Our quadrennial search for a führer

Not that anyone cares but I have been suffering a case of the slows. Not Spring Fever but Pre Spring Fever as self diagnosed. Anyway, the voice of humility intends to look at the candidates and shoot from the hip and the first installment is below.

It is that time again, the juices of ambition start to flow in senators, ex senators, governors, tree wardens and numerous other lads and lassies who dedicate their lives to the nation with no thought to any rewards other than the service they render. So for an inauguration day in January of 2009 we are now to be subject to candidates some of whom have been running since the last inauguration, if not since their childhoods.

Now, I use the term search for a führer. In truth it is not the volk that is searching for a führer but the potential führers who are searching for a volk. After all, Der Führer himself, Big Dolph* never got a majority of the German electorate and only got 43.9% even after the Reichstag fire. Memo to all candidates, if you are looking for a draft, you will have to manufacture it yourselves.

So in our country, every four years it is party time for ghost writers. Remember all those books from yesteryear. Jimmy Carter supposedly wrote Why Not The Best? to propel himself to the Oval Office. If you think it is more important to read than say, The Iliad, you can get it for 1 cent on Amazon. What I don't get is that after writing Why Not The Best?, he ran anyway.

How about Faith of My Fathers, the deathless prose of John McCain's ghost writer? Give the straight talker credit because he gave his ghost writer credit on the cover. Still, if someone says to John, "a penney for your thoughts?" he can send them to Amazon.

Plus ça change et Voilà,** we have a new wonder boy. and he has not one but two best selling books*** to inspire the nation. To be fair, he actually wrote them. Not only that, for awhile there, you could not go by a newstand without seeing Barack Obama's picture.

So what is his appeal? I've talked to people who are intrigued and I never get an answer of any substance. I can only guess that it seems he personifies what middle class white folk, while as ever, distancing themselves from the lumpen honky, want to see in a black candidate. He seems to be, in the words of Archie Bunker, "One of the good ones." Though my college educated, light skinned fellow countrymen and women would be horrified to hear it put that way, what else could it be? He has almost no track record. His schooling has been elite, but what does that prove? There is nothing to see.

Except there is. On October 22, 2002 He spoke against the impending Iraq adventure.

Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

Yep, pretty clear and, as time has proven, correct. He has since seemed to come on board what ever it is the Dems have as a policy or non policy on Iraq. However, if these are his words and not just those of advisors and speech writers, he does have something under the cap.

Still, he could never get my vote as he would be the candidate of a cargo cult.

* To all those goofballs who approve of someone they call a populist: Please note, Herr Schicklegruber was the most successful populist of the last century.

** I assume this is bad French. It is the only kind I know.

*** The audacious Udolpho had some fun with one of your man's bios. I had never thought of The Temerity of Mild Physical Arousal. I am sure it will be the title of a tell all autobiography someday.




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