Posted by
Kaisersculture on Thursday, July 24, 2008 12:42:53 AM
With the media firmly in the grip of frenzy over The Obama ("Presidential"!) World Tour, it's fair and timely to ask: what does this trip and its attendant coverage indicate about the state of our democracy? and what does it portend?
Senator John McCain's offer of a drawn-out series of ten townhall-style debates may have been disingenuous, an offer that might have been impossibly dumb to take up. More to the point, the American public may not have the stomach for it, after the interminable debates of the Democratic primary contest that did so little to prove anything. Yet at least McCain gave Obama a straight-up chance to hand the American media and public the kind of exhaustively "serious" campaign we've all (supposedly) been pining for these many years-- the sort of thing someone long ago anticipated of a 2000 match-up between Jack Kemp and Al Gore, a policy wonk's dream of civil debate and endless technocratic nerditry. Obama could easily have refused the bait while rising to the challenge by conditionally accepting the McCain challenge while whittling down the number of actual debates, or mixing up the formats, or what have you.
But no: Obama doesn't shine in townhall-settings; and if there's something he can't shine at then, dang it, he won't be doing it. Expect to see no more ventures into the nation's bowling alleys. Expect plenty more shooting hoops.
Obama can't be blamed for trying to play to his strengths, except he's also extremely creative at manufacturing purported "strengths" for himself out of thin air. A master of image and symbolism just as much as of oratory, his jaunt across the Eastern Hemisphere has (so far) fulfilled his hopes of achieving the fullblown "Presidential" look.
This obsessive drive in the Obama campaign to assume the manners and icons of the Oval Office in advance of actually obtaining it grows alarming. The media, of course, has assumed his coronation for months already. Whether or not Obama is a man naturally given to chutzpah may be immaterial (but since he declared his run for the White House after serving two undistinguished years in the Senate, I'd say he is!) with all the temptations the adoring media and his base of partisans throw at him. Like Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, he would not be such a wolf were it not that he thinks we are sheep.
The faux-Presidential seal was a mere frat prank (albeit a potentially prosecutable one) compared to the arrogant whimsy of his grand tour. Having put off fact-finding during the brief spell of his serious work in the Senate, now he makes time when he senses the need to assume the mantle of gravity. And he goes about it by trying to swipe all the poses of Kennedy and Reagan, by using Petraeus and the troops as captive backdrops. And now Maliki, unaware of the niceties that respectable allies are usually beholden to, thrusts his endorsement upon Obama, and Democrats eagerly raise the prize. Wasn't this guy previously exhibit 3 or 4 in why we can never get it right in Iraq?
Thing is, there are two major nominees abroad in the land (well, only one till Obama is through negotiating Salt III or whatever it is he's supposed to be doing in Europe). And the media should jerk itself awake and remember that it still has a few civic duties to uphold, like covering an election as the up-in-the-air thing it's supposed to be-- even when the one guy is down 20 points. Of course, McCain is actually trailing something like 2--4, but don't you know? Obama's inevitable-- I mean, look at the TV. He's President already . . . .