I’m trying to keep myself out of unproductive political commentary this week, but this column from Lorne Gunter at the National Post is so astoundingly stupid I just can’t stop myself.
The criticism coming from the reactionary right reminds has degenerated into the kind of arguments I hear from people in my customer service job – merry-go-rounds of circularity, grasping at the most arbitrary facts, merely trying to come back with something to the contrary, regardless of how incoherent or irrelevant it is.
(Seems the right has learned a few things from the stupid, reactionary left…)
First Gunter claims the Obama campaign has contrived to stir echoes of John F. Kennedy. But if you look at Obama’s rise, no such connection is needed. Obama possibly surpasses Kennedy in terms of broad personal appeal — in a way that a true second-coming of JFK would not be able to do in today’s social realities.
Obama represents a shift in the leadership paradigm to the same degree that Kennedy represented a paradigm shift — in terms of attitude, background, and style — in his own historical moment. He challenges the conventions of what everyone expects a president ought to be like. Both for JFK and for Obama there is a novelty factor, providing an extra boost in attention and popularity; the “paradigm shift” doesn’t necessarily mean subsequent candidates must conform, but all subsequent expectations will be affected.
On the obvious and superficial level, Kennedy was the first “telegenic president”; several generations of hopeful candidates thereafter were inevitably compared to his standard, and compelled to exude something resembling natural easiness and charm, both on the public stage and in obligatory home movie footage, enjoying non-political, family activities, etc.
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton represented the studied perfection of that example; George W. Bush represented the paradigm running out the end of its course; John McCain, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, John Edwards, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee represent the last of the breed.
Which isn’t to say we won’t still see the likes of Biden, Palin, Romney or Huckabee in the presidency — just as it wasn’t impossible to see Richard Nixon in the oval office after Kennedy. The current generation won’t just get brushed aside instantly; it’ll take a decade-or-so for younger people who are watching these events to learn from Obama and take after him to provide other alternatives to the current conventions.
This really does change everything. Consider, for example, this reactionby Abbas Raza at 3QD today:
I want to state publically that this is one of the happiest days of my life.
Yes, I know all the reasons not to be too happy, thank you.
I am happy.
It is something to have one’s faith restored, to feel connected to something bigger than oneself, to feel inspired, to feel ready to give rather than take.
As a non-white person who grew up in Pakistan, I took it for granted that white men ran the world. My father served in the British Government of India. Now, there is a person even darker than me who will be the leader of the free world. It is a wonderful and remarkable thing, and a testament to the true beauty of America. I am finally undeniably proud to be a citizen of this crazy melting pot, this so pleasing instantiation of brotherhood and tolerance, this America!
Last year, I became a US citizen at a time when I almost felt ashamed pulling out my blue passport when traveling; henceforth, I shall display it with pride.
I have not slept all night and must get some rest. To my fellow Americans, and also to everyone else, my heartfelt congratulations. Believe it or not, the world has changed today. For the better.
There is much novelty and euphoria involved in all this, but a definite line has been crossed. Changes have occurred that can and will not be undone.
Maybe within a few years the US political scene might seemto be more of the same as before. But today there are 12, 20, 30 year-olds coming up in a world with different rules. The rhetoric of opportunity is suddenly much more real, their (our) life decisions in the next few years will reflect that knowledge, giving a different character to our education and the institutions that will emerge.
Getting back to old Gunter, he wants us to believe that Obama is more like Jimmy Carter than JFK. In what way exactly? He doesn’t say — doesn’t even try to say (though I suppose he might argue he doesn’t need to because it’s so obvious):
It was President Carter whose undermining of the Shah of Iran lead to the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Desert One debacle and, ultimately, to the nuclearized Iran we face today. It was Mr. Carter who sold out Taiwan and sold off the Panama Canal. He was also an appeaser of Communist Cuba and North Korea and an apologist for Palestinian terrorists.
So what does that have to do with Barack Obama? Gunter leaves it to our imagination — as he so obviously has left it to his own imagination – rather than working it out intelligently… This is a column worthy of Naomi Klein.
“The names Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter appear here in the same sentence, therefore they are the same… Boogedy-boogedy-boo!!!”
There is no historical precedent for Barack Obama — not even close — or rather, he’s an amalgam of at least a dozen-or-so historical figures, of which Jimmy Carter only serves is only the most one-dimensional kind of precedent, so any attempt to understand him this way gets complicated very fast.
The similiarities with JFK and Abraham Lincoln have already been widely discussed. A linear relationship with Martin Luther King Jr. is obvious. Similarities with the circumstances of Franklin Roosevelt’s election are increasingly prominent. Comparison with Woodrow Wilson’s academic background and global vision aren’t out of line. W.E.B. DuBois is another name that comes to mind… I could keep going but then I’d have to invoke Gandhi too — and that’s just getting ridiculous.
Somewhere there’s might be a kid or an undergraduate student (who perhaps stayed up all night in a state of Obama-euphoria) who’ll write a biography of the man in forty or fifty years, delineating these historical precedents in a somewhat sensible way. Until then, although it might provide some insight to have these historical figures in mind as heuristic references, it’s silly and misleading to make pronouncements about second-comings.
Barack Obama, more than anybody in a long time, is an original.
