According to North Korean propaganda, the late Kim Jong Il was present at the creation—of the hamburger. The story goes that Kim himself invented both the classic “double bread with meat” combination and the factory-style mass-production system that provided nutritious Kimburgers to university students across the (actually starving) country. But that’s nothing compared to what happened at Kim’s birth, when winter skipped immediately to spring and the sky burst open with both starlight and rainbows.
Americans find Kim mythology endlessly funny for two reasons: first, it’s outlandish; second, it’s desperate. In the United States, allegiance to elected leaders isn’t obtained with fairytales, historical embellishment, and mandatory celebration. It’s earned with responsiveness to popular sentiment, sound leadership, and policy results. Gimmick-laden personality cults are for self-appointed paranoiacs who can’t deliver the goods.
Which is probably what Americans are thinking about since Seth’s discovery yesterday that Barack Obama has inserted his name into White House presidential biographies starting with Calvin Coolidge’s.
While this kind of thing is new for American heads of state, it’s old hat for this one. It started before he ran for office. Exhibit A in the myth-making project is Dreams from My Father, a 1995 text on the genesis of the character who became president. Now revealed as a patchwork of “composite” people and events, Dreams can be seen properly as a life in parables. There is the Parable of the American in the Developing World, the Parable of the Mixed Race Student Dating the White Student, and so on. It’s not what did or did not actually happen, it’s what we take away from these stories that counts. Dreams literalists are a dwindling lot.
Today, Obama mythology is piped into our lives through various mediums: pre-taped interviews, late-night talk-show skits, emails, video addresses, documentaries, and more—anything but the democratic give-and-take of a press conference, the modern White House staple that Obama has done away with. Like someone passively-aggressively rebelling against his boss, the president kept showing up for these appearances later and later until they just ceased to occur. He was done answering to others.
Self-mythology requires one-way messaging. And the message is, creepily, everywhere. Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the administration now requires health insurance companies to “tell customers who get a premium rebate this summer that the check is the result of the Obama administration’s health care law.” As James Taranto noted, “to use the federal regulatory apparatus to commandeer private companies for campaign ads is outrageous.” Well, there’s no chance of it coming up at a press conference, is there?
Kim made sure to be celebrated with his own holidays but Obama just co-opted ours. On Sunday, we got a double whammy. An Obama campaign webpage asked us to “Wish Michelle [Obama] a happy Mother’s Day” by “join[ing] Barack and sign[ing] her card.” And If we choose not to treat the first lady as we do our mothers, an unsolicited White House email enabled us to send our own mothers a card—promoting ObamaCare. “Happy Mother’s Day From The Affordable Care Act,” it read, “Being a mom isn’t a pre-existing condition. It’s a joy!”
While that wasn’t intended as a joke, it’s hard not to laugh. Similarly, the presidential biography tampering became the immediate target of biting humor. A cascade of Twitter one-liners savaged the debacle throughout the day yesterday. Like the cult of Kim, to Americans these efforts are outlandish and desperate. We laugh at them the way we laugh when Sacha Baron Cohen lampoons self-aggrandizing autocracy. They represent a wholly foreign understanding of what it means to be a good elected official. But they also represent a dearth of genuine achievement and therefore a tragicomic desperation. If Obama really believes that seeding cards and biographies with his name is the best way to get Americans on board with his presidency he’s more of a historic first than any of us knew.
I see Mr Greenwald picked up on my comparison between the White House biographies of former Presidents where Mr Obama has inserted himself and how Kim IL Sung etc are treated on the Korean Central News Agency.
"But they also represent a dearth of genuine achievement and therefore a tragicomic desperation." n nJust as the giant Coca Cola display prominently positioned at entry to the grocery store represents empty calories of no value, the empty suit in the Oval Office must try to impress with allusions of leading us all to victory while actually sitting in the grandstands catcalling those actually out on the field of play. Extraordinary marketing essential to selling a useless product. Should be entertaining if not for the dismay at seeing so many duped and the prospect of four more years of fecklessness.
As always, it’s a pleasure to read Abe Greenwald. I only wish he would post more often because he has much to say and is an insightful observer of current events. Kudos, Abe!
Of course the president is inserting himself into whatever venue he can find. It’s not just that he is narcissistic and less than modest, shall we say. It is that he is playing to the times. More and more people get their news, and their ideas, from short and limited news items. The day of long, intricate analysis is just about over. (Commentary is the exception, and well worth it. But it’s the exception.)
So, what to do? Plant yourself in as many places as possible where you can, hopefully, be seen is some positive light. If you see a name constantly, as Obama intends, you may feel an affinity to it. Isn’t that what a politician most desires?
