Livin' In America

So there I was last night, reading a bit of Shakespeare, when I came across this bit from Macbeth:

...now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

At that moment I exactly discerend the Obama strategy: He's a Sorelian Myth.

Here's the money quote from the Wikipedia article:

Sorel's belief in the need for a deliberately-conceived "myth" to sway crowds into concerted action was put into practice by mass fascist movements in the 1920s. The epistemic status of the idea of "myth" is of some importance, and is essentially that of a working hypothesis, with one fundamental peculiarity: it is an hypothesis which we do not judge by its closeness to a "Truth", but by the practical consequences which stem from it. Thus, whether a political myth is of some importance or not must be decided, in Sorel's view, on the basis of its capacity to mobilize human beings into political action; the only possible way for men to ascend to an ethical life filled by the character of the sublime and to achieve deliverance.

Think about it. Obama's written a couple of books, fathered a couple of children, and gotten himself elected to a single term in the US Senate. Those are his successes. Beyond that, he's almost a complete cypher. He ran a failed attempt at education reform in Chicago. He's left almost no paper trail. He's thrown his radical friends under the bus. Nancy Pelosi has dubbed him "The One." He made a trip to Germany, and he's got a Greek temple, but these are just scenery, part of building the myth.

He's nothing but motivational myth. Question is, what's he going to motivate us to do? So far, the future looks bleak: the one bit of governing he tried went down the tubes. He has demonstrated an aptitude for Chicago-style politics, but that's about it.

Personally, I think an Obama Presidency would be a disaster for the country.

Given that he's the most liberal Senator in the US Senate, and his VP is the third most liberal US Senator, well, I can see the leftward tilt from here. The only thing he might accomplish is to pack the Federal Judiciary with a bunch of left-wing wackos.

The Iranians would eat him alive. Actually, the Muslim world would eat him alive. They think, despite his protestations to the contrary, that he's a Muslim. Any Obama Presidency that didn't rain welfare on the Muslim world, starting on day one, would have them out on the streets burning him in effigy.

Legislatively, I can see the Republicans fighting a successful rearguard action against USS Jimmy Carter II. Not that that would be bad. What *would* be bad is the reaction of the nutroots and the legacy media. That combined Greek Chorus would demand the country bend to the will of The One, democracy be damned. Nothing good would come of that. Nihilism at best.