December 13, 2008
The mainstream media cheerleading has reached a new low. Yesterday’s Washington Post featured an article entitled To Teach, They Reach for Obama. A sampling:
Sherry Jones was driving her 13-year-old son, Malcolm, to school the other morning when he mentioned something about some kid he didn’t like.
Something about the kid being a jerk.
Jones told him that wasn’t kind. When you speak of people, she said, always speak good of them.
“Look at Barack! . . . During the campaign, no matter what, Obama always took the high road,” she told him. “During the debates when John McCain would say a dig, Barack would never react. . . . He was always positive.”
You could call it Obama discipline or Obama etiquette, and it goes something like this:
Get up! Do you think Obama would have slept late and not made it to school on time?
Why don’t you guys share? Don’t you think Obama would want you to share?
How much did you read? Obama would have finished the book by now.
We have absolutely no insight into what sort of student Barack Obama was, a fact highlighted by his refusal to release information about his college years, including his Master’s thesis. What little we do know comes through his own narrative, and auto-biography is a dubious source of factual information no matter the author.
The obvious Jesus comparison aside, this is a stunning example of how Barack Obama’s followers have created him as a God of their own desiring. The parents using Barack as an example for their children have fabricated an image of him that is of their minds, fueled by the Obama Image Making Machine. One wonders how the real Barack Obama will stand up to his counterfeit in the coming months and years. January 20th is yet weeks off and already the genuine Barack is showing signs of fatigue from living up to this campaign creation. Will the next question from the W.W.B.D. parenting handbook be, “How much did you tell them? Barack would have only given them part of the story.”
Obama discipline is complicated. Kids relate to him in a way that they say they have not related to other politicians. He might be the president-elect, but he’s cool, he’s young, he speaks a language they understand.
“He’s different than other presidents,” Malcolm Jones says. “He has kids who are young. And he was endorsed by a lot of icons.”
Which explains, in large part, why children and the mainstream media, are so very enchanted.
W.W.B.D?
