OVERVIEW

We have pondered crowd behavior, past few weeks - how it is that the equivalent of a cult figure could end up as president of the United States? But that’s not it either. How did this individual, devoid of accomplishment, end up where he is? Because he’s half black? Because the economy tanked pre-election, implicating McCain’s party? That’s all part of it, yet......

We knew up front that Obama had no job qualifications. But so did his admirers. We knew up front that he demonstrated a lack of judgement in his past associations, with criminals and shake-down artists. But so did his admirers. We knew he was on the take from Fannie Mae, along with Frank, Dodd and Clinton. But so did his admirers. We knew his Ill. / Senate voting record. But so did his admirers.

Perhaps H.L. Mencken has the answer, in his Notes On Democracy (1926): "Public estimation of eminence runs in reverse ratio to its genuineness," writes Mencken, anticipating Obama, "the sort of eminence that the mob esteems most highly is precisely the sort that has least grounding in solid worth and honest accomplishment." Menken’s mob in this case is the Kool-Aid crowd, swooning coeds, the press, the Eastern establishment, the left right here in Marin County.

The masses think this guy is genuine because they "think" with their glands/hormones (female fantasies re Obama - ok, we won’t go there). But so does Obama consider himself the genuine article. It is a matter of relativity. He has always been surrounded by extremely liberal people. His background is one dimensional. What he considers center-of the-road is to most of us - far left. His whole idea of where the middle might be, is well to the left of where the average American might think it is. To a man like Obama, as he has let slip on too many occasions when away from his teleprompter, "Middle America" is not something to be compromised with, but rather, something that must be manipulated, because it is stupid.

Thus, BO stated two weeks ago that he is not in favor of "big government". He means that. To him big government is a pure socialist state, and not even he would go there. Instead he targets something less extreme - the socialist democracies of Europe, which is where he is intent on directing us. It is the essence of the man and his presidency. And he knows he has about a year before the masses wake up. "A good catchword," Oliver Wendell Holmes said, ‘can obscure analysis for 50 years." As one observer noted, "To pass a vast program changing the relationship of American government to its citizens, Obama only needs to obscure analysis for about a year."

Robert Craven