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The Evasive Poetry of Barack Obama: What Should We Expect in Denver?
Guest Column | By Nicholas Guariglia | August 26, 2008
This week, Senator Barack
Obama will officially accept the Democratic nomination at his convention in Denver. Not content with
addressing the crowd in the usual basketball arena -
where the rest of the convention will take place - The One has moved his
speech, in particular, to the much larger nearby football stadium.
His acceptance
speech will be the first ever for an African-American. It will also fall on the
45-year anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” proclamation. To
say this will be the biggest media glitz-show unlike we have ever seen is still
a wild understatement.
Which is all well
and good. But what are we to expect from Sen. Obama’s speech itself? After his
recent foul-ups at Saddleback, where Obama’s shallow answers in a non-scripted,
impromptu forum – “ah-uh-ums,” “above my pay grade,”etc. – proved almost
cringe-worthy for even his political opponents, we should expect a return to
the diligently planned and meticulously worded rhythmical presumptiveness and
grandiosity of his last great speech: Berlin.
The
pie-in-the-sky mantra is wearing thin, however. The Democrat hierarchy has
privately asked Obama to be more precise when speaking of his plans to bring
“hope” to millions. So is it a wise idea for the Obama campaign to
invariably revert back to old Berlin-form during the convention?
On the one hand,
the case could be made that such vaguely optimistic loftiness got him where he
is. On the other, like a Pet Rock fad that has seen its day, a
Berlin-style speech, with a continued messianic theme, might underscore John
McCain’s “celebrity” counter-theme.
In hindsight,
Sen. Obama’s foreign trip was a disaster. At the time, the anchors of CBS, NBC,
and ABC – who traveled with him as he ventured abroad, as if they were his
press secretaries – all concluded his journey was a huge success. Who would
turn down a gaffe-free photo-op with troops and foreign dignitaries?
With that said,
his request to speak at Berlin’s
Brandenburg Gate was outrageous. He would have done well to watch more Seinfeld reruns, where George and Jerry delve endlessly into the nuances of social
etiquette (breakup etiquette, re-gifting etiquette, coma etiquette,
close-talking etiquette, double-dipping etiquette).
Sen. Obama, it
became obvious in Berlin, ought to read the Emily
Post of presidential etiquette: when running for executive office in the United States,
there are certain things you simply refrain from doing out of respect for your
predecessors. One of those things is requesting to speak to Berliners near the
Brandenburg Gate.
This, the place
of historic JFK and Reagan speeches, during times of historical Cold War
impending-nuclear-catastrophe importance, seemed a bit much – even for an
adoring, post-modernist Europe. What, as
one commentator wondered, has Obama ever done to earn the Brandenburg
Gate?
The Germans
managed to convince Obama away from Brandenburg,
but speak in Berlin
he nevertheless did. The CNN split-screen contrasts of McCain checking high
food prices – clumsily spilling apple sauce down an aisle at a local grocery store
– and Obama preaching to 200,000 wildly cheering Germans were amazing. Yet some
Americans might have identified more with the former image, rather than the
latter, looking at Obama lecture to mesmerized Germans and thinking, “What’s he
doing over there?”
As Obama labeled
himself a “world citizen” and praised the past actions of “the world” in
feeding a starving Berlin or bringing down the wall – never the solitary
actions of a lonely Truman or confidant Reagan – some Americans might have been
wondering, “What has this guy ever done to fight tyranny in Europe?”
To hear Sen.
Obama speak about the horrors of Soviet totalitarianism to Germans – as if they
needed to be told by a former disciple of KGB-proxy Frank Marshall Davis –
was an irony not lost on at least a few of us. While listening to the speech,
some might have wondered whether or not 20-something “Barry” took a hard-line
against communism at Columbia,
challenging peers and professors alike about the morality in rolling back and
bringing down the Stalinist superpower.
Somehow, I get
the feeling he never led the rhetorical charge in class about the need to
topple the Soviet Union. With that in mind,
take note of how many times Sen. Obama mentions contemporary Russia’s autocratic transition during his speech
in Denver. (As
a contrast, in the spirit of having a good time, consider playing the Denver
Convention Drinking Game: each time Obama says the word “change,” take a shot
of your favorite whiskey.)
