In my column in Front Page today I discuss the latest ridiculous encomium being heaped upon the President, and its ominous implications.
The chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, provoked ridicule when he said last week that "Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar." He didn't mean that Barack Obama is a literary titan who doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus while petty men like Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves. But what he did mean, while no less fatuous, is also disquieting in its implications: for the first time, the United States of America has a president whose supporters talk about him in the same effusive and worshipful tones usually reserved for the likes of Stalin, Mao, and Kim Jong Il.What Landesman really meant that since Obama was the most powerful man in the world and a writer as well, the President was the most politically powerful writer since Caesar. "This is the first president," Landesman asserted, "that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln." Landesman is wrong about this in several ways: as Scott Johnson at Powerline pointed out that Lincoln never actually wrote a book, and that Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon wrote books without employing ghostwriters. Johnson also mentions Bill Clinton, although I believe his direct authorship is a bit more in doubt, and John F. Kennedy, whose Profiles in Courage was ghostwritten; "my guess," Johnson concludes, "is that JFK and Obama share the attribute of authorship in roughly equal measure."
Probably so. But that didn't stop Landesman from exulting: "If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists." Ludicrous? Yes. After all, the inevitable question is, "What has he done to deserve this?" Do Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope really merit being placed above Churchill's The Second World War, The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, or even Theodore Roosevelt's The Strenuous Life?
Landesman's ridiculously exaggerated praise recalls the Soviet literary establishment's hailing of Stalin's turgid Marxism and Problems of Linguistics and Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR as "works of genius." Every German home once had a copy of Mein Kampf, even if nobody in the house read it, and every Chinese citizen once knew that he better own a copy of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book - if he knew what was good for him. Landesman has given Barack Obama the perfect companion to his spurious Nobel Prize: the fulsome and empty literary praise usually reserved for totalitarian autocrats of little or no actual literary accomplishment.
At a time when the Obama Administration is relentlessly demonizing dissenting voices and manifesting a shaky (at best) commitment to the freedom of speech, this is hardly a reassuring message to send. It demonstrates once again this Administration's utter tone deafness and apparent indifference to genuine concerns about its commitment to core principles of the U.S. Constitution - witness Nancy Pelosi's incredulous response of "are you serious?" to a questioner who asked her about the Constitutionality of nationalizing health care. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has declared her opposition to attempts at the United Nations to criminalize "defamation of religions" - that is, to make it illegal to speak about the motives and goals of Islamic jihad terrorists. Yet the Obama Administration is sending decidedly mixed signals about its commitment to free speech. Several weeks ago the Obama Administration actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council on October 2, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence."
Yet "incitement" and "hatred" are in the eye of the beholder -- or more precisely, in the eye of those who make such determinations. The powerful can decide to silence the powerless by classifying their views as "hate speech." And now the President of the United States has given his imprimatur to this tyranny. Legal expert Eugene Volokh explains:
"But why the fuss, some might ask, if we're protected by the First Amendment? First, if the U.S. backs a resolution that urges the suppression of some speech, presumably we are taking the view that all countries -- including the U.S. -- should adhere to this resolution. If we are constitutionally barred from adhering to it by our domestic constitution, then we're implicitly criticizing that constitution, and committing ourselves to do what we can to change it."Obama should withdraw American support for that UN resolution, and urge the passage of a resolution supporting free speech. And he should tell Rocco Landesman to cool his absurd rhetoric. Now, with free speech under attack everywhere, it is not the time to be inviting comparisons with history's greatest oppressors - even comparisons on the absurdity meter.
That picture says it all. Smug bastard.
"If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar."
.....................................
Hmmm...and yet, i don't recall anyone saying such a thing about George W. Bush—or George H. W. Bush, or Bill Clinton, or, really, any other president.
It is absurd—especially to state this *as an axiom*. You can have an American president—even a great American president—who may be rather a poor writer.
Of course, there are no such concerns with "the annointed one".
"Hail, Caesar! We who are about to die, salute you!"
The gladiators used to shout this when they waked into the arena in ancient Rome. I can't help but feel that some of them did so under their breath.
Obama-shahada...'I'm not tired'...'I'm all fired up and ready to go'...
