I can't believe another diary about Barack Obama is taking up space on the recommended list. Kudos and no offense intended to TocqueDeville for the diary -- it was well written, personal, and compassionate. And I'm glad there's a place like this for people to express themselves.
But what the hell is wrong with the rest of you? This on-going debate about whether Barack Obama is a good person or a bad person can be summed up in four words:
Who the hell knows?
And we sure as hell won't figure it out here.
Meanwhile, an important diary showing that Harriet Miers probably plagiarized someone's work for the White House web site dropped quietly down the recent diary list.
Unless you've spent time with the man,
you have no clue what's underneath Obama's skin.
None. His speeches tell you two things:
he's a great orator and has a great speech writer.
Have you learned nothing from the current adminstration?
Politicians you see on television are tightly crafted images, the end product of focus groups, polls, and professional consultants. One PR firm, who shall remain nameless, has received $1 million already this year from the GOP.
Your contributions -- those real, hard-earned dollars -- freely given to Democrats and Republican candidates alike, get spent on public relations firms and postage stamps.
Postage. Millions of dollars of income, that's already been taxed, shoved right back into the federal government as postage, so Americans can get glossy brochures in their mailboxes.
You think you can look at Barack Obama, listen to a speech someone wrote for him, and decide based on his charisma if he'll be a good politician?
When I was 17, I was crushed to learn that Bruce Springsteen's cool, beat-up looking, everyman tee-shirts were specially made for him by a tailor. I was crushed, but at least I learned something.
Yet I have no doubts our next President will still be elected based on how he (yes, he) looks on television, and delivers his lines. And if a democrat wins, it'll be because the DNC used some version of the model that put the current dilettante in office.
But the problem isn't them, it's you.
George W. Bush is our president because a majority of Americans haven't figured something out yet: the science of marketing has advanced beyond the average person's ability to trust their intuition. PR firms and image consultants and pollsters have become psychologists -- they've learned how to manipulate your intuition.
And too many Americans have quit thinking critically. Before television, people had to read to plug into the world around them. It is so much easier for advertisers to access the unconscious parts of a person's mind with sight and sound, especially if that person has already shut down the higher functioning parts.
Barack Obama may be the light that leads us all out of the darkeness. He may be the anti-christ.
Or maybe he's just a man, seeking to attain political power and should be viewed with skepticism for that reason alone.
That is how it's supposed to work. Everyone who seeks and attains that kind of power is eventually corrupted by it. We, the people, have been charged with the responsibility to watch over the very leaders we decide to trust, because they are doomed to eventually betray our trust.
And until this country wakes the hell up and accepts that Barack Obama's -- and every other politician's -- words, hair style, clothing, deodorant, mannerisms, thoughts, and allies are chosen by people who do it for a living, we will continue to elect cardboard cut-outs.
We will put our faith in puppets whose strings are attached to brilliant, manipulative, and ugly people never senn, until something goes horribly wrong.