Light's! Camera! Action! We are ready for the Messiah! Obama's Cult of Personality: Another Point of View

By John Latsko; Los Angeles, Califorina

Please allow me to comment on your editorial relating to Obama’s Cult of Personality. I am glad it is cult like. It’s about time for a real figure, one that has achieved cult status, one that is able to fit in his own shoes, one who is worthy of treading the White House carpets.

Cults are made by followers. The American public, awake from its zombie hangover of eight years, is blessed with hope and blessed with the promise of the challenge of purpose. It may sound romantic and naïve, and even brain washed, but we care and we are involved. We love this country. We are now refreshed and renewed because of this man. The tired old Republican antagonists are jealous, and they should be.

Hollywood lighting and/or media manipulation is not limited to the Democrats. I recall twice when the Bush administration demonstrated such media savvy. Was it blue lighting in New Orleans? Remember the former baseball team owner’s regal performance on board an aircraft carrier off the coast of San Diego, clad in a pilot's flight suit, doing his best to match the skills of Hollywood propaganda craftspeople. “Mission Accomplished!” he said in his usually halting delivery.

Scrutiny is important, but I’ll gladly swallow the hype, stomach the media swooning, and happily accept the hoards of people across the planet cheering for someone they believe will make a difference.Senator McCain did visit the Mideast. I knew about it. Could it be that his message didn’t come across because it rang hollow? The media covers attractive candidates, both in message and style. That combination makes both Senator Obama and the media look good. By focusing on a message we can believe, Senator Obama will be able to fill that stadium in Denver, appealing to new voters, young people, people of color, people from all economic backgrounds, folks who are excited for the first time.

You hinted in your article that Obama might be some sort of totalitarian nut. A better comparison for Senator Obama than Chairman Mao might be another tall, skinny political figure from Illinois, one that we all remember. With or without the glaring lights, Senator Obama is constant in his beliefs. Those fancy lights have too long hidden lies and deceits. It is time to shine those lights on a true American star. Lights! Camera! Action! Bring on the Messiah! We are ready!!

Obama's Cult of Personality

“We are given to the cult of personality; when things go badly we look to some messiah to save us. If by chance we think we have found one, it will not be long before we destroy him.” Constantine Karamanlis, the former President of Greece.

In its February 17 issue, The New York Times attempted to distinguish a Cult of Personality from political charisma in order to explain the nature of the candidacy of Barack Obama. The name of the article was The Charisma Mandate. It writes:

“The “cult of personality” is used in the pejorative. But recast as a different name — call it charisma — and, as Roosevelt and other examples show, it can be a critical element of politics and its practical cousin, governance. It just can’t be the only element.”

The New York Times actually does a credible job of presenting different points of view as to whether Obama’s political “movement” is basically charismatic, or if it is something more. Given that the messianic nature of the campaign has increased since then, I am concerned that the “something more” is dangerous.

Swooning and screaming crowds of tens of thousands, people fainting and crying, these types of behavior are typically reserved, at least in the United States, for rock or movie stars. The Beatles and Elvis come to mind. While we cheer our politicians, American sensibility tries to keep them just that, politicians. But the media has continued to fuel the idea that somehow Barack Obama “transcends” something. What that is, I am not sure.

This has been capped by the three major networks sending their three anchors to cover Obama’s “world tour,” while pretty much ignoring most, if not all, of John McCain’s activities let alone his travels. From June 9 to July 13, The Project for Excellence in Journalism, an entity which tracks news stories, reviewed 300 political news stories each week. Obama was mentioned in 77% of the stories. McCain was mentioned in 48%. And anecdotally, I viewed much of McCain’s coverage as negative…week after week after week. Couple that with magazine covers being owned by Obama, including a Newsweek cover last week with an Obama head shot, bowed with his hands folded in prayer, ala Jesus…folks, we have a problem.

Whether you agree with Obama or not, he certainly is a showman. His penchant for addressing thousands of people, his attention to backlighting detail, with a vague message of hope and change with few specifics…and such specifics as there are, change with the crowd he is addressing along with overt, overnight, changes to his website as his policy positions shift.

This is more than unsettling, it is frightening, especially the changing web site stuff. When I watch Obama and his campaign, it brings to mind a movie called Leap of Faith, about a bible banging religious huckster played by Steve Martin, holding tent revivals in the drought ridden southwest. His traveling gospel choir sings in the background: “Are you ready for a miracle? Yes we are!” Amen and Amen and reach into your pocket and pull out your money. Yes we can.

