David

Karki

Read David's bio and previous columns here

August 11, 2008

The Obama Campaign: Puerile, Juvenile, Infantile

“America is . . . uh, is no longer, uh, what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, I don't want that future for my children.”  – Barack Obama, telling a seven-year-old girl why he is running for president.

So in other words, Obama wants to lead a country he thinks is a disaster area. And that he could revert back to some previous time when America was better. Exactly when that would be, I'm not quite sure.

Nor am I sure that there has ever been a candidate who makes such a point of denigrating the very entity he seeks to lead. Especially to the face of a seven-year-old girl who is ill-served by being told her present stinks and her future will too – unless he gets elected.

"There are things you can do individually, though, to save energy. Making sure your tires are properly inflated – simple thing. But could we save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling – if everybody was just inflating their tires? And getting regular tune-ups? You'd actually save just as much!"

Really? Eight hundred billion barrels from the Green River shale oil formation can be eschewed just by getting tune-ups and checking tire inflation? This isn't just delusional, it is a frighteningly unserious and frivolous answer from someone seeking the most important office in the world at a time when energy – the very lifeblood of our economy and way of life as we've come to know it – is perhaps the single most critical issue in the campaign.

“What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky. That’s essentially the argument they’re making.”

And then there's the old tried-and-true tactic: When all else fails, run and hide behind race. Obama has used the above quote, or very similar words, in his stump speeches ever since March. Of late, he and his surrogates have pulled it out whenever the McCain camp has gotten in a good zinger that they can't otherwise respond to effectively.

The substance of it is ridiculous, but that's not the point here. It's that Obama uses it almost as a crutch and often enough that the accusation loses its power and ultimately becomes self-parody. And it begs a question: If Obama can't deal with a negative hit from John McCain, who is as far from a fire-breathing conservative partisan as a Republican can get, without pouting and sounding like a whiny child, just how on earth is he going to deal with a nuclear Iran? As fitting as his Barney the Dinosaur “I love you, you love me” diplomacy schtick is, it's not going to stop Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from getting the ultimate weapon.

Finally, when McCain released an ad comparing Obama to the vacuous Paris Hilton – an act of unserious frivolity in its own right – it didn't occur to them for a moment to seize the opportunity to turn the tables. Obama could have neutralized both his inexperience vulnerability and this one, and put McCain on the defensive in a single fell swoop by calmly taking McCain to task for “turning the campaign into American Idol” or some such similar verbiage. He could have made himself look far more presidential than he has looked at any point so far.

But they essentially let Hilton respond for them in an online ad. Even though I have no doubt she neither wrote nor comprehended the script or even spoke it properly aside from the one take actually used, it was smoothly delivered. And worse for Obama, the “energy plan” contained therein was far more thorough and thought out than his tune-ups and tire gauges approach – a fact upon which the McCain campaign gleefully pounced.

From all but saying “America sucks!” (sticking out tongue optional) to tire inflation to wink-wink accusations of racism aimed toward anyone who doesn't think he's a messiah, to getting inadvertently outmaneuvered by America's most famous bimbo, Obama is running the most unserious campaign in American presidential history.  (And somehow, the media has managed to not use the word “gravitas” once, after pummeling then-Governor Bush with it in 2000. Gee, it's almost as if they're liberally biased and have chosen sides or something . . .)
 

To paraphrase legendary Florida A&M football coach Jake Gaither, who said he wanted his players to be “agile, mobile and hostile,” the Obama campaign is puerile, juvenile and infantile.

Now, to be sure, McCain isn't much better – an observation we conservatives use often and repeatedly with regard to the senator, perhaps in an attempt to talk ourselves into pulling the lever for someone we'd really rather not support, but have no other choice – as his insinuation of Hilton into the race shows. But he's still miles ahead of where Obama is.

"Behind all the words, Sen. Obama's agenda can be . . . summarized as this,'' McCain said. “Government is too big, he wants to grow it. Taxes are too high, he wants to raise them. Congress spends too much, and he proposes more. We need more energy, and he's against producing it. We're finally winning in Iraq, and he wants to forfeit.”

If McCain repeats this simple mantra all the way to November, he will win. Why? Because countering this requires a level of maturity and serious thought that, by all appearances, the Obama campaign doesn't have.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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