The unbecoming, pathetic, self-defeating Obama cult of personality

I always was an admirer of President Bush, but it never occurred to me to utter a sentiment like, "I pledge to be a servant to our president," as Demi Moore vowed to President Obama; or to glorify the man in idealized portrait posters, like the Soviet-style iconography of Barack Obama; or to appropriate Christ, like the mother of Denzel Washington on the occasion of Obama's inauguration: "He came to lead us to the original design of what we are supposed to do on this earth"; or to chant the leader's name in unison with masses of fellow-travellers, like the crowd on Parliament Hill for Obama's Ottawa visit chanted "O-ba-ma."

A hysterical cult of personality -- formerly a feature of totalitarian societies -- has attended the ascent of Obama. It is unbecoming of a democratic society, it is certainly pathetic, and it may even prove to be self-defeating.

Time was, corporations subscribed to the business sense neatly summed up by basketball player-turned-sportswear mogul, Michael Jordan: "Republicans buy sneakers too." But that was before the "Age of Obama."

Pepsi launched a campaign asking, "What would you say to the man who is about to refresh America?" sponsored one of the inaugural balls, and was on hand for the pre-inaugural festivites with Pepsi paraphenalia reading "Hope" and "Change." Not traditionally what folks have been looking for in a pop company.

CBS amended its famous eye logo to look like the logo of the Obama campaign, in promos for its "Yes We Can Monday" lineup. ShopNBC hawked a "CHANGE HOPE BELIEVE OBAMA" throw blanket, with jumbo jacquard portrait of the dear leader himself, for $47 -- MSRP $49.99.

And BeaverTails Canada Inc. made a household name of itself by adding a Nutella "O" to its signature Beaver Tail and calling it the "Obama Tail."

But the most disgusting specimens of Obama personality cultism have to be the performances in praise of Obama by children. There's the "Obama Kids" with "We're Gonna Change the World": "Obama's gonna change it. Obama's gonna lead 'em." Etc, etc.

And the "Obama Youth - Junior Fraternity Regiment," who performed a martial drill, in fatigues. They marched and chanted, "Alpha, Omega. Alpha, Omega," which typically refers to God. They then recited "Because of Obama" personal statements, and punctuated some choreography and Obama campaign sloganeering with shouts of "Yes We Can!" Finally they recited features of the Obama health-care plan, and closed with a shout of "O!"

Then there's the news. 2008 marked the very fag-end of the long process by which the post-Second World War professionally-impartial press finally became unabashed agents of the Democrat Party.

And nowhere moreso than in this country. The Canadian Press -- with only the most saccharine praise for Obama and only the shrillest scorn for Bush -- became indistinguishable from a wide-eyed Obama volunteer:

"The star who shone the brightest was the man who sang nary a note — Barack Obama, who enthralled a crowd of 500,000 with a brief message of hope."


"A stern and steady Barack Obama addressed the nation" -- "a nation still basking in the glow of his victory." "His professorial remarks about the economy were in striking contrast to the string of malapropisms and nervous chuckles that often characterized many of his predecessor's appearances." "Roosevelt ruled with calm assurance" and "a presidential Obama sounded a similar tone."

After "the dying days of George W. Bush’s wildly unpopular presidency" -- those "eight years of blunders by George W. Bush" and "eight years of unpopular Republican rule" (no explanation as to how a president supposed to be "blundering" and "unpopular" for eight full years managed to get himself re-elected after the first four) -- "the new president took on the formidable task of undoing the damage of his predecessor’s administration." And so on, ad nauseum, in every dispatch of the Obama news service of the Canadian Press.


There are a few Obama supporters who recognize that things have gotten a little out of hand, but they invariably hasten to add that Barack Obama himself has done his gosh-darndest to disabuse his followers of this notion he's a latter-day messiah. If so, he's done an entirely ineffectual job.

And where did all this begin if not with Obama himself? Adopting "Hope" as a campaign slogan. Or thundering down at the rapturous masses, on the subject of his own ascendancy, "I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when ... the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Or claiming a "righteous wind" for his campaign, which surely would never have been received quite so gleefully had it been claimed by a certain other president of the United States.

So, a president has become a celebrity and a fad, and those things have a way of looking very old once they're not quite so new. The press have become the boy who cried wolf, and no-one will believe they're just reporting the facts the next time. And impossible expectations have been raised, and it won't be so easy to plead for patience or ask forgiveness for failings when you've promised the moon and the stars.

Andrew W. Smith, Published in The Chronicle-Herald, Halifax, Nova Scotia