Obama Christ, Superstar

It looks like 'ObamaMessiah' is sweeping the Democratic field, which will make for an interesting Democratic Convention in the months ahead, not to mention interesting reading for Clinton-watchers in the tabloids. That sordid business aside, Jennifer Rubin puts a good face on the McCain vs Obama odds, in the face of ObamaMessiah's stadium-size screaming crowds in her article, "Five Ways for McCain to Beat Obama" (February 15, 2008). That, however, assumes an intelligible universe of rational subjects responding to reasonable arguments. Have you been looking at the ObamaMessiah crowds?

One reader writes: "Yes Barack Obama is a deeply flawed candidate. But something very important is happening. Not only a vast expansion of the electorate but a hunger for citizenship." (Well, it would be nice to think it's that. Could it be anything else?) "Mitt Romney rightly recognized that Washington is broken. Without vision the people perish. I remember the Rockefeller Brothers and their goals for America in the 1960s. Nothing comparable exists today. And so we drift to a country isolated from each other and damned to nothing but consumption. I am refreshed by the views of Wm F. Buckley and John O'Sullivan on Obama in the current National Review. Peggy Noonan, Reagan's speechwriter, remarked 'Obama's opponents see him as Bambi, in fact he is bulletproof.'" (That all depends on what 'bulletproof' means. Undefeatable? Irreproachable? Above criticism? She isn't clear.) "McCain, a worthy hero, is not up to matching wits with Obama. He will play the fear card and play it effectively." (I'm not sure this isn't comparing apples and oranges. McCain can't beat Obama on American Idol singing arias from the Webber-Rice rock opera, "Jesus Christ, Superstar"; but that hardly means means McCain isn't up to matching wits with Obama. Choose a different theater: foreign policy, geo-political relations, national defense: one can then just as radily question whether Obama is up to matching wits with McCain. This isn't saying McCain wins the popularity contest. It's only insisting that the popularity contest isn't an accurate index, in the final analysis, of intelligence or knowledge.)

Hey, you think this is over the top? Barack Obama promoted himself with George Friedrich Handel's Coronation Anthem, "Zadok the Priest," with all its Old Testament religious overtones, composed for the coronation of George II of Great Britain in 1727 (Obama, Believe Again -- check it out)!!! Regal music. Intimations of royalty. Sound bites and images drenched in sentiment. Heady stuff. As long as you don't think about what it means -- because it's little more than a Rorschach inkblot for American audiences to envision their own inchoate hopes and dreams. At Obama's inauguration, do not expect a mere plebeian oath. Expect a royal coronation. What these screaming crowds yearn for is not mere citizenship, but worship. In a post-Christian America, they have found a substitute for the Son of God in Obama Christ, Superstar. Expect a royal coronation of sacerdotal proportions -- Obama Prophet, Priest, and King. If Hillary ever scared you, think again. Hillary is nothing compared to her rival's groupies gone positively mad over how ObamaMessiah makes them feel.