More ominously, he is going to give his nomination acceptance speech in front of umpteen thousands of people in a football stadium. Maybe the masses worshiping at the feet of a personality doesn’t ring dangerous in the United States. We’ve never had to deal it with it before at this magnitude. My frame of reference goes to historical precedent outside of the United States, comparisons I won’t make here for reasons related to your opinion of my sanity. Meanwhile, the press is caught in Obama’s rapture, wrapping itself in whatever it sees in his message of supposed redemption, while ignoring a critical analysis of his policies. He is here to save us with the press being his gospel choir in the background.

I don’t need saving. I need a President who will protect the homeland, who will secure our borders, who will provide leadership toward energy security and independence, who will rebuild our infrastructure, who will help people to achieve their goals rather than give more handouts, who will demand excellence in education, who will put the welfare of this great nation above the likes or dislikes of Europe, the United Nations, and any other “world” entity, and provide a tax structure rooted in reward for hard work and innovation that will allow the continual economic prosperity of the country.

There is nothing new under the sun. Strip away the back lighting, Obama is just another politician who needs scrutiny. I would prefer to leave the stadium speeches filled with adoring people to Chairman Mao. Obama should read the words of Constantine Karamanlis. Those who build you up will also bring you down.

Two Things To Fix Our Mess

It is frustrating watching our economy suffer needlessly, as the stock market tanks, banks shut down, and housing prices fall. Just wait until you hear the retailers moan this Christmas. Any of you who believe that the government is there to help you ought to take a good look around and see what government has wrought. There are two things which have caused this economic debacle…energy prices and an accounting rule. Both represent government at its worst, as it tries to impose ideal rules in an imperfect world.

The accounting rule is very simple. Banks have to maintain a certain capital ratio; that is, the debts of the banks can only be a certain percentage of the assets of the bank. Fall below the number, and the bank goes under. Among the assets of the banks are certain mortgage backed bonds, packaged and sold by mortgage lenders. At a point in time, it was clear that there was going to be a slight increase of the default rate of the mortgages backing these bonds, and people began to panic. Nobody knew how many or how much, although even today it is less than 1 ½% of all outstanding mortgages.

However, after the collapse of Enron, the government changed how companies have to value assets on their books, including these bonds. The rule is simple…if you don’t know what they are worth, you value them at zero. So even though the vast majority of the mortgages are performing, the banks who hold these bonds still have to value them at zero, dropping the amount of their assets, messing up the debt to asset ratio, causing the banks to have to raise billions upon billions of dollars to make up for the artificially valued at zero bonds. In the process, they do not have sufficient capital on their books to loan money to homebuyers. Folks can’t get loans, and the values of houses goes down, and that aggravates the bond situation at the bank…and you end up with an Indymac bank failure.

No matter how well intentioned the regulators were in trying to prevent another Enron, they caused a problem much, much worse…and we are paying the price now. The good news for the banks: as these bonds continue to perform month after month, the banks will move portions from the nonperforming asset column to the performing asset column. Great for a year or two down the road, but tell it to the depositors, and the shareholders, of Indymac Bank, or National City Bank. A more realistic rule takes care of the problem…but you are dealing with the government, and they are here to help you. Instead, what we have is a snowball rolling down the mountain out of control, turning an iffy situation into a full blown crisis.

The other side of the equation is energy prices. There is no free market in energy. It has been regulated to death in the United States, and held hostage by OPEC. To make matters worse, countries like India and China, who are responsible for the dramatic upswing in demand for petroleum, have their oil prices subsidized by the government, and hence have no incentive to conserve.

Couple that with a “green” movement in this country that has taken on the characteristics of new national religion, it is wonder we have any energy at all. Again, while our Congress is concerned about how the Europeans view the United States, blocking any and all energy development, alternative, oil, or otherwise…China and India are rapidly becoming the environmental cesspools of the world, and nobody says a word to them.

Balance has not entered into the green discussion. No one points out that environmental issues were among the causative factors in the disappearance of the local steel industry, and much of the American heavy manufacturing base. I remember the Mayor of Youngstown saying back in the late 1960’s when the EPA was here to clean up the Mahoning River… the day the Mahoning River runs clean is the day we will have no more steel mills in the Valley. He was right on the money.

And just to tie things up in a neat bundle…the next credit crisis to hit the banks will be delinquent credit card debt, most of it due to rising energy prices and the cost to fill up your car with gas.

