Monday, July 14, 2008
The Audacity of Ego [Peter Kirsanow]
One consequence of the prodigious Obama ego described by Jonah and Scott Johnson is the candidate's tendency toward paternalistic lecturing. Over the last few months he's done some priceless hectoring:
We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times—and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen.
-and-
Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English—they'll learn English—you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. We should have every child speaking more than one language. It's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup.
Even Mrs. Obama seems to acknowledge this tendency by the senator:
Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourself to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.
4—8 years of this can get pretty tiresome.
The bully pulpit can be a good thing, especially when the speaker addresses something universal (e.g. the need for fathers) or with which he has unique or considerable experience. Nonetheless, while most of us might listen to someone whose judgment is tempered by experience, even paternalistic lectures from wise men can grate after awhile. I often resented lectures from my father who fought in WWII, survived a German POW camp, was tortured by and escaped from the NKVD, labored for 20 years next to the blast furnaces of Cleveland, Ohio and started a small business; but at least he had something to say. Obama's lectures grate in no small part because there's little evidence that he's had any life experiences more grueling or tempering than, say, casting a vote in the senate.
Despite Mrs.. Obama's claim that "Barack has seen it all" there's no evidence that he has any special insights or wisdom born of leavening experience. Again, to quote Bobby Rush on Obama, "Just what has he done?"
07/14 11:19 AM
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