Friday, October 10, 2008
The view from mid-plummet
Is Obama missing a chance to put this thing away right now in not responding to the market free-fall?
And of course I don't mean a McCain-like blunder. I mean the construction of an image of care and leadership at a moment in which people are surely freaking the fuck out. I mean a Giuliani moment. Because this is the closest thing we're going to have to the next 9/11, and it's happening right now. It's an enormous opportunity.
I'm not saying I know exactly what he would need to do and say to accomplish this; only that there is -such- a vacuum in just this spot right now. McCain tried to fill it and proved how unfit he was for office.
I think that Barack thinks that his image, as currently constructed, is reassuring enough. But I think that right now would be the ideal time for him to shift into a more directly compassionate and commanding voice.
Again, he doesn't have to propose or do anything policywise. He only has to find the language to reassure-- and in asserting it, claim what's his: the responsibility to fucking put things back together.
UPDATED...
This is what I had in mind! Cross MLK with FDR and you get... mothafuckin BHO, bitches!!!!
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio – Welcoming a “wonderful crowd on this beautiful day that the Lord has made,” Senator Barack Obama denounced what he called negative Republican tactics, summoned the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt and called for calm and sacrifice in the face of the growing financial crisis.
“The American story has never been about things coming easy,” Mr. Obama said, speaking to an audience of 5,000 in this southern Ohio city of 22,000. “It’s been about rising to the moment when the moment is hard, about rejecting panicked division for purposeful unity, about seeing a mountaintop from the deepest valley. That’s why we remember that some of the most famous words ever spoken by an American came from a president who took office in a time of turmoil. He said ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’”
It's cheesily inspiring, it offers no policy solutions-- but it shows that he has the balls to claim FDR's mantle. He should stick with this message: I -am- FDR and you need me!!!!
posted by James Hussein Dixon : 10/10/2008 11:05:00 AM
