This is a follow up to my post Cult of Personality. The best antidote to these techniques is to read and analyze the speeches. Bring your rational mind to bear. You might also be interested in this speech by another master of the technique that has themes similar to an Obama speech.
H/T the comments at AAPS News of the Day which are a must read if you want to understand more.
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Right Coast Blog,
I hope you'll endure this post; I was going to write an editorial and try to get it published, but ran out of time. I thought I'd post it around a few places.
Obama’s glaring “Achille's Heel” for the aspiring objective military historians among us, is his self-described though weakly documented opposition to both the Iraq War Resolution and the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq. To iterate, that is Obama’s glaring Achilles’ heel, not his asset as a candidate. Please read on.
Barack Obama would have been willing to permit Saddam Hussein to possess weapons of mass destruction, nuclear and otherwise – exactly as Mr. Hussein proclaimed he had possession – and allowed Mr. Hussein to continue to pursue their development at his relative convenience during the years 2002, 2003, and onward, without deadline of any kind. This despite the overwhelming evidence that Mr. Hussein was a far more imminent threat than Adolf Hilter was in the years previous to World War II. In this way his dedication to appeasement surpasses that of Neville Chamberlain. Mr. Chamberlain had the excuse that he did not have himself from which to learn from his mistakes. Mr. Obama does have Mr. Chamberlain’s lesson but, unlike Mr. McCain, decided to ignore it in 2002 and 2003. This makes him beyond merely incompetent to be commander-in-chief, but utterly self-destructive. Those who disagree with this would deceive you and, ignorantly, patriotically, and/or otherwise … further irrelevantly, put this nation at dire risk.
Mr. Obama has sheepishly mumbled that he did not think the 2002-2003 WMD intelligence was accurate. I would surmise that is an outright lie, if not a despicable deception, and, in any case, absurd; but I do not know his mind exactly. It could be that Mr. Obama had two of his Illinois State Senate legislative assistants look into the Iraq-WMD issue independently and that he elected to credit their contrary conclusions to both the claims of Saddam Hussein and the conclusions of the NSA, CIA, DIA, and international intelligence community consensus. Or perhaps he intuited that Hussein was lying about possessing WMD and that the international intelligence community was absolutely wrong in which case I am amazed by his “powers of intuition” and wonder if we can expect him to intuit his national security intelligence information should he win election in 2008. This is something we ought to know before we put our security in the hands of Mr. Obama qua psychic. In any case, I challenge Mr. Obama or anyone to prove much less persuade effectively that the basis of Mr. Obama’s objection in 2002 or 2003 was the suspect nature of the WMD intelligence rather than his willingness to accept an effectively WMD-armed Saddam Hussein. As evidence otherwise, one would think he would have announced that to warn his fellow countrymen they were relying on incorrect information if he thought that was the case; after all, he would not have wanted Mr. Bush to “mislead” the United States, so it would seem. [Moreover only an imbecile or a quasi-pacifist would have doubted the 2002-2003 raw WMD intelligence enough to risk U.S. security based on those doubts.] But, in fact, Mr. Obama completely believed at the time that Hussein had WMD and still thought the invasion was a mistake, deciding to permit Mr. Hussein more and more time to develop WMD and the delivery systems, technological and paramilitary, to strike at the United States. [In fact, the fear in 2003 was that he would use the WMD he claimed to have on invading US troops. In this way the invasion though based on false intelligence at least spared our troops having to invade Iraq subsequently and face WMD.] This after Hussein was able to easily corrupt and thwart both U.N. inspections and sanctions at the expense of the security of the United States and the welfare of his people for 11-12 years (and, typically, the integrity of the U.N.). He must have studied his fellow fascist (the Baathist Party modeled on the Nazi Party) carefully in his dealings with the League of Nations and the United States in the 1930s.
This is no time for hyper-appeasement and Barack Obama. I’m voting for John McCain in November.
