Sunday, March 16, 2008

No change   [Mark Steyn]

In The Weekly Standard, Andrew Ferguson writes on "The Wit And Wisdom Of Barack Obama":

What is unmistakable is the creepy kind of solipsism and the air of self-congratulation that clings to his campaign. "There is something happening," he says in stump speeches. And what's happening? "Change is happening." How so? "The reason our campaign has been different is about what you, the people who love this country, can do to change it." And the way to change it is to join the campaign, which, once you join it, will change America. Because this is our moment. The time is now. Now is the time. Yes, we can. We bring change to the campaign because the campaign is about change. We are the ones we've been waiting for. Obama and his followers are perfecting postmodern reflexivity. It's a campaign that's about itself. The point of the campaign is the campaign...

On his website the videos of his most acclaimed speeches have proved much more popular than the transcripts. As a candidate he fits a public that prefers the sensation of words to the words themselves. His speeches are meant to be succumbed to rather than thought about.

But what if you do think about them?

Among Ferguson's observations: Whereas every other shopworn cliche from Obama's stump speech is standard-issue bipartisan boilerplate recycled from Clinton, Bush, Kerry, Dole, Bradley, Gingrich, Dean and Ford, "We are the change we've been waiting for" apparently originates with "the left-wing-radical-feminist-bisexual poet June Jordan".

03/16 11:34 AMShare