John McCain has been described by George Will as a man of “towering moral vanity” who considers “it theoretically impossible for him to commit the offenses of appearances that he incessantly ascribes to others.”
But in the clash of the narcissists, Obama surely takes top prize. Perhaps it’s the fan art and photographic imagery (courtesy of AP and the like), or the fact that Obama hired a graphics artist specifically to “Dear Leader-ize” him, or the unfailingly fawning coverage by television and print’s leading lights, but Obama is convinced he’s going to heal the nation in his run for Changer-in-Chief.
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Behold, the newest, self-absorbed, ludicrously lofty Obama-phernalia available at his website.
That’s right, it’s a faux-leather-bound collector’s edition DVD of the “More Perfect Union” speech. A piece of oratory ripe for canonization at the age of just three months. A piece of oratory so sage in its insight, so true in its observations, so riveting in its delivery, that the orator himself admitted it was all bunk just one month after its delivery, and yet still believes that you should own a copy of this “landmark speech” from which he has since entirely backtracked.
Not only is this a ridiculously egotistical move, even for a presidential candidate, but it’s yet another appropriation of traditional patriotic words and imagery by a man who has claimed to dislike the manipulation of patriotic imagery for political purposes. As Patrick Ruffini has noted, Obama’s website’s appropriation of the U.S. seal eagle is a somewhat more brazen manipulation of such symbols than other campaigns have tried. Likewise, it seems to me that selling a DVD emblazoned with the first, iconic phrase of the U.S. Constitution, as if the phrase were Obama’s and elevating his speech to the level of the Preamble, walks a similar line.
At any rate, if you want some wisdom from the Obamessiah himself, readily available for playing at dinner parties and coffee-table display, you can have it for just $12. Quite a bargain, if you consider you may be hearing from the Lord himself.
