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After the European Tour De Triomphe, I began re-reading how Napoleon came to power, but something wasn't right.
I realized that nagging sensation that I had read all about Obama before. But it wasn't Napoleon .... It was Robespierre.
A gifted orator given to idealistic rhetoric, an uncanny knack to have programmed himself to exactly the appropriate statement to further himself on any occasion, a brilliant lawyer, a man of such impeccable virtue and modesty his supporters labeled him as "The Incorruptible", a snazzy dresser with a populist background. Devout Christian on the way up, executioner of the clergy when it suited driving his purpose.
Attractive , personable, a leading supporter of the culture of his day for his style and intellectual bent to be emulated by those who were fanatically convinced of his leadership.
A scholarship student to the very best school who became a legal advocate for the poor and fast-tracked his way up the political system in a provincial city.
A politician who instinctively understood the system well enough to flea hop from provincial administration to seizing power in the big time by courting the ladder of power and making sure to be on just the right rung at the right time.
This is how the answer to everyone's prayers described above failed so horribly at leadership he became the only victim of the guillotine to be executed face up. Very French revenge, non?
But only after this renowned orator tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the jaw, completely self-muting the voice that pronounced so much oh what was in the end just his own bloodily wrong-headed theories.
This is from the history books. It explains why is-placed hopes in idealists can lead to government by folly. Plus ca change, plus la meme chose:
....A bright young theorist out of his depth in the matter of experience---
"A well-educated and accomplished young lawyer, he might have acquired a good provincial practice and lived a happy provincial life had it not been for the Revolution. Like thousands of other young Frenchmen, he had read the works of Rousseau and taken them as gospel. Just at the very time in life when this illusion had not been destroyed by the realities of life, and without the experience which might have taught the futility of idle dreams and theories, he was elected to the states-general."
"At Paris he wasn't understood till he met with his audience of fellow disciples of Rousseau at the Jacobin Club. His viewpoint won him supporters; his singularly sweet and sympathetic voice gained him hearers; and his upright life attracted the admiration of all.
As matters approached nearer and nearer to the terrible crisis, he failed, except in the two instances of the question of war and of the kings trial, to show himself a statesman, for he had not the liberal views and practical instincts which made Mirabeau and Danton great men. His admission to the Committee of Public Safety gave him power, which he hoped to use for the establishment of his favourite theories, and for the same purpose he acquiesced in and even heightened the horrors of the Reign of Terror. It is here that the fatal mistake of allowing a theorist to have power appeared:
"Billaud-Varenne systematized the Terror because he believed it necessary for the safety of the country; Robespierre intensified it in order to carry out his own ideas and theories. Robespierre's private life was always respectable: he was always emphatically a gentleman and man of culture, and even a little bit of a dandy, scrupulously honest, truthful and charitable. In his habits and manner of life he was simple and laborious; he was not a man gifted with flashes of genius, but one who had to think much before he could come to a decision, and he worked hard all his life."
All you need to add is Karl Rove realizing that there was only one single way, after eight disastrous Bush League years that anyone could possibly end up voting republican again.
By providing an even less acceptable, far more nontraditional candidate to a country that has made people like Rick Warren who he is by their sense of loss of tradition.
Just connive with Donna Brazile and show her how to buy enough of the right superdelegates to wipe out the more competent and worthy opponent. Here's proof:
http://www.lynettelong.com/my_weblog/2008/07/bamboozling-the.html
Snicker if you will, but it's the only theory that could go down. And it has. Karl Rove's third brass ring.
You've been gamed by both sides if you vote for either Obama or some doddering, taxidermied relic of the status quo.
I'm not playing Karl Rove's game. I'll be writing in Hillary Clinton while the rest of you are going through the motions that inevitably end up with President McCain.
-gala1