I am not advocating a return to “wild west” accounting and massive pollution of our air and water. But I do believe that it is time to strike a balance, and to be realistic in our approach to our financial system and our energy production. Banks should be allowed to put some value on those bonds relieving the capitalization requirements. Most of them are performing. The government should immediately institute a full blown energy agenda, including drilling, nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen fuel cell development, renewable energy like ethanol, infrastructure build up to allow for tying into the electric grid and for ethanol and hydrogen pumps at filling stations, coal liquification plants, shale oil development….and I could go on.

Unless we do this, and do it quickly, we can all bend over and kiss our proverbial asses’ goodbye as we go to the poor house.

The Democratic Energy Plan: Be Careful What You Vote For!

Over the years, I have concluded that the main difference between Republicans and Democrats is how they view an apple pie. Democrats assume that the size of the pie is constant, and wish to divvy it up into smaller but “fairer” slices. Republicans assume that the pie is expanding, and that there is no need to shrink anyone’s portion so long as we can keep baking larger and better apple pies. The Republican view is the consensus of most of Americans, if it works properly.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that the Democrats and the current Democratic Congress have done nothing relating to energy. They view the current amount of energy as a constant. It will not increase, and more importantly, nor should we try to increase it. We just have to learn to live with less. After all, we are selfish and greedy, and we have to be “fair.” The party is controlled by environmental ideologues whom would be happy if our only means of transportation could be reduced to walking, and bikes if regulated.

While there is plenty of blame to go around Washington relating to energy policy, I am more disturbed about the Democrats and their intransient position to new energy sources. No to drilling. No to nuclear power. No to wind power. No to solar energy. While they say they want alternative sources for energy, they have to be “studied” (translate delay). America is a sinful nation and has to suffer for our excesses. We are killing the planet, don’t you know. The environmental whackos control the party, and you will see nothing done to increase energy supplies as they continually spew their global warming venom, their the “wind generators will kill migratory birds” claptrap, the “pipeline will kill the caribou” propaganda, the “solar power panels will hurt the desert lizards” lament, and the ever popular “we will all turn green with nuclear power” rant.

I will guarantee you that if Obama is elected President, here is the only energy policy the Democratic Congress will allow him to implement.

1) Reduce the speed limit to 55 mph.

2) Rationing of gasoline.

3) Taxation on home use of natural gas or electricity over specified limits to be determined by Congress, if you can get it at all. I would not be surprised if they attempt to actually come into your home and put a regulator in.

4) Massive subsidies to the “poor” who can’t afford gasoline and heat.

5) Tap the strategic oil reserve. So much for gas when we go to was with Iran.

And Obama will agree. Obama’s response to high gasoline prices: “I would have preferred a gradual adjustment.” He thinks that high energy prices are a good thing. You will be paying for your high energy prices, and for someone else's, too. How many of this country's ills can be cured by "taxing the rich"? Sooner or later, you will run out of rich to tax, and that includes you.

When you vote in November, always remember that when you vote “against” something, you are also voting “for” something. Do you prefer an energy policy of doing with less, or an energy policy of producing more? You decide.

Obama Heatlh Care: Worth a Close Look

There are many things about Barack Obama that I don’t like, but his health care plan is worth a second look. I have read many articles and heard many claims that Obama is pushing a single payer, universal, socialized medicine health care plan like Canada and many countries in Europe. Hillary Clinton tried it with Hillary Care; failed miserably; and pushed both houses of Congress into Republican control. Americans didn’t want a forced government system then, and they don’t want now. Both candidates for President have learned the lesson.

I am 58 years old, and because I have colitis and have taken anti-depressants over the years, I am uninsurable. My wife continues to work because she carries the benefits. If she were to retire, she is insured through STRS, and I am able to buy health insurance through the system for myself…but there is no guaranty it will be there until I am 65, and it is very expensive. There is no state mandate requiring STRS to provide health care for anybody, including the retirees. It has been trying to years to eliminate, or at least curtail, the amount of health care insurance that is available to the families of retirees.

I have heard the 45 million uninsured Americans hype by the Dems for years, and for the most part, it is a crock. Included in the figure are illegal immigrants, those between jobs, with the a large portion of the uninsured being those who choose not to carry insurance because they feel they don’t need it. Those are mostly 20 somethings who are feeling invincible.

