Question: What is black and white and red all over?
Answer: Barack Obama and Tim Geithner’s vision for America.
Tag: Charlie Rose Show
Newsweek Editors on Obama: Slightly Creepy Cult of Personality
Where was this talk about Obama BEFORE the election?
Rush Limbaugh provided excellent analysis and insight on this conversation between Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas of Newsweek on the Charlie Rose Show.
RUSH: Now, that was Evan Thomas of Newsweek magazine on the Charlie Rose Show; and Rose said, “Evan, given the early beginnings for Obama and his team? What kind of campaign did he want to run? Because I’m fascinated by the idea what he set the standard suggested going to be from the bottom up, community organizer might suggest as a way to achieve a result.” So here’s Evan Thomas at Newsweek telling us all about the Saul Alinsky way, after the election. They knew who this guy was; they know who this guy is. Saul Alinsky was a model for this community organizer in Chicago. This whole idea that Alinsky had, it’s not gonna work if you offend large groups of people. Be nonthreatening. Here’s Charlie Rose again who spoke to both Evan Thomas and Jon Meacham of Newsweek magazine. Meacham added this to what you just heard.
MEACHAM: He’s very elusive, Obama, which is fascinating for a man who’s written two memoirs. At Grant Park he walks out with the family, and then they go away.
ROSE: Mmm. Mmm-hmm.
MEACHAM: Biden’s back, you know, locked in the bar or something.
ROSE: (haughty chuckle)
MEACHAM: You know, they don’t let him out. And have you ever seen a victory speech where there was no one else on stage?
ROSE: Mmm.
MEACHAM: No adoring wife, no cute kid. He is the messenger.
THOMAS: There is a slightly creepy cult of personality about all this. I mean, he’s such an admirable —
ROSE: Slightly. Creepy. Cult of personality.
THOMAS: Yes.
ROSE: What’s slightly creepy about it?
THOMAS: It — it — it just makes me a little uneasy that he’s so singular. He’s clearly managing his own spectacle. He’s a deeply manipulative guy.
RUSH: Good grief, I can’t… I mean, I believe it, but I can’t believe it. They know all this! They knew all this before the election. I even made this point yesterday. I’ve never seen an acceptance speech where the family is not there, bring the wife and kids out in the weird looking dress; send her backstage, get rid of the kids and go out and make the speech, big crowds, manipulative. These are the people swooning all over this guy during the campaign. Now they’re setting this up ’cause they don’t know what he’s going to do, or they’re worried that they do know what he’s going to do, and they’re just concerned. There’s one more here. This is the final exchange. Charlie Rose, Evan Thomas, Jon Meacham.
ROSE: Watching him last night in that speech, he finishes —
MEACHAM: Yeah.
ROSE: — and he sort of — it’s almost like he then ascends to look at the circumstance.
MEACHAM: He watches us watching him.
THOMAS: Watching him!
ROSE: Exactly!
THOMAS: He does —
MEACHAM: It’s amazing.
ROSE: It is amazing.
THOMAS: He writes about this metaphor being a screen upon which Americans will project. He said they want of Barack Obama; I’m not sure I am Barack Obama.
ROSE: Mmm!
THOMAS: He had — he has the self-awareness to know that this creature he’s designed isn’t necessarily a real person, and he’s self-aware enough —
ROSE: Ahhhhhh!
RUSH: This is just… (laughing) To listen to these Drive-Bys and these elitists now after the election describe their total lack of understanding of who Obama is, yet they do understand things about him that are not good. He’s manipulative. He ascends after a speech to watch everybody watching him. He watches us watch him. He’s “slightly creepy,” and he has “the self-awareness to know that this creature he’s designed isn’t necessarily a real person”!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, now that you have heard these sound bites of Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas at Newsweek discussing with Charlie Rose just who is Obama, I want to play ’em again, two of them. I want you to look at them in a little bit of a different light. You remember shortly after Bill Clinton’s in office, maybe been in office a year, went out to Catalina Island off San Diego and some Washington Post reporter wrote this piece about the power crackling in his jeans. Well, this is better than that. But the difference is that power crackling in the jeans was envy, it was praise, it was idolatry, awe. This is fear. What they’re saying about Obama, these Drive-Bys, this is fear. Now, these two bites confirm for all of us that they are irresponsible in doing their jobs. They know all this, they have these fears beforehand, they viewed it as their job to get Obama elected, burying what they feared, burying what they know. They really have lost their credibility. I don’t see how they get it back. But I want you to listen to this, these two guys again, these next two bites, within the context that they are scared. Here’s the first of the two, Jon Meacham talking with Evan Thomas and Charlie Rose about Obama.
MEACHAM: He’s very elusive, Obama, which is fascinating for a man who’s written two memoirs. At Grant Park he walks out with the family, and then they go away.
ROSE: Mmm. Mmm-hmm.
MEACHAM: Biden’s back, you know, locked in the bar or something.
ROSE: (haughty chuckle)
MEACHAM: You know, they don’t let him out. And have you ever seen a victory speech where there was no one else on stage?
ROSE: Mmm.
MEACHAM: No adoring wife, no cute kid. He is the messenger.
THOMAS: There is a slightly creepy cult of personality about all this. I mean, he’s such an admirable —
ROSE: Slightly. Creepy. Cult of personality.
THOMAS: Yes.
ROSE: What’s slightly creepy about it?
THOMAS: It — it — it just makes me a little uneasy that he’s so singular. He’s clearly managing his own spectacle. He’s a deeply manipulative guy.
RUSH: Now, let me tell you what they’re saying that they’re not saying. We’ve seen this before. We have seen this creepy cult of personality. We have seen this singular, managing his own spectacle. We’ve seen this deeply manipulative guy. We saw this before. They are scared. They are not saying that, but I hear fear. Here’s the next bite. Charlie Rose continues here with a question.
ROSE: Watching him last night in that speech, he finishes —
MEACHAM: Yeah.
ROSE: — and he sort of — it’s almost like he then ascends to look at the circumstance.
MEACHAM: He watches us watching him.
THOMAS: Watching him!
ROSE: Exactly!
THOMAS: He does —
MEACHAM: It’s amazing.
ROSE: It is amazing.
THOMAS: He writes about this metaphor being a screen upon which Americans will project. He said they want of Barack Obama; I’m not sure I am Barack Obama.
ROSE: Mmm!
THOMAS: He had — he has the self-awareness to know that this creature he’s designed isn’t necessarily a real person, and he’s self-aware enough —
ROSE: Ahhhhhh!
RUSH: Ahhhh. Charlie Rose, light goes on, ahhhh. Self-aware enough to know that this creature he’s designed isn’t necessarily a real person. That is fear. These guys are looking at Obama and they’ve seen him the exact way we have, all of this time. They only now after they think they got him into office are now starting to talk about their fears about how nobody knows anything about him, his resume is thin, he’s only written two books, and they’re autobiographies, we don’t know what other books he’s read. Yes, we do. We don’t know anything about him. It’s creepy, never seen a victory speech with nobody on stage — what is this making fun of Biden, by the way? Locking Biden in the bar so he doesn’t come out? Look at all they hid. Look at all that they refused to report. They had plenty of chances to write editorials at Newsweek magazine, and they didn’t write one reflective of what they really saw and know and fear about Obama.