He's the first US President in history who has a liar for a Kenyan grandmother...That's a first...Never before has a Presidents grandmother been internationally smeared and labeled a liar...And very telling is the fact that Rasool Obama has not come to her defense...She says he was born in Kenya and she was there...Can you imagine that? Everyone knows this is a lie...he was born in Hawaii...His grandmother is obviously lying...If I was Rasool, I would never speak to her again...HMM I wonder when 'was' the last time he talked to her?...She doesn't seem to have much to say lately...
Duh - should read "walked into the arena".
Two books and he is the greatest writer since Julius Caeser,no doubt a bit similar in context after being awarded the Alfred Nobel Peace Prize. Thus speaking of being noble; if I was Obama I would ask the Nobel Committee to give it to someone much more deserving who has already demonstrated peace efforts in the world.
It is difficult to reap praise on a man such as Obama who is trying to suppress the free speech of others in Western Nations who speak so eloquently about the greatest threat to civilized nations, that of the totalitarian ideology that is Islam.
Obama and his cronies have already tried to marginalize right wing, and conservative critics that ended up even appalling some of his MSM ardent supporters. Yes there needs to be a reality check even among the liberals who should be looking at this Presidents affront to the constitutionally given right of free speech from out first amendment of which so-called hate speech laws are surely eroding that lofty pillar that has made America great.
The cult of personality is alive and well in the U.S. There are a type of human with a certain gene that drives them to follow a charlatan..there is nothing that can be done with them . They are hopeless..beyond education or enlightenment..the only cure is "the coolaide."
In the Bag Alert! In the Bag Alert!In the Bag Alert!
Please note the recent discussions about Bill Ayers being the ghost writer for the Obama Dreams of My Father book that helped to get Obama the keynote address at the Democrat convention and that acted as a spring board for the launch of his political career. Note also that Bill Ayers name appears on the newly released White House Vistors log.
read about the ghost writer here
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=110784
Obama, who wrote nothing of note, other than a footnote for the Harvard Law Review, and a couple of singularly bad poems at Occidental College in Los Angeles, was represented by a literary agent. The agent got Obama a big advance on a book, yet Obama couldnt come through (for some reason the publishing house never tried to get the $ back). The agent went to another publishing house and got another advance, Obama sat on that one for a couple of years, and still couldnt do it. Went to Bali to try to concentrate on writing..still couldnt do it. Michelle Obama in her book relates that it was she that told Barack to go to Ayers, an accomplished writer, to get some help. So a lot of source material was dropped off with Ayers so he could "organize" it.
Literary experts have used computer programs to compare the work of Obama and Ayers, and they found striking similarities in the writing methodology and thematic presentation of both writers. Further, for Obama who had virtually nothing in his writing portfolio to come out of left field as an unknown to write a book of the magnitude of Dreams of My Father, is equated to having a guy who took up golf a year ago, win the Masters Tournament by a walk. They say is it so impossible that it couldnt happen.
But dont take my word for it, read it in the link I provided, and others that you can get by a google search.
"The cult of personality is alive and well in the U.S. There are a type of human with a certain gene that drives them to follow a charlatan."
From pismopal above:
How so obviously true, we see it in those that follow the "Rock Culture" treating these entertainers as if they where some kind of gods on the stage and could do no wrong thus they blindly follow them and reap praise on their lyrics. Even the Beetles got caught up in themselves by making the statement "we are more popular than Jesus".
The official population of USA as on 11th Oct. 2009.
It is now 3rd largest in the world after;
1.China
2.India
307,674,743 0,2009-10-11 October 11, 2009 4.52% of the world.
Indonesia is at no.4. below USA
Demography Changed Permanently in favor of Muslims et. al.
Europe going NEGATIVE with declining population , deficit being replaced by Mohdns.
Any surprise , why there is increased 'turbulence'.
We here a lot about Western countries “insane” immigration policies.
If the US has now a population of 307 million is there any chance this figure could be broken down?
I seem to remember it was only about 200 million in 1960.
Where have these people come from? Can the immigration be broken down into origin by Continent, country and religious background?
Immigration into the US is about 2 million a year?
Are Democrats as well as Republicans prepared to have an honest discussion about what this implies for “social cohesion?”
With apologies to Shakespeare, Obama has enough gall (sic) for three parts.
"the Soviet literary establishment's hailing of Stalin's turgid Marxism and Problems of Linguistics and Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR as 'works of genius.'"
