I like hope, in fact, I loved Hope so much I married her.
I am a sucker for sentiment. Patriotic appeals are great and I choke up at the National Anthem.
But patriotism, like any virtue, can become a vice when taken too far and it is easiest to take it too far when in the grip of a powerful emotion. A little irony, even about romance, keeps deep emotions from becoming irrational and dangerous to liberty.
The latest Obama advertisement has little political content, but proves that an ironic age is not immune to the cult of personality.
Of course, every politician risks too much passion for country.
McCain sometimes goes too far in making America the only cause worth a free man’s devotion. Given his horrific suffering for the nation, it is easy to how his rhetoric could veer in that direction. To his credit, I have never heard John McCain suggest that service to the nation is equivalent to voting for John McCain, at least exactly.
As Reagan’s “Morning in America” commercial demonstrated, a little bit of patriotism is effective. The Reagan commercial is short and most of the images are not of Reagan. It suggests that good things are happening in America and that part of the credit goes to all of us and some goes to Ronald Reagan. It is a classic “don’t rock the boat” message, but it is also tied to generic patriotism. Even a Democrat can sing “God Bless the USA.” The Reagan message may be to vote for Reagan, but it does not suggest that he is personally the incarnation of all that is good in the nation.
Still as my criticisms of McCain suggest, it is possible to go too far. The patriotic can easily become the personal and the messianic impulse in a republic is to be discouraged. The up-side of democratic skepticism is an intense distaste for the cult of personality.
In this context the latest Obama ad is just flat-out disturbing in a much deeper way than the worst of anything else other candidates are running.
I have good, sane friends who are Obama voters and respect their opinions highly. Surely, they must be equally disturbed as I am by a video with mindless rhythmic chanting of the Name (Obama! Obama!) combined with fatuous dreams of the Great Man solving all problems. When mixed with the Che-leftist-chic images of Obama in the commercial, it becomes impossible for the uncommitted not to get a bit worried.
Can some good liberal stop the careless and hurtful use of Soviet style imagery? That the Soviets and their Cuban surrogates organized the murder of tens of millions of human beings is apparently not bad enough to destroy a desire on the left to imitate their art. The personal pain caused to the survivors is, apparently, nothing.
Even worse, if possible, is the Iconic Image of Obama in the commercial complete with halo on one t-shirt. In a nation that agonized over whether the cross beam of a book case in a Huckabee commercial was the start of a theocracy, I wait for the howls of those interested in separation of church and state.
Followers, and one dare not call them voters, of Obama then voice every dream and hope for their future in the context of the Great Man making it so. I have never seen a commercial like it . . . my parent’s generation was a tad disturbing when “liking Ike”, but liking Ike was a mile away from worshiping him. While eagerly “taking Ike to Washington,” there was no suggestion that Eisenhower would bring peace to earth and goodwill to man by his mere election.
Obama will evidently heal the nations by his mere presence.
If a critic of Obama had made a video summarizing every reasonable fear of his candidacy, it could not have been more revealing than this. Say what you will about Senators McCain and Clinton, but nobody is likely to fear they are inspiring idolatry in their followers.
The Obama campaign shows no self-irony, little of the self-depreciating humor that made Reagan safe for democracy when he was alive. If Obama is the man my sensible friends think he is, I hope he distances himself quickly from this bizarre and a bit disturbing cult video.