Washington, Jefferson, Madison - Obama?

The messianic quality of the argument for Barack Obama knows no bounds. Oprah famously (or infamously, depending upon your view) anointed him "the one" in South Carolina's mass rally, in more modern semi-secular shades of Billy Graham and Father Coughlin. The candidate himself identifies with two iconic martyred Kennedys - Jack and Bobby (I'm guessing he leaves Ted for Hillary) - Abraham Lincoln, Dr. King, and The Gipper. Campaign insiders whisper that the Gandhi media roll-out is timed for Florida.

Now along comes pop historian Joseph Ellis, who claims in today's L.A. Times that Senator Obama is pretty much the kind of candidate that - sorry, my hands shake with the effects of belly-laughter as I try and write this - the Founding Fathers would have approved of. Yes, Ellis (whose books I enjoy) gives the psychic endorsements of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison to Obama '08.

Alively debate has developed in these pages and in the blogosphere about the viability of Barack Obama's politics of hope. Critics of Obama's promise to bring us together -- blue states and red, young and old, women and men, blacks and whites -- have described his vision as a naive pipe dream that would be dead on arrival if he were elected president.

Central to the critique is the claim that Obama's message flies in the face of U.S. history, that partisanship is, as one critic put it, "the natural condition of politics." Zero-sum, "I'm right, you're wrong" battles are fundamental to the republic. From the beginning of our history, so the argument goes, an Obama-like message has been a rhetorical veneer designed to obscure the less-attractive reality of irreconcilable division and an inherently adversarial party system.

While you can certainly marshal evidence to support this interpretation, very few of the so-called founding fathers (save perhaps Aaron Burr) would agree with it. And the first four presidents -- George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison -- would regard it as a perversion of all that they wished the American republic to become.

Quick aside: Did you catch that sly Aaron Burr reference - wonder who he was aligning the killer of Alexander Hamilton, the would-be emperor of the west with? Senator Clinton's been called many things in this campaign - but Aaron Burr? That's a new one.

In any case, young Professor Ellis seems just as inebriated with the spirit of Obama's rhetoric as many other sensible Americans, taking leave of his senses in pursuit of some short-seasoned myth of hope fashioned around a talented but entirely conventional machine politician from Chicago. But there he is, book-ending the Audacity of Hope with the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, and the United States Constitution (I kid you not), and making perhaps the most over-the-top declaration about Obama yet:

His message has roots in our deepest political traditions. Indeed, it is in accord with the most heartfelt and cherished version of our original intentions as a people and a nation.

In the course of his brief hagiocolumn, Ellis admits out loud that perhaps - perhaps?! - Jefferson isn't worthy of a comparison to Barack Obama.

Jefferson is somewhat tricky on this score, because he, along with Madison, did create the first political party, known initially as Republicans but -- this is tricky too -- soon to morph into Democrats. But Jefferson could never admit, even to himself, that he was a political partisan because it violated the core definition of republicanism (i.e. res publica, public things) and the central political legacy of the American founding.

Yes, sadly, Jefferson and Madison did wallow in politics a bit - they may not be on Obama's non-partisan level. I can see that. (Remember all those nasty pamphlets?) Though by gosh, they were good writers, and so is Obama.

Ellis, of course, knows better - but he's in the the throes of political lust, and not to be deterred from the silliest of bouquets. Barack Obama does this to people, and he is clearly the most talented politician to yet emerge from his (and my) generation. Yet outside of perhaps Washington himself, both the founding brothers (as Ellis eloquently dubbed them) and  the Obama campaign actually share a love for the political fight, for the grasping at for high office, for expansive rhetorical flourishes riding like fluffy cumulus clouds thirty-thousand feet above the more hardscrabble landscape where people actually live.

Jefferson and Adams? Two brilliant careerist talents who took great risks - and both vicious political fighters of their day, the former in the more passive-aggressive style of Obama and the latter in the aggressive-aggressive style of Hillary Clinton.

But then again, I guess I'm too jaded. You know, I'm backing Aaron Burr this cycle.

Comments

[iReachable]

supporters can help here:

http://www.ireachable.com/vote

[bacaangel]

More and more people are tired and turned off by staged polititcians - like the answers given the other night at the deabe--Hillary's greatest weakness is how much she cares for the people. Edwards also gave a phony answer which seemed more about his compassion than a weakness. GIVE ME A BREAK! Politicians who give these contrived and phony answers are more concerned about themselves and not about you, the people. They are not trying to connect with you in any meaningful way, but trying to manipulate you -- by staged and phony answers, Washingtonian Answers.

In this era of the Greening of America, people are moving toward a more holistic way of living: organic foods and household items free of pesticides and chemicals, more effecient appliances to aid in the cleaning up of greenhouse gases among other things, solar and wind -- clean energy. However, we also want more Efficient and Cleaner Politicians. Ones we can believe in and ones we know are speaking to us, not at us, who are not trying to control and manipulate the us, the masses, for their own personal gains. That's how we get into wars by politicians who go along to get along for their OWN PERSONAL GAIN and not concerned about the degradation of what will happen to You, the Planet, and -- to the PEOPLE! I am hoping that Barack Obama will be a a different kind of candidate, the candidate of our hopes and dreams and in truth and integrity. It is hard against these forces of materialism, lies and spin.

[Horselover Fat]

"Careerist?" Are you sure you know what that word means?

I always thought a "careerist" to be someone who puts his own advancement ahead of principle.

My biggest reservation about Obama is that I have the impression he is a careerist. As an example, I see him as playing the race card to benefit himself at the expense of the Democratic Party. OPr blathering about Ronald Reagan's "sunny disposition."

Too bad the careerism seems to keep backlashing on him.

[Tom W.]

Horselover - all successful politicians are careerists. Washington was an ardent careerist.

[Tom K]

*Horselover - all successful politicians are careerists. Washington was an ardent careerist.*

Tom:

That's nonsense. Someone who professes to be a wordsmith should be more careful with his words. Arguing that anyone who has a successful career is necessarily a carrerist is simplistic and ignores the established and intended dominant meaning of the word.

Or, perhaps, you wish to line up with Christopher Hitchens, condemning careerists like Mother Teresa on the ground that, if they were really humble, we'd never have heard of them?

See:
American Heritage Dictionary - ca·reer·ism (kə-rîr'ĭz'əm) Pronunciation Key
n. Pursuit of professional advancement as one's chief or sole aim: "Rampant careerism, which makes many a work place a joyless site, was in check" (Mary McGrory).

ca·reer'ist adj. & n.

noun
a professional who is intent on furthering his or her career by any possible means and often at the expense of their own integrity

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

[Tom K]

BTW, where do you get Ellis comparing HRC to Aaron Burr? That's not even remotely discernible from anything you quoted.

And I say that as no fan of Ellis: just someone who believes in remaing moored to some sense of reality when attaching meaning to words, even in the course of a political argument.

[Tom W.]

OK, under those definitions, Washington and Clinton are off the hook.

'Twas clear old Joe Ellis was casting Hillary as Aaron Burr - didn't you smoke it?

[Tom K]

*OK, under those definitions, Washington and Clinton are off the hook.*

"I was wrong" would be a better response -- however hard the words might come to you. It at least would have the virtue of not compounding an error of word choice with one of historical judgment.

*'Twas clear old Joe Ellis was casting Hillary as Aaron Burr - didn't you smoke it?*

Whatever is is you have to smoke to see that, it if far too potent for me. And I suggest you cut back.

[Jay]

Turns out that Obama is descended from Madison.

[kim]

OMG! Turns out that six of them US President are in him!! OH MY! how about that?