Stalin, the great scientist (Lysenko!) and great linguist (Nikolai Marr!) and Great Everything, will live on in the hearts and minds of men for his Short Course, even more winning, with that alliterative link, in its Russian original -- Kratkij Kurs.
Give Obama his due. He wrote two books, about himself. They show someone fascinating by his own "improbable" history. They do not show someone whose mind is a well-stocked library, who is deeply familiar with history, that is with men and events in the past, a familiarity that was the hallmark of the memoirs of political figures who wrote in the past. When Clemenceau, or Lord Grey of Falloden, or Viscount Morley, wrote about their lives and times, they also showed a keen awareness of, a knowledge of, other places, other times, and those who particpated in the events of the past, and those who wrote about them.
In Obama's works, we see -- Barack Obama. He is the hero, at times winningly self-deprecating, but still the hero, of his tale. I doubt if he mentions Herodotus or Thucydides, or Pericles or Plato, or Aristotle or Aristophanes, or Cicero or Livy, or Caesar or Caesar Augustus. That's okay. But he also fails to mention all those who, beyond classical antiquity, have been read and understood by, Lord Grey,,and Viscount Morley, and other writers of celebrated memorials. Not Hobbes or Locke or Hume, not Montesquieu, not Bentham or Mill, not Bagehot or Oakeshott, nothing to indicate that he is more than an ordinarly-educated American kid who came out of the colleges and law schools of the last two to three decades, after the collapse, that is, in so many places, of the teaching of both history and literature. He's just a little too self-made for my taste. Would that he had studied history, would that his two memoirs, so lacking in depth, gave some sense that he was not born yesterday, did not believe that his three years as a kid in a most unrepresentive (Muslim) school in a most unrepresentative (Muslim) city at a most unrepresentative (Muslim) time in a most unrepresentative (Muslim) country made him knowledgeable about Islam, would that his acceptance of the Idols of the Age (his books reek with rhetorical incense to those Idols) were not subject, at this point, to deep re-examination, so that they might no longer be objects of accepted worship or burnt offerings or genuflection but, rather, determinedly overturned.
If the statists in this nation were so dangerous to our health, this would be side-splitting funny.
Wrong emperor!
Where's the fiddle? I smell something burning.
Mr. Obama is indeed hollow man. His abilities have been grossly exaggerated, while his deficiencies have either been ignored or lightly treated. President Obama is a mediocre orator who sticks to vague generalities and platitudes, and yet is praised as having a silver tongue. On the other hand, his tendency to select people on the basis of sycophancy, such as David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, is virtually ignored. Mr. Obama's radical appointees, such as Foley and Van Jones.
i feal affended bi thees iam th greetest wrotter int wurld. i recent osama fur teieng ti tek my bedspreed. i em a philoseepical geniius wivlout a preeteniousoin. mi nex buk well b on ecunomics ard phelopospy ged it ots onlly 50 buks a prontied on stuf yu wope ur ars on. i hev net yet med a nome fur it cun unnyone sugarest 1?
Obamas next books "The Oblivion of Hope" "Hopeless" "I am God" (and you better get used to it) "Terrorism Is a Racist Myth" "The Saudis are our Friends" "I am a Portenious Windbag" "How I Conned Berni Maddof" "My Life as a Genius" "How I Bankruped America". Et al
Caesar wrote about fighting tribes in western Europe. He was a democrat who made himself emperor.
(Obama replaced the WH marine band playing Hail to the Chief with a piano playing Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and Sting’s "Desert Rose")
There's the wild speculation Caesar was Jesus Christ "revolutionizing changes that occurred in the religious life of the Roman Empire" "The Christian religion for the most part occurred among Roman soldiers. The grandchildren of the veterans who were settled in colonies by Caesar became the Christian people"
http://www.carotta.de/subseite/echo/tumult-e.html
"Gore Vidal says criticisms of Obama are mostly about his Afghanistan policies, which he says show the president is "inexperienced." He says Obama "has a total inability to understand military matters. He's acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism."
Obama's social justice top organizer schtick is bad government. Green jobs are over the horizon with a burgeoning black market.
Obama hits Asia in a few weeks. I wonder if there's a 'Obama doctrine' in the works. Awe and apologies from the Great Wall, basketball with Yau, deep bows amid protest free zones - peace and justice for all!
