REALITY

The expectations of the Obama masses seem without limit. He will bring peace. He will bring clean air. He will save the Solar System. We will have free iPods, the red ones.

But Jim Hoagland in The Washington Post, brings things down to Earth.  People must understand the limits, he says, of an Obama presidency:

At the same time, it is naive, or extremely self-serving, of Obama followers to suggest that the election of a black president will cause other nations to reconsider their most deeply held attitudes or policies toward the United States or open doors for him abroad that are closed to others. They -- and he -- will be surprised at how short the "Obama effect" will be in international politics if he is elected.

His genetic makeup shapes his view of the world much more than it would shape the world's view of him or the United States. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- Obama referred to them as "so-called allies" in his heralded 2002 speech opposing the Iraq invasion -- would judge him on such remarks and on what he says and does about Israel, Iran and Iraq. The back story of his multiracial, multinational ancestry and his rise from humble origins to success and idolatry would carry little weight at the conference table.

And that, of course, is the point.  Other nations are not going to bend to our will because Obama is in the White House.  They may celebrate him, toast him.  But they will pursue their national interests as if his name were Bush. 

The centrifuges in Iran are spinning.  They will continue to spin.

March 23, 2008.  Permalink

AND MORE LIMITS

Froma Harrop, of the Providence Journal, has been quoted in this space several times.  She's one of the most discerning columnists writing today.  Now she adds her voice to those, like Jim Hoagland, demanding a bit of realism in dealing with the Obama crusade, especially Obama's response to the incendiary comments of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr:

Holding a tough hand of cards, Obama responded to Wright's outbursts with admirable finesse. He downplayed their outrageous, sometimes demented, nature by labeling them "divisive," a moderate word. He refused to disown his pastor. He couldn't. Doing so would have seemed craven after their long history together.

Given the calamity of slavery and Jim Crow, one must give slack to black anger. But there are limits, especially for an avowedly post-racial candidate.

We've had a situation where it's politically unacceptable to attribute Obama's success to race, but a minister may say that the government created AIDS to kill people of color and remain a candidate's spiritual adviser. Suppose Clinton's minister had awarded a lifetime achievement award to David Duke, as Wright had to Louis Farrakhan.

But for Obama, the most lasting damage of this affair may not be tied to race or religion but to class. Working stiffs will struggle to square Obama's close bond to a purveyor of racial grievance with his own golden existence. With four Ivy League degrees between them, half a million in income and children in private schools, the Obamas seem to be doing more than OK.

The clashing images of resentment and privilege are a divide that is hard to bridge.

Correct.  And all it will take is for another controversial association to come out, or for Michelle Obama to open her mouth again, unattended, for the baggage Obama is carrying to seem too much for one man.

March 23, 2008.  Permalink

IS THE TRAIN IN A DITCH?

Michael Goodwin, Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer for The New York Daily News, believes the Democratic train has already spun off the tracks, and that there is no successful rescue effort in sight:

Despite their frantic efforts to one-up each other on issues large and small, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could soon find themselves sharing the same unhappy burden: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Unless one of them can find the courage and the sense to forcefully denounce the black pastor, Clinton and Obama both could end up watching John McCain get elected President.

Midway through the second week of the Wright fiasco, and five days after Obama tried to cool the boiling issue with an important speech on race, it is increasingly clear we are witnessing a Democratic train wreck. For months, the collision has been unfolding in slow motion as the closely fought campaign worked its way across the country and the chances for a clear winner slipped away one state at a time.

Suddenly, the wreck is happening at full speed. The dream team is looking like a nightmare.

Race was always a touchy subject, but not the dominant one, at least on the surface. Now there is no other issue. 

And...

In the short run, Clinton obviously benefits in the nomination fight. But she shouldn't get too comfortable. For Obama's problems with Wright will become her problems if she makes the same mistake of not being forceful enough about her own values. The same kinds of voters - working-class whites in swing states - who are shunning Obama will abandon her if she takes the standard, Democratic, politically correct course and coddles Wright and his poison.

As well they should. You can't be a President if you won't stand up to an anti-American bigot. More to the point, you can't become President by running against the country or having people around you who hate it.

True, but there's one other factor here - the tendency of the mainstream media to forgive Obama for anything, a tendency it will extend to any Democrat in the general-election campaign.  I've written here, and continue to believe, that the sleeper factor in this election year is the willingness of the press to go into the tank for the Democratic Party.  The extent of that willingness can easily determine the result on election day.

March 23, 2008.  Permalink

DeMILLE

Finally, it is Easter, and ABC last night performed its annual holiday ritual by showing Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments."  It reminded me less of our religious tradition - we don't need movies for that - than of what we lost when the DeMille generation passed from the scene.  He was a showman.  Today we have "film makers."  He related to the audience.  Today the "film makers" call the audience "the flyover people."  He left us wanting more.  Today, at the end of most films, we wish we had those two hours back.

DeMille wasn't always the nicest guy.  He had a hangup about immigrants in Hollywood, and at one famous meeting insisted on calling the director Billy Wilder, "Veeldor." 

But he gave us great movies, and we associate him with two Hollywood clichés that have entered our language.  In "Sunset Boulevard," Gloria Swanson, as Norma Desmond, says, "All right, Mr. DeMille.  I'm ready for my close-up."

On one of his films, a dust storm obscured the scene, which was to be photographed by several cameras.  Only one cameraman got the shot, whereupon he shouted to DeMille, "Ready when you are, C.B."  They've been saying it in Hollywood ever since.

When we look at Hollywood today, we see that Norma Desmond was right:  "I am big.  It's the pictures that got small."

I was associated with the film business for many years.  The pictures got very small indeed.

And, freed from Hollywood, I'll be back tomorrow.

March 23, 2008.  Permalink