http://tinyurl.com/blb5x8
- - -
President Obama is a beguiling but confounding figure. As he has said of
himself: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different
political stripes project their own views." ("The Audacity of Hope.") It is
indeed audacious that he should proclaim this consciously disingenuous
attribute. And, as one reads his inaugural address, it is hard not to
conclude that it was shrewdly crafted to perpetuate such confusion.
Run-of-the-mill politicians try to hide their duplicity. Only the most
gifted of that profession brag that they intend to confound and confuse the
public. Such an effort is beyond ingenious - it is brazenly ingenuous.
...
I believe that Mr. Obama intends to craft a new nationalism, using the
disassembled timber of our traditional values to build a new, more
collectivist - less individualistic - ship of state. The planks will look
vaguely familiar, but the ship will be quite different. It is as if he would
disassemble the warship Old Ironsides and build with its timbers a
collectivist's Ark.
Oddly, my suspicion is confirmed by my liberal friend, scholar and columnist
for The Washington Post E.J. Dionne, who wrote last week that "President
Barack Obama intends to use conservative values for progressive ends. He
will cast extreme individualism as an infantile approach to politics that
must be supplanted by a more adult sense of personal and collective
responsibility . And in trying to do all these things, he will confuse a lot
of people." Perhaps E.J. hopefully, and I suspiciously, have both misread
Mr. Obama. But one is entitled to be suspicious of a politician who openly
brags that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different
political stripes project their own views."That strikes me as a conscious
intent to deceive in order to diffuse opposition to his designs until it is
too late to block them. Ronald Reagan never hid his policy intentions from
public view. Neither, in fairness, did Lyndon Johnson or Walter Mondale or
Barney Frank or Nancy Pelosi.
A politician who will not sail under his own flag, in effect sails against
all flags. Such a strategy may, in time, undercut his support from
increasingly suspicious progressives, liberals, moderates and conservatives
- once they recognize the deception.
- - -
" The planks will look vaguely familiar, but the ship will be quite
different."
Which brought to mind my favorite Kierkegaard quote:
"A passionate, tumultuous age overturns everything, turns everything upside
down; but a revolutionary age that is at the same time passionless and
reflective leaves everything standing, but cunningly empties it of
significance."
I think Blankley hit the nail on the head with this article. It's sad the
public is so eager to be deceived. I never thought America would go down
this particular rabbit hole.
Also--with respect to all the Clinton retreads in his new
administration---maybe they are all duped, and part of the deception, too?
- Bob
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