The Obama Delusion

I have been trying to say the same thing to so many people that are jumping from Clinton to Obama. He is all rhetoric and no real change or definite ideas to change. It takes years to get new policies in effect and he is acting like it can be done in a short period of time. He is the medias golden boy of the moment and I know the republicans and media have been after the Clintons for years and then proved nothing except President Clinton had an affair...so what other presidents have also but they did not have the press in their face all the time. People need to wake up and realize he is a good speech maker but not prepared enough for the job of President. If he his elected many people are going to say I wish I would have had my mind and eyes open and not been lulled by all the speeches.
Jackylon DePoma

Thank goodness! There's one more us of out there that has managed to resist or break free from Barack's spell. I too had been quite impressed with Barack since slightly before he won his senatorial campaign and was also wowed by his key note speech at the 200 Dems convention. I agreed with some of the commentary back then, that guy had a lot of potential and would be a good presidential candidate in the future. As in 2012 or 20016!
Now once this guy started campaigning for this election cycle and I got to here more and more of his sales pitch I quickley smelled a rat, a phoney. His was still an impressive orator, but what he is now saying and what he has done (not much), as well as what he claims to be (new, a change, not the same old same old, not the status quo), just didn't match up. Much of what he claimed not to be, he in fact is. The impression that he is some sort of political messiah, untouched by the evils of Washington, is something we've heard many times from many politicians, including in this election cycle (Romney, Huckabee, Gravel). He actually has quite a bit in common with our current president. During Bush's campaign he also claimed to be a unifying force, not a polarizing figure. Both are born again Christians with history of substance abuse (as most are). Both claim to be outsiders of a sort coming to fix a broken down bureaucracy. Both are considered much more personable and less boring than their main political rival. Both have ivy league educations. (not such negative, except among republicans that consider them elitist).
Alas I think this article and others that are slowly beginning to pop up are too late, too late. And I fear that as with our last 2 presidential elections, the politics or personality with will win out over the politics of substance and reason. Most of our fellow citizens give this vote about as much thought as prom king or queen contest or American idol.

The more I see articles like this, the more I know that Senator Obama is the Best Person for the Presidency. If the Clintons can have this much influence on the media to get this guy to write this no content article to try and help save her failing campaign, just imagine what else they are capable of doing all in the name of their our own fame and more importantly FORTUNE!! How many people close to the Clintons and their Scandals have ended up dead already!???! Anyway, I guess we are seeing Hillary's new campaign tactic she was talking about!!!

It seems that Obama's 10-0 run is starting to scare alot of people. The possibility of a black president is too much to stomach. Don't worry there's still March 4th.

Mr. Samuelson has finally communicated what many of us are thinking. Mr. Obama is vacuous and full of empty rhetoric. "Hope" and "Change", change and hope, hope, hope, change, change... blah, blah , blah... Just because Mr. Obama is functional, doesn't mean he would be a good leader. We need someone with experience. We need someone who understands why the US is a country to be proud of. We need someone who believes that the constitution is not a dynamic document. We need someone we can trust to look out for America first and protect us from the fanatics.

Excellent article which sticks to facts NOT rhetoric emotions!!!!

Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania.....Do you love America????

I'm glad you were impressed with Obama's intelligence - I certainly am not with yours. Your shallow observations serve nothing but more ignorant rhetoric - deep in a shadow cast by Obama's perception of hope and change. I fear there is no hope for you.

His economic policies are very irrational. Anyone who has taken a freshman college economics class knows that you can't just tax the businesses and people to death. It will destroy the economy. Equally important, he has a picture of Che in his campaign office. Che killed thousands of people for the Castro's movement. Everyone knows that communism and socialism are terrible government systems. Soviet Russia killed 18 million of its own people. That fact that he has any admiration for communism makes me sick to my stomach.

His economic policies are very irrational. Anyone who has taken a freshman college economics class knows that you can't just tax the businesses and people to death. It will destroy the economy. Equally important, he has a picture of Che in his campaign office. Che killed thousands of people for the Castro's movement. Everyone knows that communism and socialism are terrible government systems. Soviet Russia killed 18 million of its own people. That fact that he has any admiration for communism makes me sick to my stomach.