When one searches for a term on the web, for example, a politician wants be sure to have lots of hits. Hey, hits are good things, right? To get them, a person has to be “out there.”
In short, those on this blog laugh at the president’s actions because we want more than sound bites and simple slogans. But I am afraid that for many of our contemporaries that just isn’t true. Hence, we see what we see.
Parenthetically, the president’s actions are indicative of what’s wrong with the web. Too much of the information is fraught with errors and non-factual.
Let's not forget the Four Questions that the NJDC posted shortly before Passover (as reported at Contentions), with the strong suggestions that Jews should be grateful not to G-d, but to President Obama.
How ironic that progressives, who sneer that the advertising industry exists to induce people to buy stuff they don't really need, have given us Barack Obama—the Veg-O-Matic, the ShamWow, the Pet Rock of American politics.
So, vote for the lying flip-flopping one-percenter! Because he'd bring back the oh-so-glorious Bush years!
Based on his reported income, Obama is also a one-percenter. And he certainly has the "lying" and "flip-flopping" bases covered. As far as Barry's record is concerned, let me just say that George W.'s looking better all the time…
Amazing, and to think that all along I thought some Russian invented the "Gamburger." Who knew?
I find this article to be both banal and sophomoric. Anyone with a good college education (does that make me a snob?) knows that the very notion of a "biography" (or autobiography) as being "objective truth" is absurd. In the best of cases, lives told are a series of parables, metaphors, reflective interpretive schemes whereby a life is brought to a reader through the lens of the teller. One can surely engage in partisanship by showing how Dreams is less than "accurate." But please, show me an :"accurate" account of something as complex as a human life. The author here just reveals his ineptitude or, perhaps, his partisan "hackitude" (is that a word? it is now)
OK, this has just got to be some clever postmodern parody, because no serious person with a good grasp of reality could possibly write such a sentence as: "In the best of cases, lives told are a series of parables, metaphors, reflective interpretive schemes whereby a life is brought to a reader through the lens of the teller." Okaaaaaay…
frankly, i can't even look at him anymore. like my parents used to say, "he's like sh*t, he's all over". everywhere you turn, you get obama, or 1 of his brain dead sheep echoing the same tired rhetoric. an empty suit is a compliment. add marxism training, anti-merica upbringing, and that hip hop racist crap, and there you go, bho. works for joy behar and baba wawa, and whoopi, but afraid not for most americans.
The Kim Jong Ill birth story has the ring of many religious myths that have perpetuated religious adoration down through the centuries. People who believe this nonsense surely are self-deceived.
It's sad to see how low Commentary has stooped to generate page views. I suppose it's too much too ask to respect the outcome of the democratic process? As far as I know, President Obama will face a popular vote come November…
I prefer more humble elected officials, the type that don't believe the sun rises and falls except for the grace of thee. Obama never ceases to amaze or surprise, however, empty words and shallow campaign slogans don't impress nor speak to the sheer audacity of this tyrant wannabe.
This article is just partisan rubbish.
An important question is whether Obama is the first president to have added these "footnotes" or is setting a precedent.
I would not begrudge the president his cult of personality propaganda if it helped him politically (politics is politics) but it doesn't. I hope that by now we have all realized that Obama is neither a great statesman nor a great politician. As a politician, he falls into the category of Johnson, Ford and Carter. To quote Bill, the man is an amateur.
Have you tried reading the articles in question? The "Dear Leader" nuggets are all in the "Did You Know" paragraphs at the end.
He (or his people) is supposed to have created paragraphs like this: n n____On Feb. 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Coolidge later helped create the Federal Radio Commission, which has now evolved to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. n n(skips all over first president to go on televiosn, broadcast from abroad etc.) n n____On August 14, 1935, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Today the Obama administration continues to protect seniors and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations. n n I wouldn't know where to find them on the White House web site.
Also supposedly there: n n____In a 1946 letter to the National Urban League, President Truman wrote that the government has “an obligation to see that the civil rights of every citizen are fully and equally protected.” He ended racial segregation in civil service and the armed forces in 1948. Today the Obama administration continues to strive toward upholding the civil rights of its citizens, repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, allowing people of all sexual orientations to serve openly in our armed forces. n n ____President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare signed (sic) into law in 1965—providing millions of elderly healthcare stability. President Obama’s historic health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, strengthens Medicare, offers eligible seniors a range of preventive services with no cost-sharing, and provides discounts on drugs when in the coverage gap known as the “donut hole.” n n ____In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule. __ n n