01/21/10
from American Thinker
The End of the Obama Mystique
By J.R. Dunn
It's been a few years since the release of The 13th Warrior. The film was that
rarity, an intelligent actioner. Adapted from Michael Crichton's novel Eaters of
the Dead, it was a retelling, and rationalization, of the ancient Beowulf
legend.
In Crichton's version, the monsters of legend comprise a tribe of human
cannibals preying on Viking settlements. The story is told through the eyes of
an educated Arab visitor driven to the far north by circumstances. He witnesses
an attack by the cannibals in which the Vikings panic and run for it, sustaining
heavy casualties in the process. But then, with the assistance of their Arab
visitor, the Vikings begin to analyze the behavior of their enemy, piercing
through the supernatural aura to the actuality within, learning their enemy's
weaknesses and the means of capitalizing on them. The Viking defense improves
and becomes formidable. At last they assault the cannibal stronghold itself,
where Beowulf confronts and destroys their unsavory queen-goddess, losing his
life in the process.
The film is an examination of the power of intellectual analysis. Utilizing
their brains, along with their swords, the Vikings pierce the mystique of the
cannibals, seeing them no longer as demons erupted from Hell but merely as men
whose mother goddess dresses them funny. From that point on, it's only a matter
of time, effort, and tactics.
The same process has occurred many times in history. In 1814, somebody -- it's
unclear who -- persuaded the Allies that the smart move was to stop chasing
Napoleon from battlefield to battlefield and instead to march directly on Paris
and deprive him of his power base. That did the trick -- with his mystique as
the Unconquered Conqueror punctured, Napoleon was soon without an army and
within weeks in Elba, playing solitaire and planning his big comeback.
To read the war reports and commentary of 1942 is to step into an alternate
universe. People really expected the Japanese Imperial Navy to sail over the
horizon any minute. Predictions were made for the loss of Alaska, attacks on the
West Coast, an invasion of the Pacific Northwest, the utter destruction of the
Panama Canal. None of it happened, of course, and the legend of the Japanese
superman died at last in the hard fighting at Midway and Guadalcanal, and was
never regained.
We saw it again this Tuesday in Massachusetts. In a nearly unimaginable upset, a
seat that "belonged" to the Democrats in a state "owned" by extreme liberals was
taken by an underdog Republican candidate. Scott Brown's victory over Marsha,
Marcia, Ms. Coakley was substantial - 52% to 47%, with the balance going to a
third-party pest. The results have shaken the political cosmos. It is impossible
to see the long-term results at this point.
But one thing is clear: Brown didn't just overcome an unworthy, machine-produced
opponent, or even provide the crucial vote to prevent the further socialization
of the United States. He destroyed a legend -- the legend of Obama the
Omnipotent.
We are seeing an intrusion of the mythic into everyday life, an instance of the
Beowulf factor influencing millennial politics. The result has shocked and
disturbed many onlookers. But Carl Jung would not have been surprised.
The Obama of 2008 was a figure who came out of nowhere trailing clouds of glory.
His followers hailed him as a new phenomenon, of a type unseen in America since
JFK and perhaps not ever. He was hailed as superhuman, with more than a touch of
the divine. Some openly called him a messiah. One of his media supporters stated
for the record that Obama was a godlike entity.
Perhaps it seemed like that to some after his November victory. The stunned
opposition among Republicans and conservatives were certainly tempted to view it
that way. How else to explain the near-mad adulation, the absolute certainty,
the pseudo-religious frenzy? People rushed to make offerings at Obama's feet.
Buildings and schools were renamed for him. The Nobel committee trashed its
reputation to offer him a prize normally given only after lengthy and productive
careers.
To the opposition, he remained a mystery, an uncanny figure, certainly not what
his followers claimed, but something out of the ordinary all the same, to be
analyzed and pondered only at a safe distance. Stymied conservatives were
reduced to watchful waiting, to near-hysterical pursuit of wills-of-the-wisp, or
at worst to even turning their coats and going over to the other side. (In the
case of David Brooks, I'd guess you'd have say turning his pants)
Some had doubts. It all seemed too much like rock-star hype of the most vulgar
sort. Obama was a pol for the age of Britney, a messiah for people who became
famous for wearing their pants low. Such an epoch could never produce an FDR or
even a Lyndon B. Johnson. The Big O had flaws, hidden though they might be.
