Making a Dent in Liberal Disinformation: Obama's Words: Tabula Rasa

        The story of the Barrack Obama campaign is more the story of his supporters than of the man himself.

        An even-handed evaluation of the impoverished resume the senator brings as credentials to the campaign gives a different slant on the old saying, "In America, anyone can grow up to be president."  Certainly an intelligent man, and a pretty good writer, he has never penned any work of note except about the subject of himself.  He is one of the few editors of the Harvard Law Review never to have written anything for legal publication; in his work teaching law, he similarly never published any peer-reviewed scholarship.
 
       While working as a community organizer in Chicago he had limited success and today there is little to show he was ever there.  His lackluster career as an Illinois state representative left a record of nearly 130 "present" votes on controversial subjects rather than firm stands, and he sponsored no legislation of note.  In his three years in the United States Senate he has sponsored no major bills, and by the end of 2008 may have spent more time campaigning for president than actually fulfilling the duties of his one national office.  His only executive experience is in the political arena, overseeing campaigns or small Senate office staffs.

        Yet millions of intelligent Americans think he is qualified to be President of the United States, the most powerful executive position on the planet.  Why?

        In "The Audacity of Hope" ("Audacity"), the pre-campaign book Obama published in 2006, the senator demonstrates that he understands just what he is doing and why he is appealing:  ''I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.  As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.''  (Audacity, p. 11.)

        What was it that oriented people to him, to project on him that way?  Again, the senator provides the answer:  ''When I meet people for the first time, they sometimes quote back to me a line in my speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that seemed to strike a chord: 'There is not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America.' '' (Audacity, p. 231.)

        America has always been a divided nation in a variety of ways, and the "common knowledge" that we are more divided today than ever before is political rhetoric, not reality.  We differ today only in how swiftly, stridently, and comprehensively our differences can be aired and circulated.  Yet our awareness of our differences is always balanced by a natural yearning to come together.  Rare is the contrarian who exults in conflict.  We tend to select as friends those who are similar to us in beliefs, and seek to convert those who disagree so they, too, can join our side.

        Senator Obama has presented himself to the public as a man (in his presentations, the only man) who can bridge the divides and bring our nation together.  Such is the natural yearning for reconciliation that many cling to the hope message presented by a likable fresh face with a stirring presentation.  There is a willing suspension of critical thinking in this acceptance, an unquestioning focus on "Yes we can" that sets aside all of the normal questions.

        How can one man, one president, bring together the pro-life and pro-choice groups?  How can one man reconcile those seeking reparations for slavery with the vast majority who find such a goal appalling?  How can people who want the government to provide them with more "free" goodies be brought together with those who want to retain the profits of their toil?  How can any secular figure bring together those who think we are the cause of all the world's problems with those who see the United States as an (admittedly
imperfect) agent for good in the world?

        The answer, obviously, is that no one, no matter how gifted or eloquent, can bring people together who disagree at a fundamental level on issues of personal values and bedrock cultural, political and philosophical principles.  One can only tap the longing in all of us in America to come together and, in claiming the ability to unite us, to allow the believers to project on him the ability to bring others to the "correct" way of thinking. The pro-choice advocate, who looks to Obama as a uniter, does not do so with the understanding that reconciliation may mean movement from their dearly held position.  Any uniting they support involves bringing the pro-life people over to the pro-choice position.

        This uncritical embrace of the notion of change, projected upon this relatively unknown man, inevitably ends up in conflict with what Obama says and does.  The Camelot promise, reflecting the values that each believer brings ("President Obama will change things for the better, better being what I think is right"), collides in cognitive dissonance with utterances that contradict them.  When we are confronted with two incompatible thoughts, our mind seeks to eliminate the conflict, either by dismissing one of the thoughts, adding a third idea which alters the conflict, or elevating one cognition to a higher priority that overwhelms the contradiction.

        For die-hard "get a Democrat back in the White House at all costs" partisans, the dissonance between what Obama purports to be and what his experience, statements, and associations demonstrate is resolved by the overwhelming value of the partisan desire.  For the rest, for the "undecideds" or the independents who are drawn to the promise of unity ("no black America."), these contradicting facts are either dismissed because of the desire to believe (picture closing your eyes, hands over ears, humming) or mitigated by another thought ("anybody but Bush/McCain.")

        There is a limit, however, to the self-deception people can practice.  As the contradictions continue, as they inevitably must (for the notion of "change" and a "new kind of politics" will always conflict with political
realities such as campaign financing, pandering to the base and outreach to the center), Obama will be forced to defend just how he remains the person the voters want to believe he is.  Since he lacks the experience or depth to navigate this self-imposed standard, he will more often rely upon "you just don't understand!" (or "that's racist!") as the defense of hypocrisy or shallowness.

        Senator Obama's main adversary is time.  The longer he campaigns, the more he shows how tarnished this mirror of voters' desires is, and the harder it is for even true believers to dismiss the contradictions.  In reality, he is no tabula rasa, no blank slate, no perfect mirror reflecting each voter's desires.  Under that reflective veneer is a politician who must do what all candidates must do: compromise and make promises that he knows he will not be able to keep.

        Obama is this election's Dulcinea--the idealized woman Don Quixote sees in the slatternly bar maid Aldonza in ''Man of La Mancha.''  The Padre, who forces the Don to see himself as he truly is, admits to the desirability of the perfect reflection of our hopes: