Drudge Retort: Red Meat for Yellow Dogs
Saturday, February 16, 2008

Andrew Sullivan is fed up with conservative attacks on Obama which falsely claim that there is not enough substance to his plans. Of course this also applies to the similar attacks on Obama from Clinton supporters:

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A twenty-one year-old reader writes:

"There's one salient reason why people of my age are supporting Obama and that's because we feel that Obama will finally show us what it means to be proud of our president.

I read more than I should about politics and US history and am always confused as to how Americans can love their president so. Intellectually I understand why Americans love(d) Lincoln and the Roosevelts but I never felt why they did.

Andrew, people my age are too young to remember Bill Clinton. All we have is George W. Bush. The office of the President to us is a mockery. We don't link President Bush to concepts such as leader, we link it to ignorance and idiocy. Most people my age have never felt proud of our President. We grew up on the Daily Show, we only know how to make fun of him and mock him.

I attended an Obama rally a few days ago and was amazed at how filled up with emotion I was. Halfway through his speech, other 21 year olds just like that filled the Hall were screaming their heads off, waving banners, and grinning. Everyone was giddy, hell even I was giddy. I was smiling and chanting along to "Yes We Can." I didn't know what that feeling was because I had never felt it. But then I realized it. It was pride. I was proud of Obama.

I know you've felt proud of Reagan and others have felt proud of Bill Clinton. I can't wait to actually know what it feels like to be proud of my President and not embarrassed by him. That's why at least my generation is turning out in droves to make Obama president. We've finally got a taste of what it feels like to be proud of our President and we're not giving that feeling up.


andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com


The power of spoken words cannot be denied and those trying to diminish the role articulation plays in politics are themselves guilty of dumbing down the process against the needs of the electorate in being able to hear a leader's words and be inspired to act within their own lives upon what they've heard.

You wrote:

"There seems to be a meme that because someone is inspiring, there has to be no substance."

This is an old prejudice. I think I wrote to you before about it, but it is ancient, heightened during the Rennaissance and Enlightment, to the point where it is ordinary bias to presume that one perfects style at the expense of substance. Teaching rhetoric, I hear this sort of idea expressed by students, noted in the press, and stated in conversation regularly. It is easy for people to fall into this sort of thing even though conceptually it is bunk and Obama is a contemporary exhibit A as to why it is bunk.

I dare say, no matter how many times you point it out, until Obama drones on about policy specifics to the point where no one can ignore the fact that he has specifics (and knows them), many will still assume that one who soars in language is not staying focused on issues.

Obama is quite Ciceronian in his enactment of leadership. He balances a wide culture with eloquence. Yet many often assume Cicero was principally a stylist, which is sheer nonsense.

It is superficial decision making, what social scientists might call peripheral processing. I would wager that many of those who reiterate Obama is all hat and no cattle, as Hillary is encouraging, actually don't know much about her policy positions either.

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

Actually, the 21-year-old in the article is deluding himself. As usual, this age group won't turn out to the polls. They didn't even turn out during the Vietnam War, they just spent a lot of time marching and smoking grass. But I'm supposed to believe that this time it's different?

Time will tell. But they've always disappointed before.

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