Obama Campaign and the “Weird”
By R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
April 25, 2008
Anyone who has followed politics studiously over the years is aware there are gifted politicians who for whatever reason eventually find their campaigns haunted. I do not mean haunted by accidental events or by a clod or two at campaign headquarters. I mean haunted. I mean visited by the weird, by supernatural pranksters, by what our Islamic friends call djinni.
Clearly, after months of suave upward mobility, Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat, is now in this unfortunate condition. The bizarre is his companion. The paranormal is a constant possibility. Though the members of the press are too stuffy to mention it, recent setbacks to his campaign are not normal.
The gifted young senator appears in San Francisco amongst his fellow moral and intellectual colossi. For an instant, he lets down his guard. In this closed meeting, he blurts out what he really thinks, and somehow his remarks are taped. A “friendly” Web site posts his remarks, and all hell breaks loose. Of a sudden, every politically alert American knows that in San Francisco (of all places!) Mr. Obama explained that religion is the opiate of the gun nuts, who have been out of work and living angrily in jerkwater for “25 years.”
How did that tape ever get out, and why would Mr. Obama’s friends at that Web site not recognize its potential for ruin?
Or consider a more recent and even more bizarre interlude. Mr. Obama is having breakfast in Scranton, Pa. A reporter asks for his reaction to former President Jimmy Carter’s meeting with the thugs of Hamas, and Mr. Obama waffles. Perhaps, that is not so surprising, for he has frequently waffled along the campaign trail. But now comes the paranormal part. The wretch waffled while actually eating a waffle — reportedly a Belgian waffle, not even an American waffle. Weirder still, Mr. Obama acknowledged his waffle, exclaiming to the reporter: “Why can’t I just eat my waffle?” and “Just let me eat my waffle.”
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