitively blown away by Obama's presence - not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence - to say it's just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist wh*res, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul." - Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle


"I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often." - Chris Matthews


"I've been following politics since I was about 5. I've never seen anything like this. This is bigger than Kennedy. [Obama] comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament. This is surprising." - Chris Matthews


"It was the best speech I've ever heard. ... And I'm tearing up, and I'm writing down notes, and I'm trying to keep track of this thing. ... His heart must've been broken last night." - Chris Matthews


Historian Michael Beschloss: Yeah. Even aside from the fact of electing the first African American President and whatever one’s partisan views this is a guy whose IQ is off the charts — I mean you cannot say that he is anything but a very serious and capable leader and — you know — You and I have talked about this for years …

Imus: Well. What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: … our system doesn’t allow those people to become President, those people meaning people THAT smart and THAT capable

Imus: What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: Pardon?

Imus: What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: Uh. I would say it’s probably – he’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President.


Obama is, of course, greater than Jesus." -- Politiken (Danish newspaper)


"No one saw him coming, and Christians believe God comes at us from strange angles and places we don't expect, like Jesus being born in a manger." --Lawrence Carter


"Many even see in Obama a messiah-like figure, a great soul, and some affectionately call him Mahatma Obama." -- Dinesh Sharma


"We just like to say his name. We are considering taking it as a mantra." -- Chicago Sun-Times


"What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history" -- Jesse Jackson, Jr.


"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." -- Barack Obama


"Does it not feel as if some special hand is guiding Obama on his journey, I mean, as he has said, the utter improbability of it all?"--Daily Kos

"He communicates God-like energy..." -- Steve Davis (Charleston, SC)


"Not just an ordinary human being but indeed an Advanced Soul"
-- Commentator @ Chicago Sun Times


"I'll do whatever he says to do. I'll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear." -- Halle Berry


"A quantum leap in American consciousness" -- Deepak Chopra


"He is not operating on the same plane as ordinary politicians. . . . the agent of transformation in an age of revolution, as a figure uniquely qualified to open the door to the 21st century." -- Gary Hart


"In many ways, he's sent from God, because the world's a mess."
-- Sting


"Obama is my homeboy. And I'm not saying that because he's black – I'm saying that in reference to those Urban Outfitters T-shirts from a couple years ago that said, 'Jesus is my homeboy.' Yes, I just said it. Obama is my Jesus." -- Maggie Mertens, the associate editor at the campus paper at Massachusetts' Smith College


"Barack Obama is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings . . . He's our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence." -- Eve Konstantine


"[Obama is ] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom . . . [He is] the man for this time." -- Toni Morrison


"Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. . . . He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh . . . Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves." -- Ezra Klein


"Obama has the capacity to summon heroic forces from the spiritual depths of ordinary citizens and to unleash therefrom a symphonic chorus of unique creative acts whose common purpose is to tame the soul and alleviate the great challenges facing mankind." -- Gerald Campbell


"We're here to evolve to a higher plane . . . he is an evolved leader . . . [he] has an ear for eloquence and a Tongue dipped in the Unvarnished Truth." -- Oprah Winfrey


“I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored. That’s not routine. There’s something else going on. I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered. . . . I know that that was God’s plan." -- Bill Rush


Rabbi David Saperstein, reading from Psalms in English and Hebrew, noticed from the altar that the good men and women of the congregation that day, including the Bidens and other dignitaries, had not yet stood. Finally Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Church asked that everyone rise. At that moment Saperstein saw something from his angle of vision: "If I had seen it in a movie I would have groaned and said, 'Give me a break. That's so trite.'" A beam of morning light shown [sic] through the stained-glass windows and illuminated the president-elect's face. Several of the clergy and choir on the altar who also saw it marveled afterward about the presence of the Divine.
The Promise: President Obama, Year One, by Jonathan Alter.
(Simon & Schuster, May 2010 - p. 102)

A few quotes for discussion...

 

[Youk]

"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." -- Barack Obama

that's just grandiose rhetoric. i'm pretty sure he wasn't being literal.

 

[Matt]

that's just grandiose rhetoric. i'm pretty sure he wasn't being literal.

None the less, grandiose rhetoric," creates a messianic image! No one is saying that Obama claimed to be the son of God. What I am saying is that his campaign fed into the image that was created by the media.

 

[Matt]

You hold him to that standard. Not with optimism. You've hated the man since 2007 and try to hold him to hold him to the level of messiah that some (on both sides) labeled him as in 2008. And so when he falls short, you gleefully point out the obvious. You make mountains out of holes in the ground was his point. And it is fair, in my opinion.

I hold him to the standard that his campaign set. I hold him to the standard of the office that HE ASKED FOR. I held Bush to the same standard, I held Clinton to the same standard. Get over it.

 

[Youk]

None the less, grandiose rhetoric," creates a messianic image! No one is saying that Obama claimed to be the son of God. What I am saying is that his campaign fed into the image that was created by the media.

how is that different from any other politician who talks big and references biblical terms and events? anywho, run with this, man. show me more examples of his campaign staff try to present him as a messiah type.

 

[Matt]

how is that different from any other politician who talks big and references biblical terms and events? anywho, run with this, man. show me more examples of his campaign staff try to present him as a messiah type.

I'd say this image alone:

Creates a messianic image. Yes, his campaign didn't create it, but they mass distribute it. Claiming that your face is the symbol of hope for an entire country is a bit arrogant and messianic. I'd say going on Monday Night Football before you have even completed a full year in the media to play into the will he/won't he speculation regarding his run for presidency BEFORE HE EVEN SERVED A FULL YEAR IN THE SENATE is fairly messianic. Need I continue?

 

[Paradoxium]

Clearly there was no messianic undertone. People thought was just some cool dude who is really down to earth.