Quite right, the man is a windbag. He has no culture, no learning, no understanding of history, no knowledge of philosophical trends. In short, he is a product of an educational system that has lost its bearings and surrendered to philosopical relativism. I did study Locke, Hume and Hobbes, also Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci and others whose names escape me at university. I was fascinated by these subjects and taught to respect and learn from the wisdom of the ages - even if I disagreed with what they said. What we have now is a political establishment that has lost its sense of history, its place in the the world. This is particularly acute in Europe where I live. Thus you have the wholesale surrender of European (shortly to be followed by American values - though I hope not) This man, who bowed to the Sultan is not a fit leader of the free world. He is a cartoon. I wish you well and keep up the good fight Hugh.
Wasn't Nero the emperor who asked the mob what it wanted?
Their reply was "More bread and circuses!" (a tanslation (not from the Latin) is "More welfare and entertainment")
And what is Caesar Obama promising the masses?
Caesar wrote about fighting tribes in western Europe. He was a democrat who made himself emperor.
(Obama replaced the WH marine band playing Hail to the Chief with a piano playing Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and Sting’s "Desert Rose")
There's the wild speculation Caesar was Jesus Christ "revolutionizing changes that occurred in the religious life of the Roman Empire" "The Christian religion for the most part occurred among Roman soldiers. The grandchildren of the veterans who were settled in colonies by Caesar became the Christian people"
http://www.carotta.de/subseite/echo/tumult-e.html
"Gore Vidal says criticisms of Obama are mostly about his Afghanistan policies, which he says show the president is "inexperienced." He says Obama "has a total inability to understand military matters. He's acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism."
Obama's social justice top organizer schtick is bad government. Green jobs are over the horizon with a burgeoning black market.
Obama hits Asia in a few weeks. I wonder if there's a 'Obama doctrine' in the works. Awe and apologies from the Great Wall, basketball with Yau, deep bows amid protest free zones, peace and justice for all!
"...I discuss the latest ridiculous encomium being heaped upon the President."
When I first read the above line, I thought it said "I discuss the latest ridiculous meconium being heaped upon the President" - after all, that's what most people want to heap on his head, isn't it?
/cheap jibe mode off.
Exactly, Grim. Bill Ayers must be getting a big chuckle out this.
I have often thought that would-be presidents should have to pass a qualifying exam before even being considered for inclusion on any party's ticket. Among other things, this would include submission of an essay, say of 5,000 words, on a suitable topic written in English in their own hand and submitted for public comment so one could assess the quality and depth of their thinking, stripped of whatever personal charisma they might have that allows them to traffic in emotion and demagoguery. Of course, this would only be after they passed legal scrutiny as to their citizenship qualifications.
Any chance Obama's books will end up on Barnes and Nobles overstocked discount shelves in the near future? Part of that whole "share the debt" policy he has.
Lets face it, the way His economic polices are going, nobody will be able to pay the full price anyway.
Caesar wrote about fighting tribes in western Europe. He was a democrat who made himself emperor.
(Obama replaced the WH marine band playing Hail to the Chief with a piano playing Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and Sting’s "Desert Rose")
There's the wild speculation Caesar was Jesus Christ "revolutionizing changes that occurred in the religious life of the Roman Empire" "The Christian religion for the most part occurred among Roman soldiers. The grandchildren of the veterans who were settled in colonies by Caesar became the Christian people"
http://www.carotta.de/subseite/echo/tumult-e.html
"Gore Vidal says criticisms of Obama are mostly about his Afghanistan policies, which he says show the president is "inexperienced." He says Obama "has a total inability to understand military matters. He's acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism."
Obama's social justice top organizer schtick is bad government. Green jobs are over the horizon with a burgeoning black market.
Obama hits Asia in a few weeks. I wonder if there's a 'Obama doctrine' in the works. Awe and apologies from the Great Wall, basketball with Yau, deep bows amid protest free zones, peace and justice for all!
"Where's the fiddle? I smell something burning."
Me, too. It's the flaming bag of dog poo that will burn for approximately three more (long) years.
Ulysses S. Grant was a better writer (about himself!) than either Gaius Julius Caesar or Obama.
Ulysses Grant -- or was the author of much of "The Autobiography of Ulysses S. Grant" written, more likely, by Mark Twain?
