Jim Manzi has established himself as a brilliant writer over at National Review’s The Corner, but he has outdone himself with this post on Barack Obama’s commencement address at Wesleyan. This passage from Obama’s speech especially stood out:
Wow. He said yes. I think I just swooned. As Manzi points out, “Does Obama not get that he’s running against a guy who spent the directly analogous years of his life in a fetid jungle prison being hung upside down and beaten with sticks until his bones broke?” But the difference between the two candidates are even more profound. It’s true the Obama said “Yes,” but it’s still more striking that John McCain said “No”- “No” to special treatment at the hands of his captors, “No” to early release, “No” to leaving his brothers-in-arms behind at the Hanoi Hilton. It’s a unique comment on Obama’s increasingly tiresome and solipsistic narcissism that he couldn’t resist holding himself up as a role model for America’s youth without realizing that in doing so, he made a tacit comparison between himself and his opponent. Positing oneself as a model of selfless sacrifice as Obama did at Wesleyan is off-puttingly arrogant and vain regardless of one’s deeds. Doing so when your rival’s personal narrative happens to be the real deal makes it beyond foolish. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the dreadful political tactics here. When it comes to biography, Obama ought to realize that he can’t compete with McCain. He should just stick with that Hope/Change mumbo jumbo – it’s worked so far. The Obama campaign should refuse to embrace biography as a topic with the same eagerness that it avoids discussing Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers. Not to belittle my own insights, but the foregoing is rather obvious. You don’t have to be a Karl Rove in the making to realize as much. So you must wonder, why did Obama pay homage to his own biography? Is he so impressed with himself that he just couldn’t refrain from doing so?
