The self-esteem presidency

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Those of us who support Sarah Palin are fond of, among other things, pointing out the various predictions she made during her RNC speech which are being realized during the Obama administration. There are a number of them, including her warning of higher deficits and her invocation of a candidate who couldn’t bring himself to use the word “victory” when discussing Iraq and Afghanistan, but only when talking about his own campaign—that’s why the speech makes such good material for Palinites now. Of all the things she said, though, I think the most important was this:

The American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of “personal discovery.”

I think that was an important line because whether that was Gov. Palin’s insight, that of the scriptwriter with whom she worked, or came from someone else, it was the sharpest and most pointed insight offered during the campaign as to what we were really in for with an Obama victory. It was a fair shot from the McCain campaign; like him or loathe him, there’s no question that along with arrogant ambition, Sen. John McCain is driven by a deeply-ingrained desire, even need, to serve this country. I don’t question that President Obama wants to do what’s best for the country, but I think he operates out of a very different spirit.

Back before she herself succumbed to the infatuation, Kathleen Parker dubbed Barack Obama “the Messiah of Generation Narcissism.” In the process, she made a couple good points about him and what his ascent says about our culture—points which she would no doubt deride now were they to be made by, say, Gov. Palin, but hey, you gotta pay for that seat on Air Force Won.

To play weatherman for a moment, [Obama] is a perfect storm of the culture of narcissism, the cult of celebrity, and a secular society in which fathers (both the holy and the secular) have been increasingly marginalized from the lives of a generation of young Americans.

All of these trends have been gaining momentum the past few decades. Social critic Christopher Lasch named the culture of narcissism a generation ago and cited addiction to celebrity as one of the disease’s symptoms—all tied to the decline of the family.

That culture has merely become more exaggerated as spiritual alienation and fatherlessness have collided with technology (YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) that enables the self-absorption of the narcissistic personality. . . .

Whatever the Church of Obama promises, we should not mistake this movement for a renaissance of reason. It is more like, well, like whoa.

One factor Parker didn’t mention in that column was the emphasis of the last few decades on artificially inflating the self-esteem of children, which has led to such things as grade inflation (including school districts that, as a matter of formal policy, forbid giving children Fs) and the philosophy that children should not be allowed to fail. This has been a crucial contributing factor to the culture of narcissism that Lasch identified, and has produced a great many chronological adults who believe success is a birthright which they should be able to achieve without trying too hard.

In light of that, consider this telling insight from a piece in the New York Review of Books:

It’s apparent that Obama is still learning the differences between campaigning and governing. And sometimes his inexperience shows. His speeches on health care on Labor Day and before Congress a few days later drew on his old rhetorical skills and finally showed some passion, and the one before Congress was his most effective so far in combining both rhetoric and explanation. But it was of interest that Chuck Todd of NBC reported that before he gave those speeches Obama’s staff had had to get him “fired up” to take on his critics. Obama, whose high self-esteem is well known among close observers, had previously assumed that a “following,” a “movement,” would be there without his having to do much to stimulate it.

We have a President who doesn’t think he should have to work in order to achieve political victory. This might be why the only political victories achieved to this point under his administration have been the ones Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid could achieve largely without his help.

This really shouldn’t be surprising, though; up through this past January, Barack Obama has been able to achieve most of what he wanted without really working all that hard. As Ed Lasky writes,

Barack Obama has displayed a disturbing pattern of work ethics: shirking work; claiming success when he was not entitled to do so; hiding his failures; and claiming the work of others as his own—when it was successful. These are not character traits that we should associate with Presidents.

This is, of course, a serious charge; but read the article, because Lasky substantiates it from case after case. Of those, the most speculative but perhaps the most revealing is the case of Dreams from My Father, the memoir (published when he was but 34) which has been used as one of the main pieces of evidence for President Obama’s supposed superior intelligence. As I noted some time ago, there’s good reason to doubt that he in fact wrote the book; the Anchoress captured it well when she pointed out that writers write, it’s what they do—the demands of life have their effect, but when they can, what they can, they write—and that aside from that book, Barack Obama’s life shows little evidence that he’s truly a writer. Indeed, what we have of his writing from his time at Columbia and Harvard Law (what little we have) ranges from workmanlike to dismal.