The Berlin speech itself was
popcorn worthy, and while watching, a whole host of observations could quickly
be made. For starters, Europeans love it when an American reminds them how
imperfect the United States
is.
Usually reserved
for cranky diplomats, save-Mother-Earth-activists, and Hollywood
actors, to suddenly hear such deep-seated psychological relief from a
post-racial, eloquent presidential candidate – of all people – must
have, to honor Christ Matthews, sent a tingle up the audience’s collective
legs.
Obama, likewise,
visibly enjoyed reminding Germans he was a different soft of American from what
they were used to, yet again advantageously evoking his race into the
(European) public discourse. A false claim – they know Powell and Rice
pretty well, no? – it was nonetheless apparent he gained pleasure from
mentioning it. As in Berlin, watch for this in
Denver.
Additionally, it
is hard to think of an orator who, while giving a speech, stops so often and so
recurrently either expecting, or in hopes of generating, spontaneous audience
applause. The next time you’re listening to someone – anyone, it needn’t
matter – give a speech, take note of the frequency with which he or she pauses
in expectation of clapping. Normally, it occurs every few minutes; a short
frequency time-frame is every minute or so.
Not with Barack.
He pauses long and he pauses often. After the melodramatic downwards MLK-like
theatrical tremble he adds to the last syllables of “important” words – be on
the lookout for this as well – he stops and awaits the adulation. An advisor of
his should confide that far too much time is wasted this way.
Far too much time
is likewise put into the text of speeches, as well. Berlin is a classic example. “This is the
moment when every nation in Europe must have
the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday,” he
surmised. But simply stating “The trans-Atlantic alliance will be as important
in the future as it is today” would have sufficed. “We need not stand idly by
and watch the further spread of the deadly atom” is poetic and cute, but
“Nuclear proliferation is a problem” would have been a lot less fluffy – no
“need nots” or “idly bys” were necessary. Note to the Obama camp: every time
your man says something lyrical like “deadly atom,” a lot of us think “empty
words.”
In jest, one
blogger even posted a quiz to his readers, seeing if they could discern quotes
from Sen. Obama’s Berlin
speech with the utopian lyrics of Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie’s 1985
famine-relief “We are the World” mega-hit.
Michael Barone
calls this “eloquence fatigue.” With a teleprompter, Obama has the gift of the
gab, and he knows it – and is thus becoming “a sophistical rhetorician
inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity,” as Benjamin Disraeli once
described William Gladstone.
He should
continue to give good speeches, but when it comes to the vernacular,
nomenclature, and spontaneously acquired Bible belt drawls and preacher
accents, a little more substance, and a little more down-to-earth sincerity
wouldn’t hurt. Millions of Americans are dying to know: Is there any “there”
there?
My advice for Denver? Just take it
easy, Hawthorne.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Nicholas Guariglia is a polemic and essayist who writes on Islam and Middle Eastern geopolitics. He is a student at the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, where he is studying U.S. foreign policy. He also contributes to http://www.globalpolitician.com and http://www.worldthreats.com He can be reached at
Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.
2 Comments | Post a Comment
Obama supporters keep chanting the mantra that Barack Obama
is the candidate who can unite our country ... but, Obama couldn’t
even unite his own party ... even after winning the nomination. And,
in reality, McCain has the history of working across the isle in congress.
Obama has brainwashed his followers into operatIing on ‘belief’, rather
than reason ... just as he learned in Jeremiah Wright’s church ... the power of BLIND faith.
Even his campaign solgan is based on belief, not common sense, logic,
or reason. Obama’s even got his followers publicly denouncing the importance
of experience ... as if that’s the reason Bush performed poorly ... when the
real reason Obama and his followers denounce experience is because
Obama doesn’t have any.
Keep America Strong ... Elect Senator John McCain in November !!
August 27 at 10:31 am | #1 | Link
How much is this black messiah ordination costing the American taxpayer for the additional venue screening and security?
Perhaps BHO could have used that money to pay the college tuition for who knows how many bitter midwest students who are clinging to thier guns and not understanding why he is wasting thier hardearned pennies.