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July 29, 2008
Model-Oh-Ya
The James Dean candidate romances the press.
by Victor Davis Hanson
NRO’s The Corner
Hillaryitis
Hillary used to go ballistic in frustration at the latest rather shameless incarnation of Obama, and McCain should not fall into the same malady. He understandably is angry because Obama, whose opposition to the surge and erstwhile desire to be done with Iraq by March 2007 would have lost the war, rode the anti-war wave when it was popular, and now, in his current metamorphosis to centrist, has piggy-backed onto the good news in Iraq as if it had nothing to do with the surge — as if McCain's lonely support for it either never happened or was irrelevant. And McCain knows that Maliki is posturing for Iraqi domestic opinion, and when Obama leaves will send signals to us that he most surely doesn't want all Americans gone in 16 months, especially given the fact that his security forces still needed U.S. advice and support for necessary operations like the recent successes in Basra.
But that said, McCain should not get trapped into surge dialectics, but stay on 5-6 domestic themes: he wants to transition us to green energy through drilling, nuclear, clean coal, and all our resources; Obama has bought into Gorism and thinks we can hope and change our way magically to "wind, solar, and millions of new jobs in green energies"; McCain will close the border first and discuss the thorny issues later; Obama won't. McCain will cut federal spending and pay off debt, Obama wants a trillion dollars in new entitlements; McCain won't raise taxes; Obama's could make the top brackets pay, European-style, 65 percent in state and federal taxes, and stifle economic growth with new levies on capital gains, inheritances, payroll, and income; McCain will appoint judges who follow and interpret, not create, laws; Obama will do the opposite; McCain knows the military and what it can do to protect American interests; Obama wants to create a shadow civilian force “that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the $500-billion-a-year Pentagon.
That should be his message, and he should not get involved with pro-Obama pundits refining and upgrading Obama's latest incarnations on Iraq. Even biased reporters are chaffing at the new gospels of Obamism, and the carefully scripted appearances designed to limit exposure to the sort of circus we see at the White House Press room, and eventually will want more impromptu Obama.
A Somewhat Embarrassing Spectacle
The latest Obama throng abroad is not about liberal bias, at least entirely, but more something like an embarrassing retrogression to teenage Beatle-mania. After all, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry — or even Clinton — never garnered such campaign attention. Even past liberal media darlings, who similarly posed as charismatic celebrity intellectuals — JFK, Eugene McCarthy, and Gary Hart — didn't either. It is not even about race. A moderate-conservative Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice as candidate would be conducting a so-so quiet inspection tour. A liberal-leftist like Jackson, or Harold Ford, would have little resonance.
The distinction again is that Obama appeals to the gullible and puerile as a sort of James Dean candidate. And thus he is not to be cross-examined, but instead free to shun interviews and clarifications, and prone to avoid reporters who might be less than adulatory — the normal stuff that so irritates the supposedly sensitive press that has now gone brain-dead.
What is fascinating about the tingly-leg press is that they are exhibiting the very symptoms of arrested development and star-struck immaturity that they always accuse America in toto of suffering. The usual critique of the elite media is that we are a nation of mindless followers, who go from one fad to another, and value looks, youth, and pizzazz over substance.
But the current spectacle suggests something worse — that the press who claims they know better and are more sophisticated are, in fact, far more infantile than most Americans, and essentially Access Hollywood, People Magazine, and the National Enquirer dressed up with network logos and NY-DC bylines.
After all, few conservatives ever said that Reagan made their leg tingle. Had a candidate Reagan (remember the fury at the contrived Michael Deaver photo-ops) or even Clinton (remember the irritation at the run-on speeches and habitually late/missed appointments) created his own seal, lobbied to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, or run a campaign tour overseas as if it were a Presidential summit (replete with Freudian slips about already being coronated President), or made Bush's nuclear gaffes seem minor in comparison, he would have been crucified by self-righteous haughty reporters. If one were to take Obama's recent deer-in-the-headlights comments, stutters, pauses, contortions, and false starts when asked about the surge, and put them into the mouth of Dan Quayle, well, case rested...
©2008 Victor Davis Hanson