Obama has glama. Peggy Noonan says the public swoon reminds her of the old Marlene Dietrich song about falling in luff again.
“What does he believe? What does he stand for? This is, after all, the central question. When it is pointed out that he has had almost–almost–two years in the U.S. Senate, and before that was an obscure state legislator in Illinois, his supporters compare him to Lincoln. But Lincoln had become a national voice on the great issue of the day, slavery. He rose with a reason. Sen. Obama’s rise is not about a stand or an issue or a question; it is about Sen. Obama. People project their hopes on him, he says.
“He’s exactly right. Just so we all know it’s projection.”
But:
“Sen. Obama spent his short lifetime breathing in the common liberal/leftist wisdom, which he exhales at length. This is not something new–it’s something old in a new package. And it is something that wins you what he has, a series of 100% ratings from left-liberal interest groups.
“But mostly it seems to be about him, his sense of destiny, and his appreciation of his own particular gifts. Which leaves me thinking Oh dear, we have been here before. It?s not as if we haven’t already had a few of the destiny boys. It’s not as if we don’t have a few more in the wings.
“It seems to me that our political history has been marked the past 10 years by lurches, reactions and swerves, and I wonder if historians will see the era that started in the mid-’90s as The Long Freakout. First the Clinton era left more than half the country appalled–deeply appalled, and ashamed–by its series of political, financial and personal scandals. I doubt the Democratic Party will ever fully understand the damage done in those days. In reaction the Republican Party lurched in its presidential decision toward a relatively untested (five years in the governor’s office, before that very little) man whom party professionals chose, essentially, because “He can win” and the base endorsed because he seemed the opposite of Bill Clinton. The 2000 election was a national trauma, and I’m not sure Republicans fully understand what it did to half the Democrats in the country to think the election was stolen, or finagled, or arranged by unseen powers. Then 9/11. Now we have had six years of high drama and deep division, and again a new savior seems to beckon, one who is so clearly Not Bush.
“We’ll see what Sen. Obama has, what he is, what he becomes. But right now he seems part of a pattern of lurches and swerves–the man from nowhere, of whom little is known, who will bring us out of the mess. His sudden rise and wild popularity seem more symptom than solution. And I wonder if historians will call this chapter in their future histories of the modern era not ‘A Decision Is Made’ but ‘The Freakout Continues.'”
One minor point: Can we afford glamour-based leadership when we are in a struggle for our very civilization?