On the other hand, health care is a national issue, and it is based on private insurers spreading the risk over a pool of insureds. If those young people don’t pay for insurance, the risk can’t be spread among the population in a meaningful manner that would help health insurance be affordable.

Then there are those who are deemed to be uninsurable. The obvious case is a person with cancer or aids…but the insurance companies cast a wide net looking for things to keep from selling you insurance, including issues of smoking, weight (too heavy or too thin), colitis, depression…ad infinitum. Pretty much everyone over the age of 50 will be denied insurance, pre-existing condition exceptions not even an option. No Insurance!!!

Some of the states have tried to alleviate the problem with state sponsored health care plans. Ohio is not one of them, but does require those selling insurance to have open enrollment periods each year in which they sell a very expensive, barely basic policy to those who are otherwise would not be able to buy insurance. You have to look for the time period. It is not advertised in a meaningful fashion, and it is a different time period for each insurance company.

Obama’s plan addresses those issues without forcing a single payer system down the country’s throat. The goal is to widen the choices that are available to Americans who need health insurance. Private insurance through employers will still be available. The government would expand the health care policy currently available to Federal employees if someone wanted to buy in. The government would provide a clearinghouse for private insurance. The issue of non-insurability would go away.

Of course, the devil is in the details. Hillary would require EVERYONE to be insured under a similar system. Obama does not, which tightens the risk pool. And because Obama is the leftist’s leftist, I don’t trust him to be able to resist a single payer system as in Canada or Great Britain, which would be disastrous. Even the Canadian Supreme Court has just ruled that Canada has to provide for private pay insurance if the wait for a procedure is so long as to effectively deny the individual of treatment or choice of treatment. On the other hand, McCain sole reliance on private insurers doesn’t work, or the health care issues would be fixed by now.

As a McCain supporter, I hope that he would give Obama’s plan some serious scrutiny. Is the health care issue enough to make me vote for Obama? No. But if he loses, I hope that he puts forth the effort in Congress to pass a health care plan like he has outlined. We would be the better for it. The only question I have is why the Democratic Congress hasn’t done it already?? Mmmmm?

Flirting with Liberalism Again

Once again the American electorate is flirting with liberalism. It has been a long time since we have done a mating dance with liberals, and the flirtations have been tenuous at best. Since the end of World War II, there has only been one liberal (re: progressive) President as we currently define it.

John Kennedy was not “liberal” in the modern sense. He cut taxes and believed in a strong defense. A military man himself, he was not afraid to use American power. He learned his lesson in the botched Bay of Pigs invasion and after naively meeting with Nikita Khrushchev without an agenda. Khrushchev believed Kennedy to be weak, which led directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis. But Kennedy understood the military and the use of American power, and the rest is history.

Lyndon Johnson was the first modern president that could fit the “progressive” mode, with his Great Society programs and Civil Rights legislation. But on defense, he was conservative. One can debate the Vietnam War forever, but in my humble opinion, the war was lost not on the battlefield, but here at home. Ho Chi Minh stated overtly that American politics was his strongest weapon. Johnson, and subsequently Nixon, was forced to fight the war with one hand tied behind his back, never allowing the full force of the American military to do its job.

That gave rise to Eugene McCarthy, who almost defeated Johnson in New Hampshire. Eugene McCarthy was the first modern progressive to gain a foothold in American politics, not Bobby Kennedy, as the latest television docudrama would have you believe. Kennedy was late to the party, only entering the race after McCarthy destroyed the chance for a Johnson second term, and when Kennedy was sure that Hubert Humphrey could be beat at the Democratic Convention, something McCarthy could not do.

Jimmy Carter was the first true modern progressive president. It was a failed presidency. Those of us old enough to remember the Carter years try to block out the misery index, more commonly known as stagflation. Income tax rates were high. So were interest rates, choking off the housing industry, industrial expansion, and just about everything else. Inflation was rampant…and Carter lusted in his heart while complaining about American malaise. Then came the beginning of the escalation of problems in the Mideast from regional distress to a world class crisis. We are still paying the price for Carter failing to deal with the Iran hostage situation, which cost him the presidency.

The country shifted dramatically back to the right under Ronald Reagan. Then George H.W. Bush violated his pledge of “read my lips, no more taxes,” and the country once again shifted to the left and elected Bill Clinton, who learned a hard lesson. His election wasn't a mandate to shift to the left, but rather a repudiation of the first President Bush’s broken promises. Two years later, Bill Clinton was forced to govern from the center after the country rejected the progressive policies implemented when the Democrats controlled of both houses of Congress and the Presidency. The electorate switched control of both Houses to the Republicans.