That’s why Jack Cashill of American Thinker has been arguing in increasingly greater detail, with mounting evidence, that in fact Barack Obama did not write Dreams from My Father—Bill Ayers did. Cashill’s argument has now received unexpected support from Christopher Andersen’s biography, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage. As Ron Radosh lays it out,

Andersen writes in his book that after Obama finally got a new contract to write a book, Michelle Obama suggested that her husband get advice “from his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers.”

Obama had not as yet written anything. But he had taped interviews with family members. Andersen writes: “These oral histories, along with a partial manuscript and a truckload of notes, were given to Ayers.” . . .

Andersen also writes, quoting a Hyde Park neighbor of Obama: “Everyone knew they were friends and that they worked on various projects together. It was no secret. Why would it be? People liked them both.” . . .

Finally, Christopher Andersen concludes: “In the end, Ayers’s contribution to Barack’s Dreams From My Father would be significant—so much so that the book’s language, oddly specific references, literary devices, and themes would bear a jarring similarity to Ayers’s own writing.”

Now, it is of course true that (like everyone else these days), Andersen is working from unnamed sources (though he has said that he confirmed this information from two independent sources in Hyde Park); this could prove to be as bogus as the claim last year that George W. Bush had the CIA fabricate evidence justifying the war in Iraq. That said, Andersen is only substantiating an argument which can already be made, and made quite well, from evidence in the public domain; “the book’s language, oddly specific references, literary devices, and themes” do in fact “bear a jarring similarity to Ayers’s own writing.” As such, while we cannot take the point as proven, it’s entirely reasonable to conclude that the balance of the evidence supports the conclusion that Barack Obama probably was not the primary writer of Dreams from My Father—that this is, rather, yet another case of him taking credit for someone else’s work in order to make himself look good.

What we have here, I think, is a man who does what he likes to do and just never really gets around to buckling down to do what he doesn’t like to do. He does what makes him feel good, but doesn’t have the appetite for the hard, grinding work that is usually necessary to produce real accomplishments. As such, the only real accomplishments he has to show are the ones he can produce by doing what he likes. He likes going around and talking to people, he likes kicking ideas and arguments around with people who agree with him, and so he’s an effective and energetic campaigner; as such, he has the accomplishments that can produce—namely, election to various offices. If people question his résumé, he embellishes it. When it comes time to do the work for the offices to which he’s been elected, he “works from home,” takes credit for the accomplishments of others, votes “present” to duck the tough questions—and when things go badly, covers it up or finds someone else to blame.

The end result of all this is someone who’d rather campaign for President than be President; and since he was elected nearly eleven months ago and took office eight-and-a-half months ago, this is a problem. Even liberals are starting to complain about it. But no one should be surprised; this is a man of high self-esteem who expects success to come to him because he’s wonderful, not because he’s worked hard for it. Maybe the light will come on and he’ll rise to the demands of the office yet, who knows; but for now, given his résumé, what other sort of presidency should we have expected?

We should have seen it coming. Gov. Palin certainly did.

(Cross-posted at Conservatives4Palin)

Update: Add SNL to the list . . .

Scandalizing the church

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Over a couple weeks of being head-down with the congregation, one of the things I didn’t do was keep up with Jared Wilson’s blog, The Gospel-Driven Church; so now I’m catching up. I was interested to note that at the top right now is a post, which I think is a repost, dealing with the need to convert the church to the gospel. As Jared sums things up,

We are in a weird—but frequently exhilarating—position where the gospel is scandalous even to Christians.

The main thing I would suggest is that you go read the post—and also the one a couple posts down, which is a critical evaluation of Rob Bell’s statements in a recent interview, because I think they really tie together. Why is it that the gospel is scandalous to many in the church? Why is it that people have learned to look to the church for things other than the gospel? Because we’ve had an orientation in the American church for several decades now toward focusing on and addressing felt needs, whether in individuals (the conservative wing) or in society (the liberal wing), which makes people comfortable (and thus more likely to come, give $$$, etc.), rather than challenging people and making them uncomfortable by driving them to consider their true, deep need: their total inability to do anything on their own to please God, and their total need for the gospel of salvation through the grace of God alone, by faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, through the power of the Holy Spirit alone, “not by works, lest anyone should boast.”

