VIII: “Our Souls Are Broken” - Michelle Obama, Postmodern Fascist Ideologue 299A recent London Times story (also appearing in The Australian) was headlined: “Early signs of a
Barack-lash.” Correspondent James Bone wrote:
The American presidential candidate who can do no wrong is experiencing the first signs of dip
in popularity, called the “Barack-lash”. Barack Obama has become a darling of the internet
generation since he started his underdog campaign to triumph over the wife of a former
president and become the first black leader of the free world. Millions downloaded a YouTube
video of his “Yes We Can” speech set to music by Black Eyed Peas front man will.i.am with
celebrity friends including actors Scarlett Johansson and Amber Valletta. But Obama’s
popularity has begun to rebound on him now that he has emerged as the Democratic
frontrunner. Even supporters are questioning whether he can really deliver on all their hopes.
Mathew Honan, a freelance writer and contributor to Obama’s campaign, set up a website
called http://www.obamaisyournewbicycle.com after his wife, Harper, a nurse and avid cyclist, began
exhibiting symptoms of “Obama-mania”. Within two weeks there were more than 2.3 million
visits to the site, which carries messages such as: “Barack Obama escorted your Gramma across
the street”; “Barack Obama baked you a pie”; “Barack Obama dedicated a song to you”;
“Barack Obama carries a picture of you in his wallet”; and “Barack Obama remembered your
birthday”. Website obamamessiah.blogspot.com asks “Is Obama the Messiah?” and boasts a
“transfiguration” scene of the Christ-like candidate addressing supporters from a staircase. In a
section on “Obama Conversion Stories”, it quotes author Deepak Chopra calling Obama’s
candidacy “a quantum leap in American consciousness”. The SenatorObamas.com site portrays
him in a variety of guises, from “Obamarama” to the nightwear-clad “Pajamabama”. Before the
Hollywood writers’ strike, Obama won sympathy on the widely watched Saturday Night Live
television comedy show on November 3, playing himself as a guest at a party thrown by the
presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and her husband, Bill. With the writers back
at work, Saturday Night Live returned to lampoon the Obama media obsession. A white actor
played Obama in a sketch parodying the latest Democratic debate. The moderator confessed she
had been “clinically diagnosed as an Obamamaniac”. The New York Times columnist David
Brooks has diagnosed the mood swing experienced by many liberals as “Obama Comedown
Syndrome”. “The afflicted had already been through the phases of Obamamania — fainting at
rallies, weeping over their touch screens while watching Obama videos, spending hours making
folk crafts featuring Michelle Obama’s face,” Brooks writes. “These patients had experienced
intense surges of hope-amine, the brain chemical that fuels euphoric sensations of historic
change and personal salvation. But they found that as the weeks went on, they needed more and
purer hope injections just to preserve the rush. “They wound up craving more hope than even
the Hope Pope could provide, and they began experiencing brooding moments of suboptimal
hopefulness. “Anxious posts began to appear on the Yes We Can! Facebook pages. A sense of
ennui began to creep through the nation’s Ian McEwan-centred book clubs.” (James Bone,
London Times, February 25, 2008)OBAMA: “LOOK AT THESE FOLKS WHO ARE BEING DUPED”
Obama tried to fight back against the “cult” description, and NBC’s Lee Cowan reported from
Toledo that there was
“...a subtle new argument that Barack Obama’s been using ... that’s starting to get some
traction.” “He says it’s not so much what Hillary Clinton says about him by way of criticism,”
Cowan explained, “but what she’s implying about his supporters that he says should get them
pretty riled up.” Obama first introduced this argument at Tuesday’s debate in Austin, where he