Further proof that Obama is not serious

The Obama campaign has still not muzzled Mrs. Obama. She is still giving her amazingly bitter and unpleasant “they keep raising the bar on us” speech, in which she casts life in America as one long experience of frustration, cynicism, fear, and isolation, all brought on by people’s unwillingness to support her husband. The fact that Obama himself has not seen that his wife’s message is deeply offensive as well as undermining of the rational of his campaign—that he’s a bringing of hope and unity, not bitterness and suspicion—is further proof that he’s not a serious candidate.

Remember Michael Dukakis’s clueless boast that he was a card carrying member of the ACLU—by which he showed that he had no grasp of how that statement would be perceived outside his own left-liberal circles of Brookline, Massachuseets? Well, expand that remark, or rather the psychology behind that remark, to an entire campaign, and you have Obama’s candidacy.

Michelle is speaking in Indiana, April 25. The clip, linked at Hugh Hewitt’s site, begins with a 30 second commercial.

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Adela G. writes:

Ugh. What an unpleasant experience—hearing Michelle’s whiny grievance-mongering first thing in the morning. I confess that I couldn’t bring myself to listen to all of it. But then again, I didn’t need to. We’re all familiar with the drill by now.

Mr. Auster, I can’t agree that Obama’s failure to muzzle his wife is proof he’s not serious about wanting to be president. I think it’s proof that he believes he has only to capture the black vote and the left-wing vote to win, that if he has them, the rest of the country will fall into line behind those two groups. He’s concluded this from observing how the blacks and the lefts basically determine the general direction in which this country is going, they “wag the dog”. And since he is both black (nominally) and left-wing, his task is made that much easier for him. Besides, it’s time.

To me, his wife’s ongoing grievance-mongering is further proof of this. From her first words, I heard the audience calling out affirmation. She wasn’t speaking to all of America, any more than her husband does (unless he chooses to lecture us on getting past race but even then, he’s speaking not to all of America at once but to the white majority, lecturing them to change their ways). She was preaching to the choir. You could hear it, it was literally “call-response”.

So the votes the Obamas are courting, the only ones they think really count, are those of blacks and the left. Obama trots out the high-flown, empty rhetoric for the white lefties who just love such meaningless abstractions. Meanwhile, Michelle engages in what is obviously her calling, grievance-mongering, which really resounds with both the black community, which feels abused, misused and neglected by America and with the white left-wing who feel blacks have been, are and will be unto perpetuity (if the election is stolen from Obama) abused, misused and neglected by America.

The Obamas obviously feel that the rest of the Democratic party will fall in behind him once he’s been nominated. They may even believe that some will vote for him partly out of a desire not to seem racist (even to themselves in the privacy of the voting booth—such is the stranglehold PC has on our country).

As for the rest of the electorate, filled as it is with “typical white” people, he has already shown how he feels about them. They can be dismissively and disdainfully described to others and only addressed directly in the most perfunctory ways.

In the Fox News interview, he said, “If I lose, it won’t be because of race. It will be because, you know, I made mistakes on the campaign trail, I wasn’t communicating effectively my plans in terms of helping them [the American people] in their everyday lives.”

On the contrary, I think he’s communicated how he feels about the American people very effectively, if inadvertently.

Sebastian writes:

Everything this woman says is objectionable, but the one theme she mentions again and again that lets me know the depths of her entitlement is this lamentation about student loans. The notion that a Princeton/Harvard Law education should be free, and that working people in the Ohio and Indiana should feel sorry for this leftist power couple because they still had student loans outstanding in their forties, reveals the mindset of a petulant and delusional child. I have known attorneys who passed up offers from Duke, Columbia and Fordham law schools so they could focus on their families and pursue less lucrative, more satisfying careers. I know two lawyers from working-class backgrounds who served in the Air Force Reserves to raise money for law school. Others like me chose heavy debt for the opportunity to have a Wall Street career, debts I expect to carry and manage into my early forties. But to go on and on about student loans well into your forties in light of a spectacularly successful and well-paid career is a sign of genuine immaturity and, more importantly, sheer greed. I am forever grateful I had the opportunity to borrow this money that opened so many doors. Given her educational background, student loans are a choice she and Barack made. Their inability to live with the consequences bespeaks a deep and dangerous resentment and complete misunderstanding of the trade-offs involved in adult decisions.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 29, 2008 02:03 AM | Send