Remain alert, and they'd appear eventually. This was the impulse that fueled the
Tea Parties of last summer.
The record of his first year seemed to bear this out. The pusillanimity in
dealing with the Russians and Iranians, the back of the hand given allies such
as the UK, Israel, and Poland. As the months passed the errors grew larger, the
faux pas more humiliating -- the bows to toy royalty, the collapse of Chicago's
Olympics plans, the debacle of the Copenhagen "climate summit". But Obama's
more-than-human reputation survived. Even when New Jersey and Virginia went to
the GOP in the gubernatorial elections, the blame went to poor candidates, the
recession, the customary blowback against incumbents. Obama sailed above it all,
his halo unblemished.
With the health-care bill, it all seemed to be coming back. The tide once again
was running Obama's way. Through a mixture of chicanery, deceit, and open
bribery this atrocious bill, as clear an undermining of American freedoms as
exists in the historical record, was brought to the very brink of passage. The
superhuman Obama had returned, once more standing astride history like a
colossus.
As of this week, that is ended. Obama as Übermensch is a thing of the past. In a
short time, commentators from all parts of the spectrum will be scratching their
heads and wondering what it was all about.
While Obama was tarred from his support of losers in the Virginia and New Jersey
contests, Massachusetts left him no choice. Too much was at stake. His signature
effort, the takeover of the health-care system, depended on that single vote. So
he was flushed out of the Oval Office at emergency speed to throw a lifeline to
a swamped candidate. The tired, near-shabby figure who appeared in Boston last
Sunday to mouth a pro forma endorsement that he obviously did not believe was
not the Obama of last year. Not a godling, not a New Man, not a higher step in
evolution, but a sad and overwhelmed individual who is having bad time of it and
sees worse coming.
Mystique is a strange type of armor. Intact, it is effectively impenetrable. But
when it fails, it fails not in sections or layers but completely, becoming not a
source of protection but a burden, one that the wearer cannot rid himself of no
matter how hard he tries. Obama is about to discover the truth of this. The
historical record is clear on one point: people are not kind to failed messiahs.
And it was accomplished by a regular guy, a guy who drives a pickup, who
probably intended or foresaw nothing of the sort. But that, after all, is the
way it goes in this country. It's not Beowulf who rides to the rescue in America
-- and that's a good thing; Beowulfs often die fulfilling their missions -- but
the average guy who sees something wrong and acts to set it right. That is what
Scott Brown did. And though he may sometimes disappoint us in days to come - a
serious conservative, after all, could never have been elected in Massachusetts
- nothing can diminish his achievement of this day. He is the man who
demonstrated, clearly and with finality, that a god-emperor has no place in the
American system. That is no small thing.
A final point: this must also mark the end of conservative defeatism. Obama is
no longer a mystery, no longer an invulnerable figure, no longer the favorite of
destiny.
He is the master of a party of thieves, loons, and hustlers. A party that has
tossed away its mandate in less than a year's time, a party with no Plan B, with
no ideas and no useful tradition, a party that feeds off fantasy, with nothing
to serve it but the husk of an ideology dead for generations. They are easy
targets, from Obama on down, and there is no excuse for holding back.
There is still plenty of work to do, and a long road ahead. We are still at
Midway. But as a man said at the time, "It is not even the beginning of the
end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." Let us go amongst them.
J.R. Dunn is consulting editor of American Thinker.
Page Printed from:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/the_end_of_the_obama_mystique.html
* * * * *
The quote in the last paragraph, appropriately, is from Sir Winston Churchill, whose bust was rudely rejected from the Oval Office when Obuma moved in. I know that many of us are filled with joy to see "The Won" slip and fall in the mud, but he and his sycophants are still in power for three more dangerous years. The only thing that has changed is that we (and they) now know that they are not invulnerable. This is both good and bad. I've never hunted animals, but I believe if you wound a tiger, he fears you, but he also begins to stalk you so he can kill you before you kill him.
If Obuma considers himself wounded by Scott Brown's election, he has become more dangerous.
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