Cult of Personality

A recent column appeared in the Topeka Capital-Journal entitled "No joke: Democrats are touchy" It appears that a Republican candidate for Kansas Secretary of State made a joke about Barack Obama's birth certificate. The Kansas Democrats apparently issued a press release claiming that such a joke made the candidate unfit for office. In less than 2 days, the column generated almost 60 comments. The bulk of them taking the author to task for his "slanted" column and another large amount just attacking Republicans in general and those that wrote comments in general as these right wing zealots. This is just one example, I can point to many others, but the cult of personality that is forming around Barack Obama is quite frankly a little scary. According to many, we aren't allowed to oppose his proposals or make jokes about him.

Wikipedia states "A cult of personality arises when a country's leader uses mass media to create a heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships and Stalinist type governments....Generally personality cults are most common in regimes with totalitarian systems of government that seek to radically alter or transform society according to (supposedly) revolutionary, new ideas. Often a single leader becomes associated with this revolutionary transformation and comes to be treated as benevolent 'guide' for the nation without whom the transformation to a better future cannot occur."

We aren't there yet, but we are coming dangerously close to creating a cult of personality. The mass media, for the most part, has done no hard questioning of BHO or his policies. In fact many are his biggest cheerleaders. We have way too manyof the elements of a "cult of personality" in play here to feel very comfortable. If you listen to Barack talk about health care, the economy, energy, the auto industry or about anything else, he is "the One" to radically transform society. All in all, it is just a bit too scary for me.