STIPIMM:
"Bulls on Parade," Rage Against the Machine
Yes, I voted for Hillary Clinton. But first, let me tell you about a great movie from the late ‘70s.
“Being There” is one of
Peter Sellers’ last films, and certainly one of the greatest films he ever made. It’s about a simple-minded fellow named Chance the Gardener (he later becomes known as “Chauncey Gardiner”) who has been taken care of his whole life in solitude by one person. When that person dies and leaves him alone, others find out about him, but have no idea of his disability. And as it turns out, people take his polite, aloof demeanor as introspection and seriousness. When people talk to him, and he barely (but politely) responds, people see a quiet intelligence in him, when in fact, there is none. And no one (except
Shirley MacLaine) ever figures out that he’s a blank slate. Eventually, he rises through the ranks of society, going on television, completely without ambition and oblivious to what’s happening to him.
Of particular interest to people are his words on gardening. They think he’s being cleverly metaphorical, but instead, he’s literally talking about his gardening, having no idea what the heck a metaphor is:
President: Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President: In the garden.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President: Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President: Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy.
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!
Chance the Gardener: Hmm!
President: Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time.
[Benjamin Rand applauds]
President: I admire your good, solid sense. That's precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.
I’m sorry to have to give away the end of the film, but at the end, a group of political fat cats decide that Chance would make a fantastic presidential candidate, and they start to make preparations for him to run. And it’s made very clear at the end that he stands a very good chance of winning.
No, I’m not saying Sen. Barack Obama is a simpleton. He’s obviously a very intelligent, well-educated man. But as I’ve seen his rise in the campaign, and hear people talk about him, I just can’t help but think of Chance. Obama’s campaign is purposely putting him in the same role that Chance unwittingly plays – a blank slate onto which individuals can project their hopes and aspirations. We’re told over and over that he and Sen. Clinton have almost identical positions on policies. But ask a supporter about a specific issue, be it health care, the environment, or European relations, and you’re likely to get a sizable explanation as to why they think Clinton is decidedly wrong in that area. Did they get that explanation from Obama himself? Probably not – he’s too busy talking about how similar they are on everything except Iraq, or at least their opinions about Iraq five years ago. The widespread notion that Republicans are supposedly very comfortable with Obama, at a time when he’s leaving college-educated liberals in thrall, speaks volumes to me not about the ability to be bipartisan, but about the ability to be all things to all people.
In other words, Chance the Gardener.
Of course, all politicians speak in platitudes while stumping on the trail. There’s little time to go into excessive policy details when you’re trying to make your case succinctly. But long before I settled on a candidate, weeks before the Iowa caucuses, I made of point of watching all the major Democratic candidates stump speeches. Obama definitely takes it to a new plane. I liken it to a popular kid running for student council president – “If you elect me, I promise more recess! Less homework! A modern type of school for a new type of student!” You’re either getting the same kind of feel-good talk you get from other candidates, or pie-in-the-sky promises that a candidate has no real way of attaining. I had liked Obama at first, but then began my slow path to not liking him.
Yes, I said it: I don’t like Sen. Barack Obama. It seems that most Clinton supporters do so because of a fervent belief in her abilities and promise as a leader. I personally have plenty of my own problems with Sen. Clinton, and in the presence of a better candidate (e.g., Dodd, perhaps even Edwards…), I might not have voted for her. In a lot of ways, I’m not really voting for Clinton so much as I am voting against Barack Obama.
And it’s not because he’s a scary black man or something. It is foolish, short-sighted and frankly un-American for someone to decide to vote for or against Clinton primarily because she is a woman, or for or against Obama because he is African-American. And people on both sides who either say it is a liberal’s responsibility to vote for Obama so we can have a black president, or say it’s a woman’s responsibility to vote for Clinton to break that final glass ceiling, are really missing the point of civil rights at all. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said it better that I ever could: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
And frankly, so far, I find Obama’s character lacking.
A couple of friends of mine have asked, incredulous, “How can you not like Obama?” Besides the time I heard his stump speech, I can tell you the exact time and place I started to actively dislike him. It was his speech right after winning the Iowa caucuses.
Now mind you, this was a speech that was hailed by the media and his supporters as being a landmark American speech. And yet, I kept laughing to myself during the final parts of it. It started off fine enough; I was even very moved by the image of the black family on the stage, poised to enter the highest office in this country. But then he started talking. And he sounded… strange.
“Does he sound different to you,” I asked Bridget after a couple of minutes.
Bridget paused, “Yeah, sort of.”
It took me another couple of minutes to realize what was different: “He sounds like a southern preacher! He’s trying to be Martin Luther King!”
Having seen Obama speak on TV several times before, I knew that he hadn’t spoken with this type of inflection before. And several pundits the next day noted the change as well, although they saw it in a more positive, inspiring light. I saw it as being as phony as a three-dollar bill.
When Clinton was in a black church in Alabama some months ago and added a bit of a southern accent to her voice (something that has been known to happen to those of us from the South who return back home), she was excoriated for being phony. What Obama did after the Iowa caucuses was no less fake. And it pretty much ruined forever any chance that his oratory will ever inspire me like seems to do others – because hearing his preacher voice now just makes me laugh.
