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November 19, 2006

Powerline: Grin and Barack It

It wasn't popular to say that the emporer had no clothes, and it's not popular to say that Barack Obama has no substance. I remember when I first encountered some campaign lit for Barack Obama and thought, "geez this guy is a crazy rabid liberal." I didn't expect him to go anywhere. He barely survived the Illinois Democrat primary and then got lucky when his opponent self-destructed after admitting he took his wife (Seven of Nine from Star Trek) to a kinky Paris sex club. Millions of men fantasize about taking Seven of Nine to a sex club, and I've never understood why that revelation compelled a smart former i-banker to withdraw from a Senate race he was winning. Anyway, this self-destruction provided the perfect opportunity for Obama to conceal those earlier unpalatable liberal tendencies and cruise to an easy win.

Powerline is also willing to say the star child has no substance:

I suppose there have been political figures more overrated than Barack Obama, but it's hard to think of one offhand. Here is a typically fawning media portrait, this one from the Associated Press, headlined Riding High, Obama Ponders His Future.

Obama is surely riding high, in some sense, but if you ask the question: what exactly has he done? the answer is elusive. Previously unknown, he won a Senate race against an opponent who withdrew from the race. That was less than two years ago. Since then, in his time in the Senate, what has he done? Nothing noteworthy, certainly.

The AP spins Obama's lack of any accomplishments as an advantage:

Obama, 45, clearly benefits from his rapid rise. He is not burdened by a lengthy Senate voting record.

Or any other record, as far as that goes. The AP professes itself mystified as to the origins of Obama's current notoriety:

It is hard to fathom Obama's meteoric rise in politics.

Not really. I think it has something to do with the fact that every news article that has ever appeared about Obama has described him in glowing terms as a "rising star." What he has done to deserve such a description, however, remains unclear.

Posted by adrianjo at November 19, 2006 10:01 PM