Obama as Lincoln: Mask and Mirror
by
Justin Raimondo
by Justin Raimondo
 Ron
English, the self-styled “Robin Hood of Madison Avenue”
who specializes in “liberating” commercial billboards
and defacing them (albeit artistically) with his anticapitalist
messages, has painted a portrait of Obama as Lincoln: The President’s
thick lips, crinkled brow, and eyes sparkling with a preternatural
intelligence are seamlessly merged with the high forehead, biblical
beard, and absurd ears of the Great Emancipator. Obama-Lincoln looks
out at us, almost but not quite grinning with the sweetness of his
victory and the knowledge that so many, like Mr. English, view his
election as their own personal emancipation from eight years of
misery. Indeed, the Lincoln meme has gone viral, with references
to the comparison ranging from the lowliest pajama-clad blogger
to the esteemed editors of Newsweek. The latter declare that
“It is the season to compare Barack Obama to Abraham Lincoln,”
and house hacks Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe take it from there
to paint a portrait of the multi-culti messiah that has all the
earmarks of a North Korean ode to the Dear Leader:
Two thin
men from rude beginnings, relatively new to Washington but wise
to the world, bring the nation together to face a crisis. Both
are superb rhetoricians, both geniuses at stagecraft and timing.
Obama, like Lincoln and unlike most modern politicians, even writes
his own speeches . . .
 Two
thin men? What normal person would make such a comparison? To our
elites, thinness is a sign of moral virtue. Here is a President
who goes to the gym every day and shoots hoops with the best of
them: A penumbra of health radiates from his person like the glow
of sanctity. Evans and Wolffe don’t just acknowledge the cosmetic
superficiality that got Obama elected: They celebrate it. According
to Newsweek, Obama is the New Lincoln because both are thin,
geniuses at stagecraft, and write a lot of their own material – a
rationale that also makes Obama the New Michael Jackson.
The Lincolnian
legacy was constantly reiterated by the Obamaites as they readied
themselves for Inauguration Day, and “a new birth of freedom”
is their theme song. As to what this freedom consists of, it depends
on whom you ask. Obama is the perfect demagogue; his followers project
their own hopes and desires onto the blankness of his expression.
Read
the rest of the article
February
25, 2009
Justin
Raimondo [send him mail]
is editorial director of Antiwar.com
and is the author of An
Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard and Reclaiming
the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement.
Copyright
© 2009 Chronicles Magazine
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