Sarkozy and Obama
I’ve never thought of Sarkozy and Obama as being similar. But an article about the former in the December 12 New Yorker contained a paragraph that, although about Sarkozy, could just as easily apply to the present attitude of a certain segment of the left towards Obama. Maybe not quite as strongly—but still, the same phenomenon:
“He’s hated,” Said Mahrane, a political reporter at the weekly magazine Le Point, told me. “And why is he hated? First of all, because he aroused crazy hope.” It is easy to forget the excitement that Sarkozy once inspired as a figure of national renewal and transformation. But the fervor with which he is now rejected can be properly understood only in relation to his original appeal—as a measure of disillusionment. “I adore Sarkozy,” a former member of his staff bold me, “but I’m very very very disappointed with his Presidency.” He had over-promised, and then he did not deliver on his program, the ex-staffer said: “I think that, in reality, he had no intention of doing so. At bottom, finally, he’s an old-school politician…a man of campaigns, a man of war, a man for taking power.” But he never learned to harness the machinery of government, the ex-staffer said, so “there are many battles he didn’t join because he didn’t know how to fight them.” As a result, “he hasn’t done anything—nothing but nothing.”
Let me emphasize that this isn’t my opinion of Obama. He never aroused hope in me, and I think that—unlike Sarkozy—he had every intention of doing many things that would be transformative and would take the country in a very leftward direction. But he didn’t have the expertise to do so—yet. Hopefully, he’ll never get the chance.
Obama isn’t rely on his own expertise. All he needs to do is to appoint enough permanent Eric Holders to government and you will NEVER get rid of them.
It must be some kind of phenomenon, or mental disorder, that anyone would adore a politician, that anyone would expect some elected pontificant (neologism alert!) to make their life, or the world, significantly better. How terrible such a life must be, to essentially spend it waiting, waiting… waiti…
George Pal: there’s always Godot.
I’m sure he’ll come.
You’re right George Pal. Life is hard, it is harder for one who can’t tell the difference between G-d, man and Santa Claus.
BTW, a few months ago I saw Waiting for Godot. It was the most g-d awful entertainment experience I ever endured. It stunk like a billion dead fish rotting in the sun. MST3K and SNL together bad. I guess it belongs to genre of writing that should be called “Euro-unending lethargy and whining as opposed to American get off your butt and act” writing.
@Bob from Virginia
From His Nobel Prize citation: “He has transmuted the destitution of modern man into his exaltation.”
Apparently it had just the opposite effect on you (and most everyone with a life attached to their breathing).
Ah well, the intellectuals liked it:
” Waiting for Godot was… voted the most significant English language play of the 20th century in a British Royal National Theatre poll of 800 playwrights, actors, directors and journalists. And it seems the right time to ask why Waiting for Godot? “
His Nobel Prize being Beckett’s.
Bob from Virginia: maybe it depends on the production and also on when you see it. I saw “Waiting for Godot” on TV as one of the “Play of the Week” productions, when I was quite young. I loved, loved, loved it! But then, I was an odd child.
Neo, I saw Godot recently in a playhouse in Scottsbluff, NE. The acting was outstanding. That is a peculiarity of Scottsbluff; Broadway quality talent and entertainment in an isolated prairie town of 24,000.
As for Godot, since you liked it I’ll be restrained, but for the life of me that play seemed a parody of a bad play that is supposed to appeal to people who want to believe they are more insightful than the vulgar little people. I saw nothing in it but several people acting inanely. I wonder if Beckett wrote Godot in order to make fun of the people who consider themselves superior thinkers? There was no story, much pretense and more boredom. I never saw a below par porn film with less going for it and if there is one thing I know it’s below par porn films.
George Pal, the people who wrote “He has transmuted the destitution of modern man into his exaltation.” would probably like Godot.
Once upon a time, when I was a baby troop in Japan, a televised/movie version of Waiting for Godot actually aired on AFRTS (Armed Forces Radio and Television Service) – and before you begin to think that heralded an unexpectedly high-cultural and sophisticated frame of mind at our central programming facility, allow me to brutally disillusion you; AFRTS got whatever they could for cheap and shoveled it out in the weekly television packages. (They even aired Jaques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris … kudos, for I actually knew one person living in the WAF barracks besides myself who had even heard of Jaques Brel!) A large number of viewers actually watched it to the end, and were inspired to leave funny notes for weeks afterwards, on the little notepads that we were accustomed to hang by the doors of our barracks rooms, so that visiters could leave a message if we were out. “Hey, I stopped by last night, 8 PM – where were you? Godot”
I like the *idea* behind “Waiting for Godot” but can take or leave the actual play.
Sgt. Mom…couldn’t tell by what you wrote if you liked or didn’t like “Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris” but I *did* like it…a lot. And I don’t think it’s just because I like almost anything connected in some way to Paris. Great music from lively and bouncy (“Brussels”) to hauntingly romantic and beautiful (“Fanette” to sweet and sad (“The Old Folks”).
Actually, I think I’d like to see MST3K tackle Waiting for Godot.
Waiting for Godot explains what is wrong with reason based religion and why Europe is overun with Islam.
Waiting for Godot is pure existential nonsense. Beckett, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, et al were navel gazers wondering whether or not a tree in the forest made a sound when it fell if Godot, who is perpetually absent, was not there to hear the tree fall.
Even an ignorant Iowa farm boy knows the answer. When a tree falls it makes a noise even if only groundhogs, crows, or squirrels hear it. The only time a falling tree does not make a noise is when it falls in a vacuum. However, a vacuum grows no trees.
How European of Obama, who would have guessed. So very avante-garde. Or, leading from behind again?
As for what academics and intellectuals like? I honestly think they try to find the most deformed, grotesque, blighted, horrific objects, topics, beliefs, and writings to advance to what they call stellar. Much like the 25 year-old salted fish the Emperor of Japan eats as if it was divine. Something really odd about “elites”.
*waiting for something not dealing with water which will cleanse the putrid morass*
*waiting for something not dealing with water which will cleanse the putrid morass*
My thoughts exactly.
“But he didn’t have the expertise to do so–yet.”
That and we didn’t want it. What is Obamacare polling at these days?