I was standing in the liquor store the other day, and heard a very dramatic monologue on the TV, and turned to see what was on. A handsome actor, with a masculine deep voice, was delivering some sort of ultimatum to someone. He sounded sincere, gruff, no nonsense. His facial expressions were appropriate to the part, and he had considerable gravitas.
Yet, he was an actor. That part may have been written five minutes before filming started. He may have been making it up as he went along, since he had no doubt been filming soaps for quite some time. He knew how he was supposed to look. He knew how he was supposed to sound. And yet, he may have been flamboyantly gay, like Rock Hudson, and had frequent tickle parties at his Malibu home, like that ridiculous Representative from New York, whatever his name was.
Obama, it seems to me, is like this. He is an actor. He is acting the role of President of the United States. He know how he is supposed to sound. He knows the demeanor that is suitable, and how to frame his words. He knows he is supposed to use soaring but generic rhetoric; and of course the overwhelming bulk of the time–if his handlers have any say at all–everything he says is scripted, just as was the case with this soap opera star.
It is a virtual certainty that he had help with his first book “Dreams from my father”. According to a source which is likely Michelle Obama, Bill Ayers was his ghost writer. Leaving aside the significance of that name (the claim, by the way, was made in an authorized biography, by a reputable biographer), let us simply combine that with the clear fact that he was an academic from 1992 to 2004 at the University of Chicago, and never published ONE scholarly paper. The record is quite literally spotless. He left no marks, other than his two books.
He was elected President of the Harvard Law Review, but, again, no records of his writing exist.
Is not the most reasonable supposition that we have elected a soap opera star, smart enough to play the role, but not smart enough to actually be who he pretends to be?