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In his column today, Mark Steyn quotes from Obama’s victory speech on Tuesday:

I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people … . I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal … . This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation.

The contradiction in Obama’s message is pretty stark, and it’s not as if its unprecedented in this campaign either. How could any candidate not be laughed at for his obtuse sense of self-importance when he begins his train of thought by saying how humble he is and ends it by telling how he is going to save the world?

Somehow, apparently, because at every rally/rock concert of his, throngs clamor at such talk. Now that Obama has clinched the nomination, we are likely to see Obamamania reach new heights of pandemonium. This became apparent Tuesday, when Obama surpassed his career high, sending 47 nauseous and/or fainting fanatics to the hospital during his victory speech.

Yes, they were serious

It was also clear when Jesse Jackson Jr., sitting US Congressmen and namesake of his Reverend father, said of his nomination on Tuesday:

What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history. … The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.

Apparently, I am more ignorant of American history than I previously thought. And I’m not even going to touch the religious reference.

Still, others chose to manifest their romance in song–y en español tambien. Certain sycophants in the press are probably feeling that “furrowing up their leg” as intensely as ever. But, of course, I’ve written about these sorts of things before.

Ultimately, I agree with the point of Mr. Steyn’s column: the scariest part is that Obama wants to change the world. And it should be no secret how he will attempt to change it either. Caked underneath all those layers of fluffy rhetoric, all Obama is really proposing is layers of more government.

Comb closely for the sporadic remnants of substance in his speeches. When he promises providing healthcare, jobs, and saving the planet from mankind, how do you think he is going to do it? Of course, the answer is government. And not just any old dosage, programs like cap-and-trade and universal healthcare will unequivocally coincide with massive, new bureaucracy and government power over individuals.

…or else?

Then again, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise coming from the Senator who has been swankily espousing an altruistic and collectivist ethic since as long as he’s been in the limelight. Its hard not to cringe when he’s delivering the Gospel according to Barack with the young and stupid:

There’s no community service requirement in the outside world — no one forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy. You can choose to narrow your concerns and live your life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America’s. But I hope you don’t.

Why does he feel the need to demean private, hard-working–or even greedy–Americans, who chose to keep to themselves, perhaps not lending their time to community service, but harming no one? Why do we need a president to tell us the best way to live our lives? Has he been graced with any special wisdom that somehow escapes us common folk? I balk at the idea that our country would be better off if we all passed up productive work to become “community organizers” (whatever the hell that means).

Regardless, it is clear that Obama can attribute his exceptional support more to his oratorical prowess and his kindler, gentler liberal post-partisanship than his specific legislative agenda. For all the clamoring about how Obama is going to deliver change, “real change”, the “change we can believe in”, his platform is absurdly similar to that of his previous Democratic rivals for the presidency. I mean, honestly, he voted for last month’s $300 billion atrocity of a farm bill. How can he say that he is going to change the fabric of Washington politics and then vote for a bill loaded with wasteful, excessive subsidies to rich farmers, an important political lobby, and a sector whose commodity prices have skyrocketed in the past few years?

Obama would be hard-pressed to explain how such a bloated bill could give any remnant of hope to our political process–indeed the bill typifies everything wrong with Washington. But, he has not, now will he likely be made to explain–for the bill received the support of a large majority of Congress and the all-powerful agricultural lobby. (Oh well, at least McCain had the integrity to vote against it).

The funny thing is that when you do peel back the pristine facad, what you get from Obama is mundane and unexceptional. While he may couch it in nicer terms than others, the only changing of the world that the Senator is setting out to do is augment the roll of the government in the same way that America has condoned since the New Deal. While many have and will either be oblivious or not care, this campaign will largely be about knocking Obama back to earth in the eyes of the public and revealing his gospel as the same, stale literature that politicians have pandered from for ages.

Let’s hope John McCain–in all his infinite mediocrity–can do it.

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The Obama: Humbly setting out to save the world by New School Politics, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.