As an anarchist, one of my biggest pet peeves is politician worship. Unfortunately, I have met so many totally damned, dirty politicians in my time that “politician worship” has become synonymous with “liar worship” to me. So, in terms of politician worship, the past couple of years has been the biggest peeve ever with all the punditry commenting on the Democratic Party star power of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Making comparisons to which politicians are alike is a bit more reasonable. Doing it before they enter office is up there with politician worship, though. I’ve been hearing a lot of comparisons of which previous President Barack Obama is like, but this means very little until he actually becomes President and does something Presidential. At this point it is based upon a mental model or a fairy tale that the media can cook up to pull in more viewers. In terms of comparisons, you generally look at who were considered the best Presidents, look for a match between your political party and theirs, find one thing that you think might be the same and then make your pick. Thusfar, I have heard Obama compared to Roosevelt (for his zeal to sink the economy even more with massive construction industry welfare programs), Clinton and Kennedy.
One interesting comparison choice that I’ve heard a lot lately is Lincoln. I thought this was a joke, since I’ve always heard that Lincoln was racist. By “racist”, I mean that Lincoln was making a judgment about individual persons based upon their race, as he believed whites were superior to blacks in numerous ways. If you adhere to this line of though, you could simply dismiss Lincoln’s views as making him a product of the times he lived in, but isn’t that like saying racism was okay up until a certain point in time? Most people have either never heard of this idea or have summarily dismissed it because it doesn’t jibe with their beliefs (rightly or wrongly) about U.S. history that they received in their public elementary schools. By looking past this, a lot of people will still feel it is appropriate to raise Lincoln to an ideal model for President, disregard the differences in party and declare prematurely that Barack Obama is the present-day incarnation of Abraham Lincoln.
Incidentally, there are a couple of links between Obama and Lincoln. Contrary to the popular belief, Obama is not the first black President. Some say Lincoln was one of America’s previous black presidents (of up to five other previous Presidents). In the case of Lincoln, I find this claim highly debatable. I’m a little more certain of what Obama will best be known for during his administration. Just as Lincoln was concerned about forcing the South to be part of his crew, I suspect Obama will try to pull out the guns when the Ben-and-Jerry’s guys in Vermont try to secede. I mean, they named an ice cream after his campaign slogan and still want to split from his rule. How bad is that?
Whatever the comparison, let’s just hope Obama is not another George W. Bush. It’s more probable, though, that a President will be more like the immediately previous president than one from 100 to 150 years earlier. But then again there’s alway “hope” or “change” or one of those other things Obama’s been blathering about.
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