Rocco Landesman sounds like an unreconstructed Communist of the Stalinist variety. Hence, I cannot agree with worryo1 that Obama is a hollow man. Increasingly, I have come to believe that this disciple of Alinsky who surrounds himself with admirers of Mao, Chavez, and the "Troofer" movement in addition to having been an outspoken supporter of partial birth abortion is in fact a very sinister person. He and his acolytes are possible only because our nation has become ignorant and debauched. If America survives these next four years with the First Amendment intact, it will be proof that a very merciful God hears prayers.
Worried about relativistically enforce rights within your society suppressing free speech! This shows how the entertainment sphere of sarcasm still exists within free speech. Something that will soon be outlawed of Obama gets his way following the UN’s lead on making defamation illegal.
Let’s just stop debate right now and feed Jone’s kool aid to the kids. The fight is lost.
NOT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSpsCMoTHns&feature=player_embedded
No, Hugh. Ulysses Simpson Grant was a magnificent writer as he was a magnificent commander (the idea that he was a butcher was laid to rest by JFC Fuller and such a judgment has been confirmed again and again by subsequent historians). Twain had nothing to do with writing Grant's memoirs (though he did make sure Grant's widow, Julia Dent Grant, received a $400,000 check from sales for them). Your opining here is simply irresponsible. Not a single serious historian, not one, has averred what you have.
If one reads Grant's pithy commands to his subordinates in campaigns like the the 1st and 2nd Vicksburg endeavors, Grant's first-rate relief of Chattanooga in late '63' and his many dispatches in the field to various subordinates in Meade's Army of the Potomac during the grueling '64' march on Richmond, one will see a pattern of succinct, clear and brilliantly ironic writing which Grant continued when composing his memoirs (finished just days before he died of throat cancer in 1885). Really, you defame one of the greatest of Americans by suggesting that Grant's memoirs were ghostwritten. They were not. They are simply the greatest military memoirs of all time with the exception of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars and Civil Wars. You know Islam, Hugh, but you need some boning up on Grant and the Civil War.
God pales in comparison to this wonderful being bestowed on this planet to save us all.
At least to those who have lost their minds. And looking around, that's a hell of a lot of people.
The first anniversary of the American Nakba is just two days away.
Red Hussein and his crew are mediocrity and cynicism personified.
They believe that the American way of things and capitalism in particular are inherently corrupt and that the only way to get anything done in the world is to roll with the corruption -- to be at least as corrupt and underhand as they expect everyone around themselves to be, which is pretty corrupt.
The lot of them are monsters of groundless pride and ferocious vanity.
I doubt that more than one out of four of that crowd have more than the most fundamental competence in their assigned work, if that.
Red Hussein himself is a pure invention. He has never so much as run a lemonade stand. Outside of his ability to manipulate the people around him he barely exists.
I will say that he is an effective rabble-rouser and a shrewd "organizer" of gangs and crowds. In fact I've heard people argue plausibly that in this sense he is a sort of visionary prodigy. The problem is who he is organizing and toward what end -- in which sense he is simply a collection of discredited stale sophmoric low-brow slogans with a pretty baritone.
On the other hand, Hitler was no intellectual titan either -- although he was pretty decent with military matters, a distinct weakness in our own Red Hussein.
It will be two generations of focused hard work to recover from the cultural corruption that made the Obama phenomenon possible.
Hugh you got it wrong, you cannot give him his due for writing two books.
1. Obama did not write Dreams of My Father. Please read my comment above and consult the various articles and videos on the subject. The most likely explanation, given the facts, is that Bill Ayers, an accomplished writer, was the author of Dreams of My Father. The source for this statement is Michelle Obama herself in the recent book release about her and Barack titled Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage.
Obama's second book, the Audacity of Hope, is mainly a compilation of his speeches. and from the literary analysis programs, is dissimilar in style and theme. This too, points to the reality of Ayers the ghost writer of Dreams.
Essentially, Dreams is a Biography, not an Autobiography.
"King Hussein" is a threat to the existence of this great country. He is taking us rapidly toward a banana republic where people like him have all the power and money and people like us have neither.
This is a man who exalted his father who abandoned him & family, and disrespects his mother who brought him up, and who promised he would campaign in all 57 states!
This is not a great American.
the actual Obama 57 state quote...the second or third one;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BHyqtaECLI