“He made the trains run on time.”
Nearly 65 years after Benito Mussolini was killed and strung up by a mob in Milan, the fallacious slogan credited to the Italian fascist dictator is still used in some circles. It is often cited as a testimonial to the fact that he was at one time loved by Italian people for his accomplishments, despite his eventual grisly end.
The thing is that the train slogan was a complete falsehood, propaganda calculated to underscore the competence of the National Fascist Party. It was believed – and still is by many to this day.
In case you missed it, on Tuesday, Barack Hussein Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. There is so much wrong with this that I don’t know where to start, although the talking points have been pretty much covered in this space over the last 10 months.
The shameless fanfare associated with the inaugural (that being, all the events of Jan. 20) was beyond the surrealism of a near-future, post-apocalyptic B movie. From the headlines four years ago, one would think that George W. Bush put America in hoc with the extravagance of his inaugural. Obama spent three times as much, and one would think that it was a Hollywood couple-of-the-month’s wedding, so proud were the press and fawning Obamanoids of the expenditure.
Vapid scum from the entertainment industry were out in full force, including wastes of skin from the rap music sector. This in itself could be a testament to the president’s guilt by association, were anyone in America concerned with whom he associates. The ceremony itself included a nauseating, racist benediction from the Rev. Joseph Lowery.
The entire gratuitously narcissistic extravaganza was covered by the press like ugly on an ape, as though it was the Second Coming. And why not? Obama was all but compared to Jesus Christ during his campaign.
So, is the “historic” nature of this presidency due to the fact that Obama is black?
Sadly, it is, although some would argue that it’s because he’s just wonderful. Obama is a true African-American, to be sure, inasmuch as one parent was African and one American. This is as opposed to the label “African-American” applied to most black Americans regardless of their actual lineage. Leaving aside the fact that it would be more comforting to informed Americans if our first black president did not have so much controversy tied to his ascendency, it is the phenomenon of his having been sold to American voters despite this and his lack of experience that alarm.
In the weeks prior to his swearing in, the press and the Obama camp made broad and wild comparisons of the president-elect to Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. The man had done nothing to merit these comparisons, yet there it was: Americans gobbled it up like starving villagers crowded around a U.N. relief truck.
More important than his blackness (to me, it isn’t important) is the fact that Obama might indeed be an illegal alien who considers himself more a “citizen of the world” than an American. The issue of his eligibility to serve as a “natural born citizen” was never resolved. His upbringing and association with communists from an early age, his admission to having sought out Marxists to hang out with in college, and his continued hobnobbing with radicals, racists and crooks are issues that remain conveniently overlooked.
Much of America – even many conservative pundits – have settled into a “let’s wait and see” modality. This is puzzling. If Obama was a scary guy prior to his election, why would he not remain so after becoming president? Granted that the office is not (as yet) one of absolute power, the questions surrounding some of his appointees and proposed actions still bespeak someone who possesses either a Sept. 10, 2001, mentality or an abysmally naïve worldview.
While America geared up for the coronation, the grave course of current events continued. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 300 points on Tuesday, losing 332.13 points, but this was ignored by the press. A week earlier, they would have tied it to Bush somehow.
It occurs to this columnist (for one) that President Obama, like Bill Clinton, will have to operate in campaign mode in order to stave off the pesky slings and arrows of reality. Whether the establishment press will be able to buffalo Americans indefinitely remains to be seen. From his campaign, to remaining in that mode up until the inauguration, to the portrayal of him as “everyman” and its acceptance by Americans, it appears that his image has been crafted so carefully that it is effectively unassailable.
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