What’s the solution? Well, to complete the trifecta, I think Jared lays it out well in the next post down, a comment on his approach to preaching:

I believe our flesh cries out for works, we are wired to worship, and we want to earn salvation, so we know what deeds are good deeds. And we need to be helped with specific advice in specific situations and we need to be reminded to do good, but our most pressing need is to be challenged on that which we forget most easily, which is not more tips for a successful life, but that we are sinners who need grace to have life in the first place.

We all know what good works look like. We just don’t want to do them. And that is a spiritual problem exhortations to good behavior cannot solve. The clearly proclaimed gospel is God’s prescription for breaking a hardened heart. . . .

What I strive for (imperfectly, fallibly) in my teaching is to uphold Jesus and his atoning work as all satisfying, all sufficient, all powerful, all encompassing, and call others to uphold it as such in their hearts. My belief is that when someone really loves Jesus and has been scandalized by God’s grace, they will really follow Him into a life of scandalizing others.

Some will contend that spending most preaching time calling for listeners to savor the work of Christ, cling to the cross, find satisfaction in Christ’s work alone, and trust His grace for salvation does not offer real help because it doesn’t give a “takeaway,” it doesn’t tell people what to do. I say it does tell people what to do: it tells them to savor, cling, find satisfaction, and trust. That is real help. And that’s what I want people to take away. And my trust is that if people are actually doing that, because their affections have been transferred in repentance from self to Christ, their repentant hearts will bear the fruit of a living faith, by which I mean a faith that proves itself with works.

That’s right on.

On the liberal use of racism

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Lloyd Marcus writes,

I am so sick of the Left being allowed to make the rules. Imagine the absurdity of a competition in which one side is allowed to set the rules against their opponent. The Left tells us what is racist. The Left tells us what we can and cannot say. The Left published a cartoon depicting former black Secretary of State Condolezza Rice as an Aunt Jemima; another depicted Rice as a huge-lipped parrot for her Massa Bush. Neither were considered racist by their creators or publishers, or even widely condemned on the Left.

In opposition to black Republican Michael Steele’s campaign to run for U.S. Senate, a liberal blogger published a doctored photo of Steele in black face and big red lips made to look like a minstrel. The caption read, “Simple Sambo wants to move to the big house”. Not one Democrat denounced these racist portrayals of black conservatives.

And yet, a sign seen at a tea party depicting Obama as a witch doctor is considered by the Left to be beyond the pale and obviously racist. Why is the Left, given their track record of bias, granted final authority to determine the intent of the sign? Why do we conservatives so quickly and easily allow ourselves to be put on the defensive?

The rules set by the Left are extremely clear. Racist images of black conservatives and negative images of Bush are fair game. Even a play about murdering President Bush was called “harmless art”. Meanwhile, all unflattering images of Obama are racist, and constitute dangerous, potentially violent hate speech.

Now, before you dismiss Marcus’ critique as sour grapes, consider this:

I am a black conservative singer, songwriter, entertainer and columnist. Liberals have posted comments all over YouTube and C-SPAN freely using and calling me the “N” word. Because they are libs and I am an uppity, off the liberal plantation, run-away black, all tactics to restore me to my owners are acceptable.

The truth is, in the current political environment, “racist” actually has no concrete, objective meaning. As all derogatory terms eventually are, it has been debased from a meaningful descriptive term to a mere swear word, one which only has one true significance: to denigrate anyone who opposes liberal dogma. “Racist” is to a liberal fundamentalist what “heathen” is to an old-style Christian fundamentalist, and nothing more; it means only the Other, the hated Them, They Who Must Be Condemned.

Now, in one sense, this is a normal linguistic process; but it has been accelerated for the sake of political expediency, and that isn’t a good thing at all. In fact, this sort of tactic carries serious consequences for our society, which its practitioners should carefully consider. Cornell law professor William Jacobson put it well:

While the false accusation of racism is not a new tactic, it has been refined by Obama supporters into a toxic powder which is causing damage to the social fabric of the country by artificially injecting race into every political issue. . . .

