Speaking of President Obama's having overturned a ban on state funding for family-planning groups that carry out or facilitate abortions overseas, Archbishop Fisichella said, "What is important is to know how to listen... without locking oneself into ideological visions with the arrogance of a person who, having the power, thinks they can decide on life and death.."
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President Obama's arrogance on the abortion issue (and other issues as well) has been observed by many political commentators. He seems to be driven by ego and possibly even a messiah-complex. I think he's dangerous in more ways than one. When an egomaniac attains too much power, it is always bad news.
In the July 13, 2008 edition of the New York Post, Jonah Goldberg wrote:
"In his pre-campaign book, "The Audacity of Hope," Barack Obama proclaims, "I find comfort in the fact that the longer I'm in politics the less nourishing popularity becomes, that a striving for rank and fame seems to betray a poverty of ambition, and that I am answerable mainly to the steady gaze of my own conscience."
Some might think this odd testimony from a young and inexperienced freshman senator on the cusp of seeking the highest rank, and the most famous position, in the world. It's a bit like a parish priest saying he's happy with his modest lot in life and then declaring he's throwing his hat in the ring to become pope.
But a closer reading reveals a possible explanation. Perhaps he's an adulation junkie. Maybe the diminishing "nourishment" Sen. Obama receives from "popularity" is actually causing him to ratchet up his pursuit of more and more praise just to get the minimal fix he needs.
That would account for why a man who thinks striving for popularity is a character flaw has nonetheless decided to give his nomination acceptance speech in a 76,000-seat football stadium.
Or it might tell us why a candidate who hasn't even been nominated yet wants to re-enact some of the most famous scenes from both Reagan and JFK's highlight reels by holding a rally at Germany's Brandenburg Gate, even though he's not a head of state yet. (German authorities, aware of Obama's rock-star status with the German public, diplomatically suggested that it was up to Obama to decide what is in "good taste.")
Perhaps Dominic Lawson, writing in the British newspaper The Independent had it right when he recently wrote that Obama is "a man of stunning articulacy, but also stunning self-regard."
Last July, Obama explained to reporters that he would eventually overtake Hillary Rodham Clinton in the polls because "to know me is to love me." Some months later, according to The Associated Press' Ron Fournier, he proclaimed, "Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama's been there."
Of course, Obama and his surrogates would say he's just being lighthearted, he doesn't really take himself all that seriously.
One problem with that interpretation is that there's little evidence that he's interested in dispelling or rebutting the cult of personality he's developed. Obama himself talks of reversing the ocean's tides.
The overarching theme to his entire campaign - "We are the ones we've been waiting for," and all that - is that voting for Obama is proof of the cosmic superiority of ... Obama voters.
In a speech in Madison, Wis., Obama told his supporters that rallying to his cause was today's equivalent of the "greatest generation" rallying to defeat Hitler and Tojo. Oprah merely calls him, "The One," saying he will help us "evolve to a higher plane."
Someone get that man one of those "I'm Kind of a Big Deal" T-shirts.
Take his decision to deliver his acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver. It seems that the venue for the rest of the Democratic convention - the Pepsi Center (occupancy 21,000) - is just too small.
Obama says he wants to give the common folk more "access" to the process. Only a man with an Olympian's sense of entitlement to mass worship could describe such a choreographed descent upon a place called "Mile High" as an effort to bond with the common man. A demigod, it seems, is never so tall as when he stoops to bask in the adoration of the little people.
Of course, there are more charitable interpretations to all of this. Obama has been remarkably successful going from long shot for the nomination to odds-on favorite for the presidency.
This sort of thing would produce cockiness in anyone - particularly politicians, who are arrogant by nature and necessity. This would explain the Obama campaign's presumptuousness in creating its own presidential seal five months before any votes were cast.
Every campaign needs enthusiasm, so why throw cold water on their expectations by explaining to them he really can't leap tall buildings in a single bound?
Besides, the cold water is raining down regardless. Obama's recent fire sale on his left-wing positions in order to raise capital with centrists has understandably prompted lamentations from the idealistic left.
But Obama has a less-than-humble response to these whiners. He says they're the cynical ones, even as he strokes the Second Amendment like it was Ernst Blofeld's cat and tut-tuts the moodiness of women who want late-term abortions.
It seems Barack Obama believes the measure of one's idealism or cynicism rests on a single criterion: How much you support The One. After all, he's not really answerable to the voters, but to the steady gaze of his own conscience. And, by that unimpeachable standard, Obama's still the one he's been waiting for."
Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large for National Review Online.
President Obama continues to cultivate a cult of personality as he alienates Catholics, Protestants, orthodox Jews and Muslims, Republicans, Pro-Lifers from all religious traditions (and those with no religious faith) and basically all those he deems "inferior."
President Obama's ego is Bill Clinton's ego on steroids.
It is interesting to note that this site censors opinions. Hmm.
Actually no Patrick. I refused to publish your previous comment because you made false and unsubstantiated accusations against the Church. If you wish to falsely portray the Church as being intimately connected with Nazism or National Socialism, your comments will continue to be refused here. Your comment was inappropriate. For the same reason I would refuse a comment left by an anti-Semite citing the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," I refused your anti-Catholic slander.
If you cannot understand this, it might suggest something about your level of maturity.
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