This guy sounds exactly like Hillary Clinton now? Well pick one and shut up! Why are there more attack adds on Senator Obama today then normal??? Who did Hillary pay off this time! If any of you truly think that John McCain will run this country correctly, you are saddingly mistaken! This guy is an old horse who needs to be shot! Hillary cannot even run her own campaign correctly and some of you want her to run this country? What a Joke!!! Let's see, she's already ran out of money and depended on "her supporters" (which would be you if she were elected) to bring her campaign back to life (Sound like taxes people)??? Who hasn't worked on her election team??? She asked me to be her campaign manager just last week! Can she finally choose (no pun intended) a political slogan for more than a week?? What a moron! But as they say "It takes one to know one", but I guess in this case..."it takes one to vote on"!!!! John McCain will have every last one of us a soldier by 2012!!! His campaign slogan for 2012 will be "Make more babies becuase we need more Soldiers to fight all of the 100 year wars I've started"!!! I'm more scared of him than I am of living in Iraq!!!! And his wife? Has anyone seen Star Trek: Insurrection...she looks like a 2,000 year old pulled back to look 20! If that's his idea of great, we are all in trouble!!!!

The single largest factor in my decision to vote for Obama isn't his democratic leanings, he's running on the Democratic ticket, of course he's going to outline policies that are somewhat lock-step with the party to which he belongs. When he continually stresses change, he is pretty adamant about changing the way Washington is influenced by corporate money and lobbyists. He's not saying that he's going to change the way Republicans react to his policies, or even whether or not all Democrats are going to agree and fall in line with his policies. He's simply stating that Washington needs to start working to better the situaions of it's constituents A.K.A YOU!! At this point in time, policy is bought and sold on the basis of what corporation spends the greater amount of money lobbying for laws that allow them to make more money, even if it means the ruination of American lives. Corporate greed has been running this country far too long and it needs to stop. NAFTA = ship jobs overseas to save money on payroll, and hell we'll have to pay less taxes as a result. Is this a policy for the people, or big business? Lobbyists for the mortgage industry spent millions upon millions of dollars in Washington to make sure that politicians looked the other way as they bilked the American government out of billions. For big business or for the people? Enron, don't get me started. The list goes on and on..

Excellent article. Obama is false promises used to build monuments of nothing. But those who want to believe will attack the author and any that oppose their view. Facts do not appear relevant to many of them. I so much wanted to believe. Yet the facts could not be overlooked.

Obama may say that he offers "change"- but I have yet to see anything from him that proves that he is something more than a great speaker. Look at his past, his voting history, his accomplishments... they leave a lot to be desired. So far, he has only offered vague hints as to what this "change" will be. He has not shown a detailed report of how he will fix the health care system, how he will work to help the environment, what he can do to fix the economic issues that we have. It took a Clinton to fix the last Bush's screw ups- I think it is going to take another Clinton to fix these... I just can't believe that people are so taken with Obama's rhetoric- and not concerned with how this will happen? How many people have actually taken time to look into his past- or asked how he can give a speach about a CEO making so much money when his wife was working on a hospital board- making over $900,000/ year. Look up the stories about them from the Chicago area. The American people need to take pride in themselves again- and educate themselves on who the best candidate would be.

His positions and plans seem solid and sensible to me.

But you think he's a delusion, Sam?

Guess we'll find out, because he's gonna be our next president.

His economic policies are very irrational. Anyone who has taken a freshman college economics class knows that you can't just tax the businesses and people to death. It will destroy the economy. Equally important, he has a picture of Che in his campaign office. Che killed thousands of people for the Castro's movement. Everyone knows that communism and socialism are terrible government systems. Soviet Russia killed 18 million of its own people. That fact that he has any admiration for communism makes me sick to my stomach.

I totally agree with Samuelson's opinion of Obama. As a loyal democrat, I am very open minded of our candidates, but also sceptical of Obama's credentials and readyness for this job. I hear a lot of "fluff" and am always listening for substance in his messages, but I must say, I honestly do not understand the hype and fanfare surrounding him. I think "we" are getting caught up in a dangerous game of "idol mentality" in this country. He is the new cool, kid on the block. I was very confident and comfortable with the prospects of having Hillary and all that I know about her in the White House. Bill included.