So thereby comes the first reason I don’t like Barack Obama: He’s just as fake as any other politician, but his campaign is able to fool people that he’s not (then again, maybe I’m just bitter that he’s so good at doing what he’s doing, or maybe I’m just bitter because I can’t fall for it too).
And speaking of the media, there comes my second reason not to like him. A colleague of mine at the New England Institute of Art who used to be a producer for CNN told me about a campaign reporter who spoke at a student event at Northeastern University. He asked his audience who they thought was the most accessible candidate to the media on the trail. Just about everyone thought… assumed… that it was Barack Obama. “Not even close,” was his reply. In fact, he said, Obama has been more stingy about interactions with the press than any candidate he’s ever covered.
It’s something that has been written about more and more lately. Howard Kurtz
wrote about it a week and a half ago: “All traveling campaigns have a bubble-like quality, but Obama seems unusually insulated.”
And it’s not just that way when dealing with reporters. That same colleague of mine said that there’s a growing sense in the press corps that Obama is at his most comfortable giving prepared speeches, while Clinton is at her most comfortable in intimate extemporaneous sessions (witness their respective performances in debates). This colleague also said, “He never goes into the crowd and talks to people, never does town halls; his press conferences, if there are any, last a couple of minutes.” I don’t know if what she said is all true, but it certainly fits the general sense I have been getting of him, and feeds the second thing I don’t like about him: I know very little about him as a human being, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to come out of his public bubble to let us know anytime soon. To me, that’s hubris, and why the hell would I ever like that?
Hillary Clinton has plenty of hubris as well, I know. But then, there’s no shortage of media coverage ready to tell us how entrenched the Clinton machine or how angry they are at Obama, blah, blah, blah. All this as though Obama’s campaign is just made up of some good-hearted folks who really aren’t political people. And Obama himself is entirely genuine – what we see of him when he gives speeches is entirely what we’ll get. Well, if that’s all we’re going to get are the platitudes he has in his speeches, that scares the crap out of me. But I know that isn’t true… the Obama campaign is no less a machine at this point than the Clinton campaign. It is no less as calculating and conniving, but they’re counting on people to be naïve enough to believe that they’re not. The idea that Obama is some sort of political messiah meant to lead us into the mythical promised land of post-partisanship is an idea that has been carefully cultivated by his handlers in both his speeches and their (limited) interactions with the press. And the media has just eaten it up. So yeah, that’s reason number three: the media treats him like the second coming. Obama is leading a “movement,” Clinton is leading a “campaign.” But whether or not they’re treating Clinton fairly or unfairly in their coverage is beside the point. Whatever the case with anyone else, they’re giving Obama a free pass. It’s almost taken as a given in the punditocracy at this point.
The fourth reason is about experience. But it’s not that he’s inexperienced – that in itself isn’t a sin. Nor do I think that a person has to be experienced in national governance to be a good president. But to believe and contend, even implicitly, that legislative and government experience is worthless as a measure of someone’s abilities is not only irresponsible, but it’s immature – something I’d expect a 22-year-old to say instead of a serious presidential candidate.
At the college I teach at, I have a lot of problems with some of the decisions the dean has been making lately. But does that mean if he leaves that I should presume to be able to replace him? No – I have only a few years of teaching under my belt, and I’ve never been in any position of authority in academia. What’s more, I don’t know much about navigating the rather intricate political situations in my school nor do I have the background to be able to assimilate myself into them like a dean should. Someone like one of my department chairs would be perfect; they’ve already led in an academic environment, they’re already part of those political webs and they would know how to navigate them. Even if the college's board believed that most of my ideas about what the college should be doing academically were better than my department chair’s, it would be irresponsible – nay, ridiculous -- for them to pick me over her. But that’s essentially what Obama is purporting to do – claiming that he has enough experience and background in national or executive governance to be able to do the job – or worse yet, that such experience is a liability. And this isn’t just about Hillary Clinton – it’s about any of the other candidates, Democratic or Republican, who have aspired to the highest office in the land. I have little respect for someone who denigrates experience out of hand because, frankly, he has none (and let’s be honest, saying “the right experience” or “being right on day one” are pithy political covers for not having experience). So… reason number four.
Until Obama’s bubble bursts and the media finally starts vetting him like a real candidate and stops treating him with kid gloves (what Bill Clinton got in trouble for was for suggesting that the media was doing this because Obama’s black; which is true… but Bill, you’re not supposed to say that out loud!!) then there is no chance of me having respect for his candidacy. And I’m not pussy-footing around it like other Democrats seem to be doing (“oh, I’ll vote for whomever my party picks… blah, blah”). If he gets the candidacy for the Democratic party, then he’ll still have a lot of convincing to do to get my vote (don’t worry, I wouldn’t vote Republican, I just wouldn’t vote at all). And if, even without my vote, he is elected president, I will hope that I'm wrong about him. He is a Democrat after all, and he does agree with me on most issues. He might very well turn out to be a good president for all we really know. I just know that, right now, he’s not the kind of person right now I can believe in as a leader.
R.E.M.'s last group shot, Oct. 30, 1997. (l-r) Michael Stipe, Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills
