Waitin’ for a superman
The bullshit keeps piling up this week. From Eamon Javors of Politico, the dumbest and vilest thing ever written:
Let’s be honest: Barack Obama is better than you are.
No he’s not.
This pervasive, malignant deceit that politicians are somehow better than us mere mortals must be purged from common consciousness.
Well, I think the writer’s point was more that people like Obama take on a sort of star quality — largely due to the way the media chooses to treat them, and that in turn based on the ineffable “likeability factor.” (Compare Kennedy with Bush I, for example.) If the media didn’t choose to focus on how Obama takes his wife out on fancy dates, lavishes attention on the children, etc., then you’d never know about it. I don’t think anyone on an individual basis would say that Obama is “better” than they are, but would certainly agree that he does some things better than they do. It’s just the sum total of all those qualities, packaged up by the media, that creates the illusion of the Übermensch.
So don’t blame Obama — blame the media and the consumers thereof who are too stupid to separate myth from reality.
I understand the writer’s point (but don’t tell me BO doesn’t relish the illusion of the Übermensch).
I’m just so very sick and bloody tired of idol worship. Few things are more childish than worshipping limelighters. The only stars I recognise are in the night sky.
Then why were you in a rock band?