Not surprisingly, the pace of racial accusations has picked up as opposition has grown. Just in the past few days the usual and not-so-usual suspects have been seeking to out-do each other in making accusations of racism including Eugene Robinson, Maureen Dowd, Jimmy Carter, Rep. Hank Johnson, Chris Matthews, a wide range of Democratic politicians, and of course, almost all of the mainstream media.

The effect of these accusations is poisonous. Race is the most sensitive and inflammatory subject in this country. By turning every issue, even a discussion of health care policy, into an argument about race, liberals have created a politically explosive mixture in which the harder they seek to suppress opposing voices, the harder those voices seek to be heard. . . .

We are seeing for the first time a strong push-back against the race card players. And that reaction is visceral, much like an allergic reaction, from people who have been stung before.

What’s more, as Mark Steyn points out, the real racism and sexism here isn’t what the Left is saying it is:

Nobody minds liberal commentators expressing the hope that Clarence Thomas “will die early from heart disease like many black men,” etc. Contemporary identity-group politics are prototype one-party states: If you’re a black Republican Secretary of State, you’re not really black. If you’re a female Republican vice-presidential nominee, you’re not really a woman. What’s racist and sexist here is the notion that, if you’re black or female, your politics is determined by your group membership.

There are, it seems to me, two main points to be drawn from this mess. The first is that whatever they might say, the Democratic leadership is worried about a conservative resurgence; to quote Steyn again,

What does the frenzy unleashed on Sarah Palin last fall tell us? What does Newsweek’s “Mad Man” cover on Glenn Beck mean? Why have “civility” drones like Joe Klein so eagerly adopted Anderson Cooper’s scrotal “teabagging” slur and characterized as “racists” and “terrorists” what are (certainly by comparison with the anti-G20 crowd) the best behaved and tidiest street agitators in modern history?

They’re telling you who they really fear. Whom the media gods would destroy they first make into “mad men.” Liz Cheney should be due for the treatment any day now. . . .

The media would like the American Right to be represented by the likes of Bob Dole and John McCain, decent old sticks who know how to give dignified concession speeches. Last time round, we went along with their recommendation. If you want to get rave reviews for losing gracefully, that’s the way to go. If you want to win, look at whom the Democrats and their media chums are so frantic to destroy: That’s the better guide to what they’re really worried about.

The second is that the Democratic leadership in D.C. cannot win the battle of ideas, or at least don’t think they can. Now, there’s an important distinction to be drawn here: that does not mean that their ideas are wrong; the most brilliant ideas and the most basic truths can still be made to sound utterly unconvincing in the mouths of defenders who don’t really know how to argue for them. I happen to believe their arguments are wrong, but their competence or lack thereof in presenting them is no proof of that either way. The point is, rather, that whether they ought to be able to win the argument or otherwise, the leaders of the Democratic Party cannot, and so they feel the need to try to win by rhetorical thuggery what they cannot win by rational appeal. Dr. Jacobson’s summary is apt:

The increasingly hysterical use of the the race card by liberal columnists, bloggers and politicians reflects the last gasps of people who, being unable to win an argument on the merits, seek to end the argument.

In the last analysis, all of this is a blot on Barack Obama. No, it isn’t reasonable to expect him to fulfill the post-racial promise of his campaign; the only thing that was unreasonable was him using that to help sell himself as a candidate. However, he is allowing this to happen, and he could stop it if he wanted; and Jules Crittenden is right, he needs to make it stop.

Obama can let a growing chorus of prominent Americans call his failure racism and his opponents racists, a development which is itself driving a deeper partisan wedge and heightening the rancor and bitterness. He can let it further demean our national dialogue and intimidate speech. He can let it be his excuse, a smear in the history books. Or he tell America and the world firmly that in this country, political dissent does not equal racism. He will then have shown himself to be a statesman, who is worthy of respect no matter whether you agree with his politics and policies or not.

