Obama saves!
As usual, this year I will not be taking part in our annual national ritual of meaningless, back-patting, smarmy self-righteousness (and as such the true spiritual ancestor of veganism and Prius-driving), that is to say voting. However, the whole tawdry spectacle is being thrust upon me by the sign-waving ninnies who seem to occupy every street corner these days in college diploma-heavy territory. For instance, Cambridge gets periodically assaulted by a highly insane guy wearing a Jesus sign who wanders around the whole Boston area shouting at people (granted, there might be more than one of those). The other night, out of the corner of my eye I saw some tall, sign-waving black guy haranguing people in Harvard Square and assumed it was Crazy Jesus Man, but on closer inspection it turned out to be–an Obama ’08 campaigner! I enjoyed the series of “Obama Messiah Watch” columns that appeared in Slate last year making fun of the “gratuitously adoring biographical details that appear in newspaper, television, and magazine profiles of this otherworldly presence in our midst,” but now the parallels are getting a little disturbing, seeing as how Obama supporters have reached the point where they can now be easily mistaken for crazed Jesus freaks. Whether their frenzy is similarly motivated by massive displaced sexual frustration is unclear, but on the off chance that it is, I eagerly await Obama chastity bracelets and Obama rock, where you think the singer is singing about some hot girl until you realize that he’s actually singing about Obama.
p.s. Another time recently when I was going for a run, in a somewhat run-down liquor store across the river in Allston I saw possibly the greatest name for cheap (and presumably fortified) wine ever: Barefoot Wine. I also saw a George Foreman ad extolling the health benefits of some fast food joint, which is sort of amusing in its own right, but more to the point, with his grill and now this, since when did George Foreman become an authority on healthy eating? He’s not exactly slim and trim. He sort of looks like the result if the Marshmellow Man took a journey through someone’s digestive tract.
February 5th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Nicely done.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Is Obama the Messiah?
February 11th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
I have got to admit Obama presents great imagery. Note the long supple fingers and hands and the way he uses them to drive home his platitudes. He is the most inspiring candidate since Kennedy, but remember that the first thing Kennedy did was get us into the Bay of Pigs. His civil rights program was stymied.
The hated Johnson brought about real change. The civil rights laws were honed and enforced in the Nixon Administration. The administrations that did the heavy lifting went down in discrace, and get no credit. The moronic public yearns for the imagery of a savior( Jesus) not the filthy political work of the governor ( Pontius Pilate) who actually effect things.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I’m not really sure I see how the relationship between Jesus and Pontius Pilate really parallels that between Kennedy and Johnson unless you’re one of the conspiracy-mongers who think that Johnson ordered Kennedy’s assassination. Nor do I really see him as an unfairly neglected model of exemplary statesmanship, unless you count ignoring your own conscience and caving in to an angry mob as exemplary statesmanship.
February 12th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
I meant no analogy between Jesus and Kennedy in the way you think. My analogy has to do with the way both were saviors who died “in office.� Jesus never administered his kingdom. Kennedy’s administration was truncated by his death. Their policies were then carried out by people who are despised today. Perhaps it is an exaggeration to put Johnson and Nixon in the same class as Pilate, though I really think some partisan liberals do, but it is ironic that Johnson and Nixon who put into effect Kennedy’s plans did not receive the many hosannas. Perhaps they were more comparable to some of the more corrupt popes. My real point was that political reality makes electing saviors a process that is likely to result in disappointment. We need to do without saviors. Now what will happen if the Democrats elect a new one?