AJ DiCintio

Can Obama Call Spirits from the Vasty Deep?
November 7, 2008

The nation’s two-year election ordeal has ended at last, with the results forcing the Republican Party to renew itself by returning to simple, age-old conservative truths and employing them to create creative, common sense policies fashioned to benefit one special interest exclusively: the people of the United States of America.

This renewal will not be accomplished overnight. However, Republicans must get working quickly because in two months, the American people will be forced to cast aside the generalities and emotions that predominate during an election to turn a hard eye and mind upon specific proposals advanced by the Obama White House, proposals for which Republicans must advance superior alternatives.

With respect to this task, there is good news for Republican leaders: Based upon the mystical words with which Barack Obama flooded the nation (with the help of 600 million purely material dollars), every sensible person understands the fundamental flaw that underlies his New Way.

In plain words, Obama’s proposals don’t add up.

They don’t add up when "change agent” Obama says "yes we can” spend a trillion dollars more than we take in without crushing the economy.

▪ When "tax increase” Obama promises that higher taxes won’t dangerously exacerbate the ills of an already sick economy

▪ When "anti-Bush deficits” Obama will in ten years increase the $10 trillion national debt by an astounding 30%

▪ When "centrist” Obama argues that "yes we can” give a socialistic "tax cut” to millions who pay no tax in the first place

▪ When "anti-Iraq War” Obama escalates the "limited war” being fought in Afghanistan, thereby immersing America more deeply into the human and economic disaster to which "limited war” always gives birth

▪ When "internationalist” Obama proposes to get the notion of "limited war” right with the "innovative” idea that "opening channels of communication” will convince America hating arms salesmen such as Putin and Ahmadinejad to "make love, not war” in Afghanistan and Pakistan

▪ When "green” Obama plots a course to get us from energy "here” to energy "there” without aggressively drilling for oil and natural gas — even as he bankrupts coal fired power plants.

So, how does Obama get around the fact that his ideas don’t add up?

He does it the way any person is forced to, as illustrated in the following exchange between Shakespeare’s Glendower (an arrogant buffoon) and Hotspur (an honorable, passionate man so driven by an urge to speak the truth irreverently that he could never be a successful politician).

Having boasted of himself as a kind of Messiah ("At my nativity/The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes.”), Glendower ends a long blow of insufferable self-elevation with this claim: "I can call spirits from the vasty deep.”

To that arrogant, sacrilegious, and dangerous nonsense, Hotspur responds with this excellent retort: "Why, so can I, or so can any man/But will they come when you do call for them?”

Yes, whether it is Glendower or Obama calling forth spirits from a brave new otherworld known only to them, the question is always, "Will they come?”

Of course, Obama’s disciples believe they will. After all, they deliriously point out that just days before the election the "transformational” candidate spoke of "a righteous wind at our back,” a wind guaranteeing that with him at the helm of the ship of state "We will change this country and change the world.”

(Imagine the outrage — including a million mocking skits on SNL — that would explode from "secular” liberal America if a Republican Elmer Gantry had stormed about the country invoking images of a "righteous wind” sent to help him lead Americans not just to "perfect this nation” but "change the world.”)

Now, to be perfectly honest about it, not every liberal believes that to fulfill his promises, President Obama will need the help of spirits he calls from a vasty deep.

To her credit, Michelle Obama remained intellectually honest, keeping her feet planted solidly on the materialistic ground when she gushed about her husband, "He thinks he can really do everything — he does — with his own power and will [emphasis added].”

And a bishop mentioned not a word about liberation theology’s "sin” of capitalism when, remaining perfectly "traditional” and "mainstream,” he rejoiced at a rally, thanking God for having "given us a Moses . . .called Barack Obama.”

Despite those anomalies, the reality is that to avoid disaster, a merely human, no-Moses President Obama will either have to break every promise he made during his campaign or call upon spirits to help him work miracles.

The job of Republican leaders, then, is to use clear Plain English (and perhaps a chart or two) to keep track of and inform the public about whether Obama’s spirits are showing up.

Happily, they will have a lot of help in that task from conservative Americans, especially those connected to the new media as principals or as readers and listeners, all of whom will never be taken in by the idea that somewhere there exists a vast abyss populated by spirits who just can’t wait to answer the call of an earthly politician in desperate need of a miracle — or two hundred.