Krauthammer: Obama Sells Empty Hope

The messianism surrounding Senator Barack Obama is beginning to creep people out. Charles Krauthammer writes about it in the Chicago Tribune.

Obama is essentially a demagogue in the American populist tradition. When such persons achieve political power, they inevitably disappoint, because they have so unreasonably raised public expectations. Krauthammer sagely observes:

"Obama has an astonishingly empty paper trail. He's going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can't possibly redeem. Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Promises to transcend the conundrums of entitlement reform that require real and painful trade-offs. Promises to fund his other promises by a rapid withdrawal from an unpopular war -- with the hope, I suppose, that the (presumed) resulting increase in American prestige would compensate for the chaos to follow.
"Democrats are worried that the Obama spell will break between the time of his nomination and the time of the election, and deny them the White House. My guess is that he can maintain the spell just past Inauguration Day. After which will come the awakening. It will be rude."

Traditionally, demagogues in that position have looked around for scapegoats to blame for their failures. One of their favorites, of course, has been the Jews. That is one more reason for Jews to be careful about a candidate who sells hope, and little more.