Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Obama: Speak It Into Being

Once I was speaking with a black friend of mine who had been interviewed to be a manager at a company that day. I asked him about it. He said, "I am the manager." I said, "Oh, you already heard from them?" He said," No, but I am speaking it into being."

After *cough/laughing* about this and saying, "Say what?", I found that this was a belief practiced at his Church and it was a common way of thinking and believing in the black church in general. The idea is to speak to what you want in your life and make it real, make it happen. Speak it into being.

It occurred to me today that that is perhaps exactly what Obama is doing. From his "presidential seal" to his trip to the Middle East it seems Obama is telling us that he is already President. He is speaking it.

As the Politico reports:

From the saturated media coverage to the one-on-one meetings with heads of state, the trip already had a White House feel. The scope of the traveling staff simply adds to an aura of a president-in-waiting. On Tuesday, aides attempted to invoke White House rules and traditions by requiring reporters to withhold the names of senior advisers who brief the press. But they were reminded twice by reporters that they were not in the White House and that Obama was not the president.

It explains alot of the seeming arrogance of this campaign. It explains the staging of everything Obama does. It isn't that they want him to look Presidential. He is Presidential. He is the President.

The truth of the matter is Obama's experience in no way compares to McCain's. What Obama knows he has, that McCain doesn't, is star power. He is using it effectively. But in the end I don't believe that the future of this country will be put in the hands of a political star that is good with words, but bad at policy. Who speaks in platitudes and compromises that are the opposite of everything that he has actually promoted in his life.

Let Obama try to speak it into being.

Let's vote it into not being.