OCEANS ELECTION
Steyn on America
Sunday, 15 June 2008

The short version of the Democratic Party primary campaign is that the
media fell in love with Barack Obama but the Democratic electorate
declined to.

"I felt this thrill going up my leg," said MSNBC's Chris Matthews
after one of the senator's speeches. "I mean, I don't have that too
often." Au contraire, Chris and the rest of the gang seem to be
getting the old tingle up the thigh hairs on a nightly basis. If Obama
is political Viagra, the media are at that stage in the ad where the
announcer warns that, if leg tingles persist for more than six months,
see your doctor.

Out there in the voting booths, however, Democrat legs stayed
admirably unthrilled. The more the media told Hillary she was toast,
and she should get the hell out of it and let Obama romp to victory,
the more Democrats insisted on voting for her. The more the media
insisted Barack was inevitable, the less inclined the voters were to
get with the program. On the strength of Chris Matthews' vibrating
calves, Sen. Obama raised a ton of money – over $300 million – and
massively outspent Sen. Clinton, but he didn't really get any bang for
his buck. In the end, he crawled over the finish line. The Obama
Express came a-hurtlin' down the track at 2 miles an hour.

But what does he care? Sen. Obama has learned an old trick of Bill
Clinton's: If you behave like a star, you'll get treated as one. So,
even as his numbers weakened, his rhetoric soared. By the time he
wrapped up his "victory" speech last week, the great gaseous uplift
had his final paragraphs floating in delirious hallucination along the
Milky Way:

"I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own
limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity
of the American people … . 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 we began to provide care for the sick and good
jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans
began to slow and our planet began to heal … . This was the moment –
this was the time – when we came together to remake this great
nation."

It's a good thing he's facing it with "profound humility," isn't it?
Because otherwise who knows what he'd be saying. But mark it in your
calendars: June 3, 2008 – the long-awaited day, after 232 years, that
America began to provide care for the sick. Just a small test program:
47 attendees of the Obama speech were taken to hospital and treated
for nausea. Everyone else came away thrilled that the Obamessiah was
going to heal the planet and reverse the rise of the oceans: When
Barack wants to walk on the water, he doesn't want to have to use a
stepladder to get up on it.

There are generally two reactions to this kind of policy proposal. The
first was exemplified by the Atlantic Monthly's Marc Ambinder:

"What a different emotional register from John McCain's; Obama seems
on the verge of tears; the enormous crowd in the Xcel Center seems
ready to lift Obama on its shoulders; the much smaller audience for
McCain's speech interrupted his remarks with stilted cheers."

The second reaction boils down to: "'Heal the planet'? Is this guy
nuts?" To be honest I prefer a republic whose citizenry can muster no
greater enthusiasm for their candidate than "stilted cheers" to one in
which the crowd wants to hoist the nominee onto their shoulders for
promising to lower ocean levels within his first term. As for coming
together "to remake this great nation," if it's so great, why do we
have to remake it? A few months back, just after the New Hampshire
primary, a Canadian reader of mine – John Gross of Quebec – sent me an
all-purpose stump speech for the 2008 campaign:

"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the
world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it."

I thought this was so cute, I posted it on the Web at National Review.
Whereupon one of those Internetty-type things happened, and three
links and a Google search later the line was being attributed not to
my correspondent but to Sen. Obama, and a few weeks after that I
started getting e-mails from reporters from Florida to Oregon, asking
if I could recall at which campaign stop the senator, in fact, uttered
these words. And I'd patiently write back and explain that they're
John Gross' words, and that not even Barack would be dumb enough to
say such a thing in public. Yet last week his demand in his victory
speech that we "come together to remake this great nation" came awful
close.

Speaking personally, I don't want to remake America. I'm an immigrant,
and one reason I came here is because most of the rest of the Western
world remade itself along the lines Sen. Obama has in mind. This is
pretty much the end of the line for me. If he remakes America, there's
nowhere for me to go – although presumably once he's lowered sea
levels around the planet there should be a few new atolls popping up
here and there.

Marc Ambinder is right. Obama's rhetoric is in a different "emotional
register" from John McCain's. It's in a different "emotional register"
from every U.S. president – not just the Coolidges but the Kennedys,
too. Nothing in Obama's resume suggests he's the man to remake America
and heal the planet. Only last week, another of his pals bit the dust,
convicted by a Chicago jury of 16 counts of this and that. "This isn't
the Tony Rezko I knew," said the senator, in what's becoming a
standard formulation. Likewise, this wasn't the Jeremiah Wright he
knew. And these are guys he's known for 20 years.

Yet at the same time as he's being stunned by the corruption and anti-
Americanism of those closest to him, Obama's convinced that just by
jetting into Tehran and Pyongyang he can get to know America's enemies
and persuade them to hew to the straight and narrow. No doubt if it
all goes belly-up, and Iran winds up nuking Tel Aviv, President Obama
will put on his more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger face and announce
solemnly that "this isn't the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad I knew."

Every time I hear an Obama speech, I start to giggle. But millions of
voters don't. And, if Chris Matthews and the tingly-legged media get
their way and drag Obama across the finish line this November, the
laugh will be on those of us who think that serious times demand grown-
up rhetoric.

The New York Sun, June 8th 2008