A no-holds-barred weepathon

[bijou]

Good luck finding any Kleenex in America this morning.

The nation’s supply of facial tissues must have been wiped out during Senator Barack Obama’s 30-minute election broadcast last night. It had been billed as a ‘closing argument’ by the Democratic candidate’s seemingly unstoppable presidential campaign.

In reality, it was an all-out, no-holds-barred weepathon, with a feel-bad factor that was pitched somewhere between the third act of Schindler’s List and the bunny slaughter scenes in Watership Down. I emerged from my TV room, sodden-eyed and legs trembling, wishing that Iran would just drop the bomb and get it all over with.

It began, as these things so often do, with a flugelhorn. Then pictures of wind-rippled cornfields. Then footage of children and old people smiling—the tape slowed down a little, to make their happiness appear somehow tragic.

When Obama made his entrance he was wearing a sombre black suit and standing in what appeared to be a log cabin. You could practically smell the fireplace burning, the coffee roasting.

This was Obamaland—a place where everything is safe and warm, where Big Brobama loves you and keeps the evil profit-doers at bay. You too could go to Obamaland, went the sub-text, just so long as you voted for the man with the ‘D’ next to his name.

... The final scene, meanwhile, was a live broadcast from Florida, with a thunder-faced Obama promising that “together we can change this country and change the world”.

For this viewer, alas, it was too late to feel charged by this sentiment. I had hoped for goosebumps and that swollen feeling you get in your chest when you know that something good might soon happen. But instead I just felt downbeat. Downbeat not only because of America’s obvious problems—as outlined ad infinitum in the broadcast—but also because of Obama’s willingness to exploit them so mawkishly.

Republicans have always used fear to their advantage. Now it seems that the Democrats are becoming just as skilled with self-pity.

It's a measure of just how poorly John McCan has run his campaign that Americans seem to be buying it, against their very nature.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5044429.ece

[RightCoast]

It's a measure of just how poorly John McCain has run his campaign that Americans seem to be buying it, against their very nature.

Truer words have never been spoken.  It kills me to think if McLame pulls this off his barely compatent staff will be billed as heroes.