Acting Like A President

Everybody still seems to be up in arms about the fact that President-Elect of the World, Barack Obama seems so hard to get a handle on.  Is he a centrist?  Progressive?  Socialist?  Liberal, conservative, communist, neocon?  None of the above?  All of the above?  Some of the above and a few of the below?  The short answer?  Yes.  Hillary Clinton has always known exactly who Obama is:

In an interview with ABC’s Cynthia McFadden, Sen. Hillary Clinton, when asked about the Barack Obama phenomenon, used a quote from Obama to describe her opponent. “I think the best description actually is in Barack’s own book” Clinton said, “where he said that he is a blank screen and people of widely different views project what they want to hear.” Clinton continued saying “he just hasn’t been around long enough.” Clinton continued saying “But with the blank screen it gives you a chance to just really infuse it with whatever you hope for, whatever you want without knowing.”

Of course, the quote to which Senator Clinton referred is from The Self-Chosen One’s book, “The Audacity of Hope” whose title was stolen from his disposable former pastor, whose sermons he didn’t really listen to, according to him.  From Time Magazine:

“I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.” (p. 11, 134, 355-61)

So, now that’s it’s semi-quasi, unofficially official that Obama will almost certainly for sure announce that his appointment of Clinton as Secretary of State is probably a 99% done deal, we can expect, with much more certainty, people from all over the political spectrum to continue howl in outrage about his cabinet appointments being a “betrayal” of his “base, whoever they think they are.  The question is, as it has always been, what’s up with the fuss?  Didn’t these people get the memo?

Some have compared Obama to limp lame duck president, George Bush, on policy, and more superficially.  However, the true thing both men have in common is much more basic than most people recognize; it is the essential element that makes them tick, and it is the one thing to which they owe their success.

They’re actors.

Neither man fits the description of a classic politician.  One gets the feeling that Obama would be far more comfortable pontificating in a classroom, while Bush seems like he’d be right a home in a bar.  Yet they both have an uncanny ability to morph into a compelling image of whatever it is we wish a president to be.  In 2000, after the press and the “vast rightwing conspiracy” had successfully designated Bill Clinton as a lying whoremonger, the country desperately needed a leader they felt they could trust.  Who better than the “good ol’ boy” down at the end of the bar in the “place where everybody knows your name?”  Similarly, Americans wanted to trust somebody this year too, anybody, as long as they bore no resemblance to the now lying warmonger, Bush.  So, just as Bush was able to play the part of drinking buddy while simultaneously claiming to be a Bible thumping teetoatler, Obama is adept at assuming the role of anti-war hawk, or whatever else you want him to be.

Obama, like Bush, is a tightly scripted front man.  In Obama’s case, he is so deficient as a natural politician that even his stump speeches came to be read from a TelePrompTer.  That this caused little controversy is a testament to the abilities of his handlers and the sway they hold over the mainstream media.  Though we know for a fact that he says whatever he’s told to say, his Messianic p.r. campaign is so effective that supposedly intelligent professional pundits argue passionately about his leadership qualities, his instincts, his acumen, his eloquence, his ability; even though the only evidence they have to back them up is of his reading skill.

The truth is just as Obama himself said; he’s a deliberately blank screen disguised as an adaptable political genius.  Like his predecessor, he is far from presidential, he’s just pretty good at playing one on TV.  In fact, Obama told Lynn Sweet just that after winning a Grammy for “Audacity of Hope” in 2006:

“I am going for an Emmy next. The best actor in a drama involving John McCain.”

Obama: He Is The Change, The Light And The Way

Like many people, I was skeptical, and a little offended, when Barack Obama insisted upon anointing himself the Obamessiah by repeatedly invoking phrases like “a light will shine down,” and “the oceans will rise,” etc., but it seems that many in the black community, even some in the clergy, bought that crap believe that he is indeed divinely inspired, ordained by God, or even possibly fully divine himself.  According to the Dallas Morning News, Larry Younginer, while not a clergyman, still went to his suburban Atlanta church the day after His Preciousness’ ascension to the presidency, and offered this prayer to the congregation:

“Lord, we have again come to you in prayer, and you have heard our cries from heaven, and you have sent us again from the state called Illinois, a man called Barack to heal our land,” said Younginer, a 62-year-old retired information systems worker at Coca-Cola in Atlanta. “We pray that you will build a hedge around him that will protect him from those who would do him harm.”

Despite the fact that the Obamessiah has not attended church on a regular basis, if at all, since he threw the pastor who “brought him to Jesus,” and who may or may not have baptized him, under the bus along with all the other inconvenient members of his flock, including the minister who some call the first viable black candidate for president, and his grandmother, the Morning News article is full of quotes from the faithful, many of whom see a direct line from Jesus through Martin Luther King to The One:

King’s sister, Christine Farris, would not say that Obama was sent by God. But she said she believes that, like her brother, Obama has a divine order from God and he has prepared himself to follow in the direction he believes God would ordain.

