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.”