It is time for President Obama to take the race card off the table.

Here’s hoping—for his sake, for the country’s sake—that he does. Soon.

On this blog in history: April 12-16, 2008

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Further thoughts on the Ascension: the value of our humanity
On the significance of the fact that Jesus is still the carpenter from Nazareth.

Score one for SCOTUS
Standing up for national sovereignty and the proper separation of powers.

On praying for heart attacks
“Make them stop or make them gone.”

What shall we do with a Christless preacher?
A few thoughts on the matter from a working pastor.

Iraq as a litmus test for presidential seriousness
Several truths that are well worth remembering as the President wavers on Afghanistan.

William Safire, RIP

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William Safire, who died this past Sunday of pancreatic cancer at the age of 79, was probably most significant as a political figure; he won enduring fame when, as a Nixon speechwriter, he coined the phrase “nattering nabobs of negativity,” then spent over thirty years as a political columnist for the New York Times. Generally described as a conservative stalwart, he really wasn’t all that conservative; what he was, as the Times obituary rightly says, was “a pugnacious contrarian” who never backed down from a fight he could pick.

And oh, how he fought! The Times aptly calls him “a Pickwickian quibbler who gleefully pounced on gaffes, inexactitudes, neologisms, misnomers, solecisms and perversely peccant puns, like ‘the president’s populism’ and ‘the first lady’s momulism,’ written during the Carter presidency.” This led him, quite reasonably, to his other major column: “On Language,” which he wrote from 1979 until earlier this month. In the larger scheme of things, I suppose Safire the linguist, lexicographer, and arbiter of usage was probably less important than Safire the political writer—but in my book, his work on language was more interesting, and is more likely to endure, not only for the work itself but for all those whom he encouraged to follow in his footsteps. As one such author, Ben Zimmer of the Visual Thesaurus, writes,

On hearing of his passing, fellow maven Paul Dickson remarked to me that Safire “opened a door which a lot of people got to walk through and play with words as a vocation.” That was certainly true in my case. . . .

After becoming editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press, I fielded occasional queries from Safire and his research assistants (on everything from “go figure” to “fire wall“). He was always quick to give credit where credit was due, and he also enjoyed coming up with warm-spirited epithets for those who helped him. (I was on the receiving end of “that etymological Inspector Javert,” “netymologist,” and “longtime capo of the Phrasedick Brigade“—sobriquets that I will always treasure.)

For all his feistiness, Safire was a man who inspired personal as well as professional admiration; Zimmer describes him as “an extremely generous man, both publicly in his philanthropic work with the Dana Foundation and privately with friends and colleagues,” and concludes, “He will be remembered fondly for his openness, humanity, and thoughtfulness.” Tevi Troy relates a priceless and revealing anecdote that begins in Safire’s speechwriting days:

The day before Yom Kippur, Safire left the Agnew campaign for 36 hours to fly cross-country to Washington, arriving at Adas Israel synagogue on Connecticut Avenue just in time for the Kol Nidre service that signals the onset of the holiday.

Unfortunately, the synagogue’s rabbi considered himself a bit of a political speechwriter as well, and gave an overly political and unbecoming sermon that evening condemning “those who would use alliteration to polarize our society.” As Safire put it in his book Before the Fall, “that’s all I needed; the ‘nattering nabobs of negativism’ was not a sin I had come to atone for.” Yitzhak Rabin, who was the Israeli ambassador to Washington at the time, comforted Safire after the sermon and later told the rabbi that he felt the attack was inappropriate, something for which Safire was forever grateful.

Two and a half decades later, Safire and Rabin were reunited at a dinner at the Israeli embassy. The two men got into a heated discussion about the Oslo peace process and, according to Safire, “the man sitting at the table between us—Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who never breaches protocol—blanched at the seeming heatedness of the exchange.” Rabin then told the story of that long ago Yom Kippur and explained to Christopher, ‘That’s why we can get angry with each other today without getting angry with each other.”

We aren’t islands—we should act accordingly

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Tyler Dawn has a very good post up today, one which I encourage you to read, that reminded me of this wisdom from the preacher-poet Dr. John Donne:

The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingrafted into the body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. . . .

