Dan

Calabrese

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February 18, 2008

Barack Obama is Disturbing, But Don’t Tell Anyone! (Yet)

Uh oh. It’s starting to leak out too early. It’s not time yet.

Conservative commentators have started to notice a few things about Barack Obama, and they are things that kind of give you the creeps. I’ve noticed them too. We need to talk about these things.

But let’s get our timing right, here, friends. I thought we still liked Obama! At least for a few more months. Granted, he is anathema to conservatives in every way except for one, but the one exception is crucially important: He is kicking the crap out of Hillary Clinton.

How can you not love that? Of course we don’t want him to actually get elected, but by foiling the diabolical dream of Queen Inevitable, Obama is doing a profound service to the nation.

Indeed, it is such a profound service, that I for one think he can stop serving America as soon as he’s finished her off. Really. Thanks for everything, Barack. Nothing more is required of you.

But if you really look closely at Obama, it’s hard not to notice some disquieting things.

First, he rarely says anything of substance, and on the rare occasions when he does, it’s completely bizarre. He wants to meet with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. He wants to invade Pakistan. He wants to “reward work instead of rewarding wealth,” because as we all know, work and wealth are in a perpetual state of war with each other.

Maybe he’s better off just talking about “change” and “the audacity of hope,” and denouncing “cynicism.” He’s playing to his own strengths when he goes big on the rhetoric and small on the substance.

Second, people have weird reactions to him. The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto chronicled last week in his Best of the Web Today column how many times people have fainted at Obama rallies – almost like a charismatic service at a Pentecostal church, except that Pentecostals start fainting and speaking in tongues by the power of the Holy Spirit. What is doing it to them at Obama rallies? Maybe it’s whatever creepy thing made MSNBC’s Chris Matthews start to feel a thrill up his leg when he heard Obama speak. That’s just disturbing.

Third, and very much playing to the whole cult-of-personality thing surrounding Obama, people seem to see him as whatever they want him to be. Have you noticed something about the way Obama looks in pictures? Far more frequently than other politicians, Obama is photographed from an angle that looks up at him. It makes him look that much more towering in his stature, and plays into the notion of him as this all-powerful force of change. He looks the part, too. If you take a picture of Hillary from ground level, she looks like a female Gestapo officer. Obama looks like the man with the plan – even though he has no plan.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, Obama is endorsed by Oprah Winfrey. This is no surprise, of course. Obama likes to say things that sound good and mean absolutely nothing. If he and Winfrey are not a match made in Heaven, I don’t know what is.

Add to all this the fact that Obama has very little experience in Washington, and has the most liberal voting record in the Senate, and the reasons not to elect him start filling out a very long and compelling list. We need to talk about all this.

But not yet!

Until at least March 4, when he has a chance to deal a fatal blow to Hillary in the Texas and Ohio primaries, I’m lovin’ me some Obama. Change we can believe in! I am so there. And if Hillary lives to fight another day, I’ll love Obama a little longer – all the way to the Democratic National Convention in August if need be.

The man is giving the Clintons the shellacking of a lifetime. Ever since Hillary first invaded our national consciousness in 1992, she’s been trying to figure out a way to become president, and conservatives have been hoping she could be stopped. Obama’s stopping her. Let the man do his job.

Then we can start helping John McCain point out that Obama is liberal, shallow and weird. We can start reminding people that tax increases don’t help the economy, surrender doesn’t win a war and socialized health care doesn’t make anyone better.

There will be plenty of time for that. First thing’s first. So all this disturbing information about Obama? For just a little longer, conservatives . . . keep it a secret!

This is Column # DC152.  Request permission to publish here.