Barack Obama Is Like John Lennon - All Words, No Substance

You know, the more I think about it, the more I see parallels between U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama, and the late Beatles frontman John Lennon.

Obama's whole message is about "change". He seldom, if ever, spends any time in providing specifics in how he will accomplish the changes, specifically in how he will fund the changes. In his speech last night to something like 90,000 faithful, packed into Mile High Stadium, he once again railed at McCain and proposed all sorts of stuff that he (thankfully) admitted that he would have to find a way to pay for, yet did not provide specifics, other than chopping government waste and reviewing the federal budget "line by line". These are fine cliche lines that politicians can use, but unless you actually turn on your brain, you won't realize that what he is proposing he will need to spend money to accomplish, and given the sucky economic times that we are in, there are only two ways for him to fund his proposed programs - reducing current spending, or increasing taxes. Now, as for the former...while I am no economist, I do know that conservatives in general are not spenders, but reducers. I find it hard to believe Obama can find that much more to reduce to pay for his programs. Yet, he doesn't address this, but instead, like Lennon, will simply ask people to imagine, to dream, and to hope.

This is fine if you don't think long-term. I mean, I can sit down with my wife and tell her, you know what, we all work hard, we are stressed, we need a break, we need a change, let's go on a month-long vacation to some tropical resort! Sounds great! We're excited. We would already be packing our bags unless one of us (or both of us) stops, puts a lid on the excitement level and logically thinks,

"As fun as this vacation may be, can we afford to do this?"
"Where's the money going to come from?"
"What effects will this have on our children and will they be coming with us and if not, who will watch them?"
"Is this the right thing to do, given that we still have a mortgage to pay, an uncertain job environment for me, and future college/university bills to address for our kids?"

You'll see in a way that these responses can be viewed as a killjoy of sorts, but it's facing reality. Obama needs to spend some time thinking about the implications of his promises. It's like people in general who have discussions about topics and complain about stuff. Someone will inevitably say, "someone should do something about this!" Of course, nobody does, because people realize that in order for them to follow through on that sentiment, they may actually have to get involved and put themselves at an inconvenience or risk.

Obama spends a lot of time talking in generalities. If you don't believe me, go watch any of his speeches on YouTube or something. You can never really nail down his position on something. So without knowing his true positions on things, but rather hearing the pie-in-the-sky philosophy that he constantly talks about, some people don't really have any concrete reason to vote against him, but that's starting to change now that many folks are starting to see him for who he is - a great orator who can give great speeches but has difficulty in delivering. Look at his voting record as a senator and how many "not present" votes he has. Look at what he has done/not done for his constituents in Illinois. When he became senator in 2003 or 2004, he already had aspirations to become the presidential nominee. Why else would he deliver a keynote address for the 2004 DNC in Boston that hardly mentioned John Kerry, the then-nominee for the Democrats. It was because even then, his ego was so large that he thought that he take the opportunity to showcase himself. Sure, I will grant that it was a well delivered speech, but if you watch it in full, it's really out of context, given the fact that he should have talking about John Kerry more and less about himself.

I find it interesting to see Obama talking about change and such all this time, and yet he picks a seasoned Washington veteran to be his running mate. Don't get me wrong - Joe Biden is a very good choice for him, given the fact that Biden helps to balance his zero experience in foreign matters - to me, that at least shows Obama is thinking logically at least part of the time. But Biden himself said not too long ago during one of the debates that Obama is not suited to be President due to lack of experience. Bill Clinton said the same thing. So did Hillary. I find it interesting now to see all three of them saying he's ready. Guess that's what happens when you get infected with the very contagious diseas Obamamania.

I find it interesting that despite what you may have seen last night, Obama hardly took the nomination in a cakewalk. The 18,000,000 (that's 18 million) voters that voted for Hillary obviously saw something they did not like in Obama, enough to not vote for him. Obama drew similar numbers. It is also interesting that Hillary's voters have not embraced him en masse - lots of them are leaving in droves to vote for John McCain - now, what's this saying to you? They'd rather jump party (and jump to the diametrically polar opposite political philoosphy) rather than vote for Obama. This, to me, is telling. While I have never been a Hillary Clinton fan and pretty much disagree with almost everything she stands for, I can at least enumerate her exact view on certain issues (whether I agree with it is a different story) - I can't say the same for Obama).

I find his "followers" to be very typical liberals. You know, the ones who will ride the bandwagon on any issue that seems to pique the public interest - like, oh, the environment. It's great to be Al Gore when you have the special interests groups proud that he is taking their position and you become some celebrity due to your support of "trendy" issues like the environment and climate change and human rights in China or whatever else that morons like U2's Bono or causes other celebrities attempt to champion.

Obama's premise is one that is not too far removed from the old days when we were all elementary school students - let's follow the outspoken popular kid. Yet if you look at how those quiet, studious nerdy types ended up, you'll see that they all ended up doing quite well in life, since people generally will (eventually) value substance and intelligence over style and oratal pizazz. John McCain is not the most outspoken and "go get 'em" type of person in the election - but he does have experience, knows that hard decisions made may not be popular, and is willing to stick to his guns. I am not saying Obama is a bad guy; just that he is ill-equipped to serve as the leader of the most influential country int he world.