Rock Star Syndrome

Obama’s “Sudden Political-Rock-Star Syndrome”

We are not only dealing with FBI’s renaming Jihadist terrorist acts committed in the United States as “Sudden Jihad Syndrome”, but also with Senator Barack Hussein Obama’s current persona as a political rock star. George Clooney calls him a “true rock star” presence.

Let me define the “Sudden Political Rock Star Syndrome” as a condition where a politician thinks his charming personality will overcome his lack of experience, absence of well articulated positions on critical domestic and global issues except one that may be dominant in public discussions (such as Iraq) and an Islamic heritage despite the nasty role being played by that religion in the current global turmoil.

Signs of Rock Star Syndrome

Here is what Ben Wallace-Wells said in his very interesting February 7^th Rollingstone article, The Radical Roots of Barack Obama: “Obama is trying to pull a less-conventional trick: to turn his own person into a movement…What Obama stands for, if anything, is not yet clear…Everywhere he goes he is greeted by thrilled crowds, trailed constantly by a reporter from The Chicago Tribune who is writing a book about the senator with a preliminary title so immodest that it embarrassed even Obama’s staff: The Savior.” He adds: “The danger here is that the public has committed the cardinal sin of political love, forcing Obama onto the national stage before knowing him well enough to gauge whether he’s ready for it.”

He also reports that preliminary polls show that “women responded more intensely and warmly to Obama than did men…His advisers, assuming they would pick up a healthy chunk of black votes, honed in on a different target: …women, nearly all of them white.” “There is an amazingly candid moment in Obama’s autobiography when he writes of his childhood discomfort at the way his mother would sexualize African-American men…Obama’s political career now depends, in some measure, upon a tamer version of this same feeling, the complicated dynamics of how white women respond to a charismatic black man.” On this point, Obama’s problem is he would have to demolish Hillary Clinton to get the nomination, which may not sit well with white women voters at all.

According to recent polls, Obama has surged over Clinton among black voters, but lags behind her in national surveys. A March 7^th Quinnipiac University poll found Obama behind Republican Giuliani in Florida (48%-36%), Ohio (48%-40%), and Pennsylvania (48%-36%). Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania are critical states in presidential elections because no candidate since 1965 has taken the White House without taking at least two of these swings states. The Quinnipiac poll also found that 4 in 10 voters haven’t yet formed an opinion of Obama, leaving the possibility of sudden fall from the current stardom heights as they discover more about his Muslim heritage and policy positions. Giuliani had an impressive lead over his Republican opponents and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Obama.

Hollywoods’s rich Jewish luminaries are throwing parties for him, but it remains to be seen how long this love affair lasts once the senator details his positions on Hamas, Hizbollaha, Darfur and other issues involving Islam. His spiritual mentor Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, senior pastor of Afrocentric Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago thinks: “When his enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.”

According to the March 6^th New York Times article, Rev. Wright was suppose to have delivered the invocation when Senator Obama announced his candidacy on February 10^th, but that invitation was rescinded a day before the event. This may be a reflection of the depth of his Christian religious convictions and increases the suspicion that he is really a Muslim masquerading as a Christian to serve Islam. Or it could be an attempt not to raise the ire of his rich Jewish promoters.

At some point Obama will have to detail his positions on issues involving Islam. If he tries to finesse them he will surely displease his Jewish supporters, and if he attacks the Islamic views he may not be able to visit his grandmother in Kenya, who as a good Muslim will be surely obliged to slit his throat.

I can see why Republicans may be praying that Democrats name him as their candidate.