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Paul R. Hollrah
Oh Gravitas, Oh Gravitas
August 22, 2008
Most
knowledgeable Republicans will admit that the Democratic Party has by
far the world’s most effective propaganda machine...probably the most
effective propaganda machine since Josef Goebbels legitimized the Third
Reich in pre-war Germany. In fact, there is a strong suspicion among
those who pay attention to day-to-day political speechifying that all of
the special interests who comprise the Democratic Party get together on
a regular basis to receive their marching orders and their mantra or
"buzz phrase” of the week.
These would include
representatives of the Democratic National Committee; the Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee; the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee; the Senate and House Democratic leadership; the AFL-CIO; the
National Education Association; the American Trial Lawyers Association;
the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; the
NAACP; the American Association of Retired Persons; the National
Abortion Rights Action League; MoveOn.org; the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
and Transgender Task Force; the Sierra Club; and others.
Most likely, the
members of the group would discuss current political developments and
they would then decide on the mantra or the "buzz phrase” of the week.
They may try to convince their base that Republican capital gains tax
cuts are merely "tax cuts for the rich,” or that GOP proposals for
partial privatization of Social Security is just another plan to "throw
old people out into the street.”
Perhaps the best
example of the existence of the Democratic propaganda machine occurred
on July 26, 2000, the day after George W. Bush announced his selection
of former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney as his running mate. Within 24
hours of the announcement, every liberal and every Democrat in the
country was repeating, over and over again, a word that few of them had
ever heard before and that fewer, still, could even spell or pronounce.
So what was that word,
the word that supposedly would spell defeat for the Bush-Cheney ticket
and victory for the Gore-Lieberman ticket? You guessed it; that word
was...GRAVITAS.
The Latin Dictionary
defines "Gravitas” as "having weight; being of consequence or
importance; of character, dignity, authority, seriousness.” So, as the
word was passed down to congressional candidates and members of
Congress; to blue collar factory and construction workers; to trial
lawyers, teachers, and government employees; to minorities, feminists,
radical environmentalists, and the AARP; to gays and lesbians, people
all across the country scurried for their dictionaries.
So who was this fellow,
George W. Bush? He was a privileged young man who attended Yale
University and Harvard Business School. He joined the Texas Air National
Guard where he flew
Convair
F-102 fighter
planes. He was a businessman who founded two oil producing
companies, and who used the proceeds from the sale of his oil interests
to purchase an interest in a major league baseball franchise… where he
served as managing general partner for five years. After leaving
professional baseball he entered politics and served five years as
Governor of Texas.
This was
the man whom Democrats charged, universally, in 2000 with lacking the "gravitas”
necessary to be President of the United States.
Now, in
2008, Democrats find themselves with a presumptive nominee who, like
George W. Bush, graduated from two Ivy League schools, Columbia and
Harvard. But that’s where all similarities end. Obama has served not a
single day in uniform and he has never started or run a business
enterprise. He worked as a community organizer in Chicago’s south side,
and he worked briefly as a junior associate in a Chicago law firm where
he tried not a single case in court. And while Bush served five years as
chief executive of our second largest and second most populous state,
Obama served two terms as a junior member of the Illinois State Senate.
Compared to George W.
Bush, Barack Obama is a featherweight...the Pee-wee Herman of the
political world. So is it any wonder that liberals, Democrats, and the
mainstream media place great urgency in Obama’s selection of a running
mate?
Obama named three
people to head his vice presidential search committee: Caroline Kennedy,
the daughter of the late president John F. Kennedy, whose total
political experience is comprised of attending occasional family
gatherings where her Uncle Teddy is present; Eric Holder, former Deputy
Attorney General in the Clinton Administration and the man who approved
the pardon for fugitive financier Mark Rich...against the recommendation
of pardon and parole officials; and Washington lobbyist Jim Johnson, who
immediately stepped down after it was learned that he had received
"highly favorable treatment” from the Countrywide mortgage lending firm.
These are the people
charged with finding a running mate for Obama with sufficient experience
and personal integrity to make up for Obama’s total lack of gravitas.
It is not an easy job because the last thing Obama wants is a
running mate that would cause voters to ask, "Hey! Don’t they have this
ticket upside down?” So their choice must be someone who is just good
enough to add something to the ticket...but not too good.
If the pundits are to
be believed, Obama has narrowed his search to Senator Evan Bayh, of
Indiana, a totally lackluster candidate with little personal gravitas;
Senator Joseph Biden, of Delaware, a man with long experience on the
Senate Foreign Relations committee, but with a reputation for having a
hot temper and a shoot-from-the-lip style; Governor Tim Kane, of
Virginia, a first term governor with little experience and even less
charisma; and Governor Kathleen Sebelius, of Kansas, who has never met
an abortionist she didn’t like.
In 2000, Democrats
thought gravitas was a critical shortcoming in George W. Bush.
Now, in 2008, Republicans are paraphrasing a prominent Democrat from the
1988 campaign, saying, "Barack Obama, we know George Bush...and you’re
no George Bush!” |
