Economist: "The Obama Cult"

[HopeOverFear]

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14082968

IN JANUARY 2007 Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, said he was running for president to revive “our national soul”. He was not alone in taking an expansive view of presidential responsibilities. With the exception of Ron Paul, all the serious candidates waxed grandiloquent about their aims. John McCain said he modelled himself on Teddy Roosevelt, a man who “nourished the soul of a great nation”. Hillary Clinton lamented that America had no goals, and offered to supply some. And let us not forget the man they all sought to replace, George Bush, who promised, among other things, to “rid the world of evil”. Appalled by such hubris, a libertarian scholar called Gene Healy wrote “The Cult of the Presidency”, a book decrying the unrealistic expectations Americans have of their presidents. The book was written while Barack Obama’s career was still on the launch pad, yet it describes with uncanny prescience the atmosphere that allowed him to soar.

Mr Obama has inspired more passionate devotion than any modern American politician. People scream and faint at his rallies. Some wear T-shirts proclaiming him “The One” and noting that “Jesus was a community organiser”. An editor at Newsweek described him as “above the country, above the world; he’s sort of God.” He sets foreign hearts fluttering, too. A Pew poll published this week finds that 93% of Germans expect him to do the right thing in world affairs. Only 14% thought that about Mr Bush.

Perhaps Mr Obama inwardly cringes at the personality cult that surrounds him. But he has hardly discouraged it. As a campaigner, he promised to “change the world”, to “transform this country” and even (in front of a church full of evangelicals) to “create a Kingdom right here on earth”. As president, he keeps adding details to this ambitious wish-list. He vows to create millions of jobs, to cure cancer and to seek a world without nuclear weapons. On July 20th he promised something big (a complete overhaul of the health-care system), something improbable (to make America’s college-graduation rate the highest in the world by 2020) and something no politician could plausibly accomplish (to make maths and science “cool again”).

The Founding Fathers intended a more modest role for the president: to defend the country when attacked, to enforce the law, to uphold the constitution—and that was about it. But over time, the office has grown. In 1956 Clinton Rossiter, a political scientist, wrote that Americans wanted their president to make the country rich, to take the lead on domestic policy, to respond to floods, tornadoes and rail strikes, to act as the nation’s moral spokesman and to lead the free world. The occupant of the Oval Office had to be “a combination of scoutmaster, Delphic oracle, hero of the silver screen and father of the multitudes,” he said.

The public mood has grown more cynical since then; Watergate showed that presidents can be villains. But Americans still want their commander-in-chief to take command. It is pointless for a modern president to plead that some things, such as the business cycle, are beyond his control. So several have sought dubious powers to meet the public’s unreasonable expectations. Sometimes people notice, as when Mr Bush claimed limitless leeway to tap phones and detain suspected terrorists. But sometimes they don’t. For example, Mr Bush was blamed for the debacle of Hurricane Katrina, although responding to natural disasters is largely a local responsibility. So he pushed Congress to pass a law allowing the president to use the army to restore order after a future natural disaster, an epidemic, or under “other condition”,

[ixion]

1. uh-huh... and where was the economist when the fundies were

praying around the clock for *?

I mean, I know there are big Obama fans out there, but there are always fans.

And how about Reagan? The media fawned over him for decades... and he was an absolute idiot.

[anigbrowl]

3. Oh, there have been many entertaining critiques of Bush in there

This particular column seems pretty lazy to me, but they've just changed out their Lexington columnist so I'm assuming a new one takes 3 months to bed in properly.

[tj2001]

2. "A magazine written by young people pretending to be old people"

- Michael Lewis

[ControlledDemolition]

4. At work the other day someone told me that Obama has hardly said anything without a tele-prompter!

I don't immediately dismiss anybody. I stored the comment away for later scrutiny. Then I see how Barack handled questions from the White House Press Corps (after his speech on health care). His IQ is probably greater than that of every right-wing-nut alive today, combined!

[tj2001]

5. Yeah, but, but Rush said it, so it must be true

as we all know :)

[4lbs]

6. Should have told him that Bush used a teleprompter just as much, and still screwed everything up.

Also, watching that idiot trying to answer questions off the cuff was head-poundingly painful.

[ControlledDemolition]

9. Bush couldn't even use a tele-prompter... I remember him turning the page after every scripted...

... applause line whilst on the campaign trail.

[4lbs]

10. He had both a teleprompter and printed text before him.

He still fumbled all the words.

Dude was a grade A screwup.

[ControlledDemolition]

13. No arguments to the contrary from me. My point was that Jnr. couldn't even handle a 'prompter! n/t

(Edit: Fix typo.)

[grantcart]

7. ouch

[and-justice-for-all]

8. Just jealous because no one liked ShrubCo...

whereas Obama is popular globally.

[Peace Patriot]

11. The Economist should've been on this cult thing decades ago. Why now?

Because they suck, that's why. Crude, greedy corpo/fascists with a bit more polish than the Associated Pukes or Rotters. More kultchud, like NPR. But equally suckish.

I've followed their coverage of Latin America. Big sucking sounds, rather like monstrous farts, are emitted from their articles on this subject. Loud, varoomish and foul smelling. They can't help it. Their crudity will out.

I have a thought or two about the Imperial Presidency and the cult around it that the corpo/fascist media fosters. It's mostly an illusion, cuz the president of the US mostly has no power compared to the global corporate predators who rule over us. Theoretically, he or she could wipe all life off the face of the planet, with a nod toward the Secret Service Agent (or whoever it is) holding "the box." That makes it seem as if the president has the power of a god. He does and he doesn't. The "button" thing in a way merely puts a very undemocratic religious aura around the president. He can't really do it. It remains a theoretical power. Aside from that (kind of a big aside, I guess) he is only permitted to tinker with a vast system of humungous theft of the rich against the poor--if he is a good guy. And if he is a bad guy, he can hijack the US military for a corporate resource war, and do any goddamn thing he pleases--torture people, kill a hundred thousand people in one week to steal their oil, spy on everybody, write his own laws, whatever--as long as it serves global corporate predator interests. He doesn't have power. He has license--if he acts in their interest. And if he doesn't always act in their interest, he gets accused of fostering a "cult" by the assholes at the Economist.

:thumbsdown: :argh: :thumbsdown:

[TheBigotBasher]

12. Owned by a very rich PUMA bigot

Lady Fartarse or whatever the silly bigot name is, who gave them $$s and a modicum of credence, but whose real money went to Obama when the actual rag endorsed him in the General.

Not surprised. The Economist plays politics to create interest in what is essentially a bland and irrelevant magazine read largely by those pretending to have some relevance.

The owner speaketh with forked tongue.