Saturday, January 05, 2008

How can Hillary compete against the new Messiah?

Who has been "delivered to us" and is not the Word made flesh but the triumph of word over flesh:

Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I've heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.
How does Hillary compete against this? She's just a politician, he's the second coming. She wants politics as usual but he wants to transcend politics for unity and hope (unity in what is the question, of course).

And when the dust clears and we're on to the general who wins in the match between Huckabee and Obama?
So we've got Huckabee with Jesus as his running mate versus, it seems, the Second Coming of Jesus Himself. I guess religious voters are going to have a hard time deciding here.
Decisions, decisions!