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

In keeping with this, I also note Tyler Dawn’s most recent post; I’ll be praying for her, and I hope you will be too.

The key to victory: don’t lose your nerve

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If Obamacare doesn’t pass, it will in the end be because the Democrats forgot that rule. Granted, they have some reason—right now, 2010 isn’t looking like a great year for them. Support for the President’s health care “plan” (one has to put it in quotes because there is not in fact one coherent plan) is down to 41%, with 56% opposed, and the numbers are even worse among senior citizens; perhaps more importantly, the sense of inevitability is gone, with a slight plurality of voters saying no health care bill will pass this year (and a majority of independents—58%). The President’s approval rating continues to sag as well.

Still, his Approval Index is somewhat better than it was earlier this year, and the Democrats have pulled to within two points of the GOP on the generic congressional ballot; and perhaps most importantly, the Democratic caucus on the Hill has the votes to pass any bill it pleases with no help whatsoever from the Republican minority. In short, if the Democratic Party actually believes in its declared principles, all its leaders have to do is stick to their guns and they can do what they believe to be best.

Will they? Well, if Rich Lowry is to be believed, maybe not:

That’s the prediction of a source in the Senate. He thinks Reid will certainly vote for cloture, but that the bill will be so unpopular—and his own standing in Nevada so precarious—that he’ll vote against it on final passage, especially if—as seems likely—the sweetheart deal for Nevada on Medicaid is eventually stripped out.

If—and it seems implausible, but if—one of the two primary legislative leaders of the Democratic Party is in fact prepared to bail on the most important element of his party’s political agenda in a bid to save his own skin, then combined with the Senate Finance Committee’s decision to euthanize the “public option,” one would have to conclude that we’re seeing a major failure of nerve. Barack Obama may well need to pull a mighty big rabbit out of his hat if he wants to win this one—and given that he hasn’t managed that yet, and seems to have no real idea how he might, I don’t know where he’s going to find one.

The answer to the dilemma

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Heidelberg Catechism
Q & A 13
Q. Can we pay this debt ourselves?

A. Certainly not.
Actually, we increase our guilt every day.1

Note: mouse over footnote for Scripture references (does not work in IE 6).

God’s justice must be satisfied; restitution for our sin must be made. Unfortunately, it’s beyond us to do it—we can certainly work to improve ourselves, but we can never even get to the point of perfection in this life, let alone become good enough to start paying the price for past sin. If we’re going to get out from under this debt, we’re going to need help. But from whom?

Q & A 14
Q. Can another creature—any at all—
pay this debt for us?

A. No.
To begin with,
God will not punish another creature
for what a human is guilty of.1
Besides,
no mere creature can bear the weight
of God’s eternal anger against sin
and release others from it.2

In other words, nobody and nothing else in this world is able to pay the price for us either. Which leaves . . . who?

Q & A 15
Q. What kind of mediator and deliverer
should we look for then?

A. One who is truly human1 and truly righteous,2
yet more powerful than all creatures,
that is, one who is also true God.3

This is the crux of the matter. If there was ever to be any hope for our salvation, it could only come from God; if anyone was ever to satisfy the demands of God’s justice and deliver us from the penalty due our sin, it could only be God himself.

Caesar worship is alive and well

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It’s interesting to me how people who screamed bloody murder whenever George W. Bush used a phrase that was even vaguely religious have no problem with religious ceremonies, led by clergy, wearing clerical robes, using the traditional forms of the Christian liturgy, to pray to Barack Obama. When I talk about personality cults and political idolatry and the messianic temptation of the Obama campaign, this is the kind of thing I’m thinking of—except a lot worse than anything I’ve thought of to this point.

The great political temptation from which Judaism and Christianity delivered us was the worship of human beings; during the medieval period, whoever came up with the idea of the “divine right of kings” brought that partway back, but never all the way. Now, in their reaction against Christian faith and their denial of their need for a divine Messiah, folks on the Left are trying to turn a Chicago machine politician into a secular messiah. It will never work. Put not your trust in princes.

HT: Kevin Carroll, via Toby Brown