The Objective Historian
The Objective Historian · October 31, 2008 11:31 PM
My thoughts were that perhaps Obama is 20 years too early... our economy is not that bad yet.
Then I think that the message requires much more subtlety today than before, so maybe Obama is right on time?
Just to make myself feel worse, I'm going to re-read Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer".
I've felt since 2004 that it describes the "left" as well as anything.
Right Coast Blog,
I hope you'll endure this post; I was going to write an editorial and try to get it published, but ran out of time. I thought I'd post it around a few places.
Obama’s glaring “Achille's Heel” for the aspiring objective military historians among us, is his self-described though weakly documented opposition to both the Iraq War Resolution and the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq. To iterate, that is Obama’s glaring Achilles’ heel, not his asset as a candidate. Please read on.
Barack Obama would have been willing to permit Saddam Hussein to possess weapons of mass destruction, nuclear and otherwise – exactly as Mr. Hussein proclaimed he had possession – and allowed Mr. Hussein to continue to pursue their development at his relative convenience during the years 2002, 2003, and onward, without deadline of any kind. This despite the overwhelming evidence that Mr. Hussein was a far more imminent threat than Adolf Hilter was in the years previous to World War II. In this way his dedication to appeasement surpasses that of Neville Chamberlain. Mr. Chamberlain had the excuse that he did not have himself from which to learn from his mistakes. Mr. Obama does have Mr. Chamberlain’s lesson but, unlike Mr. McCain, decided to ignore it in 2002 and 2003. This makes him beyond merely incompetent to be commander-in-chief, but utterly self-destructive. Those who disagree with this would deceive you and, ignorantly, patriotically, and/or otherwise … further irrelevantly, put this nation at dire risk.
Mr. Obama has sheepishly mumbled that he did not think the 2002-2003 WMD intelligence was accurate. I would surmise that is an outright lie, if not a despicable deception, and, in any case, absurd; but I do not know his mind exactly. It could be that Mr. Obama had two of his Illinois State Senate legislative assistants look into the Iraq-WMD issue independently and that he elected to credit their contrary conclusions to both the claims of Saddam Hussein and the conclusions of the NSA, CIA, DIA, and international intelligence community consensus. Or perhaps he intuited that Hussein was lying about possessing WMD and that the international intelligence community was absolutely wrong in which case I am amazed by his “powers of intuition” and wonder if we can expect him to intuit his national security intelligence information should he win election in 2008. This is something we ought to know before we put our security in the hands of Mr. Obama qua psychic. In any case, I challenge Mr. Obama or anyone to prove much less persuade effectively that the basis of Mr. Obama’s objection in 2002 or 2003 was the suspect nature of the WMD intelligence rather than his willingness to accept an effectively WMD-armed Saddam Hussein. As evidence otherwise, one would think he would have announced that to warn his fellow countrymen they were relying on incorrect information if he thought that was the case; after all, he would not have wanted Mr. Bush to “mislead” the United States, so it would seem. [Moreover only an imbecile or a quasi-pacifist would have doubted the 2002-2003 raw WMD intelligence enough to risk U.S. security based on those doubts.] But, in fact, Mr. Obama completely believed at the time that Hussein had WMD and still thought the invasion was a mistake, deciding to permit Mr. Hussein more and more time to develop WMD and the delivery systems, technological and paramilitary, to strike at the United States. [In fact, the fear in 2003 was that he would use the WMD he claimed to have on invading US troops. In this way the invasion though based on false intelligence at least spared our troops having to invade Iraq subsequently and face WMD.] This after Hussein was able to easily corrupt and thwart both U.N. inspections and sanctions at the expense of the security of the United States and the welfare of his people for 11-12 years (and, typically, the integrity of the U.N.). He must have studied his fellow fascist (the Baathist Party modeled on the Nazi Party) carefully in his dealings with the League of Nations and the United States in the 1930s.
This is no time for hyper-appeasement and Barack Obama. I’m voting for John McCain in November.
The Objective Historian