Barack Cometh... By ProfMKD
I watched two news packages on Barack last night - reporters seem to be equal parts amazed and fearful that they will have to (or be unable to) bring down this new person on the US political pedastal.
A lot of what he says has sounded very "deja vu" for me - it took me a while, but I finally figured out the media memory that he is connecting to (CS Monitor 3/24/05):
Some of my friends seem to inhabit an alternate America. Sometimes I live there, too. In this America, Jed Bartlet is president and there is a campaign going on to succeed him. This is America as portrayed on "The West Wing." In this America, everybody is smart, speaks quickly and amusingly, and always has an abiding sense of political idealism. Operatives remind one another, at seemingly every turn, about why they got into politics in the first place. They're in it to make a difference. Sometimes these people lose their way, but there's always a character onscreen who can gently remind them that democracy is really all about helping people.
In this America, a Texas congressman named Matt Santos is running an underdog campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. But he is giving his jaded D.C.-insider campaign manager fits. Not only will he not run "negative ads," but he insists that, if he criticizes his opponent, he will only do so personally, in his own voice. He wanders off the talking points and doesn't follow the script for important meetings. The sophisticates that surround him all gnash their teeth at his starry-eyed democracy mumbo-jumbo and Frank Capra antics.
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