Yet, it is Younginer who seems most eager to play the role of proselytizer to the Star, comparing him to the Biblical John and Abraham as well as MLK and Jesus.  And, he wasn’t finished:

Obama’s positive message during the campaign was a signal that he had been anointed by God, Younginer said. And, he added, God put events such as Sen. Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the primaries, the economic crisis and Sen. John McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his Republican running mate in place so that Obama could win the presidency.

Rev. Joseph Lowery, who founded SCLC with Rev. King, seems to agree:

“I felt it in my bones that this was what God wanted,” Lowery, 87, said of his civil rights work. “We were called by God to preach the word and to minister. Obama was not called to preach, but he was called to lead.”

Well, I guess it’s a good thing that God’s on Obie’s side since he is the “change” we’ve been told that “now is the time” we’ve been waiting for.  If that’s the case, though, doesn’t that mean his work is done?

Whatever Happened To Patti Solis Doyle?

With the recent news that former Obama “monster-calling-the-kettle-monster,” Samantha Power, has re-upped (now that a suitable amount of time has passed since her “resignation“) as one of 14 members of the  Agency Review “team-within-a-team” for the State Department transition, another “where are they now?” question comes to mind.  Where’s Patti Solis Doyle?  Given that the two women (Doyle and Power) have both been hostile to Hillary Clinton, putting Power in a position to influence Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State is as much a slap in the face as was Solis-Doyle’s June addition to Team O, ostensibly as chief of staff to the then “as yet to be named” vice-president.  Now that Jo(k)e Biden has “as yet been named,” and elected vice-president, and has appointed Ronald Klain as his chief of staff, where’s Doyle?  And what was the purpose of hiring her for any position in the first place?

Solis-Doyle, was allowed to step down (shitcanned) as Clinton campaign manager in February, and was replaced by Maggie Williams, who served as chief of staff to First Lady Clinton, and had recently joined the team.  It was said at the time that Doyle’s “resignation” was primarily due to “family considerations,” not hurt feelings because of the addition of Williams to the staff, or Doyle’s soap opera watching incompetence in the face of a string of caucus losses which derailed Clinton’s air of “inevitability.”  However, make no mistake, she was canned.  So, why would Obama reward such incompetence with an obviously meaningless, mythical job?  Was it really just the big “eff yew and your veep hopes” many Clinton supporters took it to be? On Nov. 10, AP’s Beth Fouhy reported that Obama had offered Solis-Doyle a cabinet related position she was supposed to be mulling:

Democratic officials say President-elect Obama’s transition aides have approached Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former campaign manager about taking a senior White House post.

These officials say Patti Solis Doyle is considering taking the job, although she worries about the effect it would have on her two young children. She was contacted about possibly becoming Cabinet secretary, a job that involves coordinating the efforts of the White House and cabinet-level agencies.

That’s the last word I could find on Solis Doyle’s whereabouts.  But it makes you wonder, was Obama merely paying a political debt to an ally’s family member, as MSNBC reported he said in June?

“Patti Solis Doyle I think is a terrific experienced campaign hand. She’s from Chicago. Her brother and I organized on the southeast side of Chicago when I first moved to Chicago as a community organizer, so I’ve known the family for a very long time. I think that she will bring not only a set of skills that we’re gonna need as we put our ticket together but shes going to be a terrific adviser and offer insight and judgment that will help us.”

It should be noted that due to Doyle’s longtime association with Obama campaign manager David Axelrod, as well as her Chicago family connections, her name was being bandied about by the Obama camp in mid-May, according to Politico:

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former campaign manager and confidante, Patti Solis Doyle, and Sen. Barack Obama’s top adviser have informally discussed the former Clintonite’s going to work for the Obama campaign in the general election.

So, was Obama just clueless or cunning? Or, both?  Was Solis-Doyle a mole planted in Camp Clinton by Obama/Axelrod?  Or is she just a walking screwup-waiting-to-happen, turning everything she touches to crap?  That prospect makes knowing where she might pop up pretty relevant.  Then again, maybe Obama is just a lying manipulator, releasing Axelrod-inspired, Astroturf press releases designed to play the public.  A strong case could be made along those lines since “hiring” Solis Doyle put a female with a Hispanic surname on his roster, and Power always believed she would end up in his cabinet.  Speaking at Columbia University in March, Power said:

And, to the delight of many in the crowd, she even hinted that she could be part of that hypothetical cabinet. “Because of the kind of campaign that Senator Obama has run,” Power said, “it seemed appropriate for someone of my Irish temper to step aside, at least for a while. We will see what happens there.”

Considering that with her views on Israel, Power is considered worthy of State Department related rehire by The Most Awesomest President-elect Ev-er, and that Solis Doyle was given a job to nowhere for unfathomable reasons, it kinda makes Barack Obama’s “judgment to lead” a wee bit suspect, doncha think?  And it makes the prospect of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State seem like a deliberately laid rug about to be yanked just for the Camp Obama fun of it.