Now we are flirting with progressive liberalism again, or are we? Since the 1932 election of President Roosevelt, America has NEVER voted “for” progressive liberalism, but only against the failure of the incumbent conservative President to deliver his conservative promises. Richard Nixon soundly defeated George McGovern’s progressive liberalism in 1972. Jimmy Carter was elected as a result of Watergate and Gerald Ford’s pardoning of Nixon, only to be defeated soundly by Ronald Reagan 4 years later. Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush on the basis of broken promises about taxes, only to be neutered by the electorate two years later after a failed attempt to nationalize health care as the Republicans took over both houses of Congress in the midterm elections. George W. Bush defeated two progressive liberals, Al Gore and John Kerry.

I don’t think that this year will be any different. George W. Bush has failed to deliver on his promises of fiscal conservatism. He failed to deliver on his promises relating to partial birth abortion. He failed to deliver on his promises relating to illegal immigration. You can debate the merits of the Iraq war, but had it been managed better, it would not be an issue today. Proper military tactics have all but removed it from the front page of the newspapers.

As bad as the Bush numbers are, the popularity of the Democratic controlled Congress is even less, by almost 50%. What does that tell you? It tells you America doesn’t buy the Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid agenda. If Obama should be elected President, he should know that a repudiation of George Bush is not a repudiation of the center/right ideological base of the American electorate. If Obama is elected President and views it as a “mandate” for a left wing political agenda, he will meet the same fate as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

America’s flirtations with liberalism always remind me of Jimmy Carter just a tad. We may lust in our hearts…but at the end of the day, we don’t touch.

Are We Better Off Than Our Parents?

I was watching Fox News this morning, and Frank Luntz, the best pollster around, got into a discussion with his focus group about whether or not they are better off than their parents. He was somewhat surprised when most of the group answered yes. That, in turn, led to a very early morning (not the best time of day) between myself and my wife as to whether we are better off than our parents. After much “too heavy for 7:00 AM” discussion, we decided that our answer is yes….but!

On the face of it, there is no question that we are better off, and so is most of the country. The percentage of home ownership in the United States, especially among minorities, is the highest in US history. Look at the size of the homes that are being built for the middle class. Three cars garages are the norm, and some have 4 car garages. Square footage is up substantially. A house with less than 2 full baths just doesn’t sell these days.

When I was growing up, we had one car. When we got a second car, it was a stripped down Plymouth with vinyl floors, a heater, and no radio. Air conditioning? Fuggetaboutit. We called it “the radiator” in Italian. We had one television set in the living room, and one telephone in an alcove in the hallway, and a radio in the kitchen. We ate out one or two times a month.

Today, I have 4 cars, one of them being a 1991 Caddy. Houses without air conditioning are the exception instead of the rule. I have 5 television sets in various parts of the house, along with 8 telephones (kitchen, family room, 3 bedrooms, and 3 phones in my very long basement). Two phone lines go to two of the phones. That doesn’t count the three cells phones I pay for. Although we don’t do a whole lot of traveling (we are just too pooped to pop), people around me are flying off to Florida and Las Vegas like they were driving to Warren.

When I was growing up, if you got cancer, it was a death sentence. If you had a heart attack or a stroke, you would die. The average life expectancy continues to increase. Although there are some challenges to our health care system, people still flock to the United States for the best health care in the world.

But does all of the above mean we are better off than our parents? It’s the intangibles that are missing. When my parents got a job, it was for life. Today, the average person will change jobs 4 -5 times. My parents knew what was right and what was wrong. Today, it is shades of grey. My parents had a sense of control over their lives. Today, we are the mercy of computers, digital machines, phone trees, and private and government bureaucrats. In my parents’ day, the nuclear family was the bedrock upon which our society was built. Now, Mom and Dad and Junior are the minority, as single family households lead the pack in our society. Familial commitment is a thing of the past. Our parents were secure in themselves. Today, there is nothing secure about anything, including social “security”.

Our national sense of destiny died with Ronald Reagan. Today, political ideologies have morphed into perversions of the American dream. What took a family now takes a village. The bad guys are the good guys. Self reliance is replaced by an omnipresent government that is looking out for you. The largest industry in the United States is now government, employing almost 60% of the workforce at some level. That is a scary statistic.

Are we better off than our parents? I suppose. But here is my question: Will my son be better off than me?