"A Very Tightly Wrapped Message"

By Cernig

I'm with John Cole - the way that Obama's campaign is eschewing contact with Muslim supporters in any way whatsoever speaks volumes about their submission to rightwing narratives in pursuit of his election. That Keith Ellison could be told Obama's campaign didn't want him showing his face because it might compromise their "very tightly wrapped message" speaks even louder.

I keep feeling I'm living in deja-vu land. I've lived through all this before,as I've said ever since Obama announced his candidacy. After the Thatcher rape of Britain came a greyer cloned version, Major, and a man who promised change, Blair, who thus took over his party on a wave of popularity secured by the knowledge that any alternatives were worse. But the change Blair was most interested in turned out to be only change that put him in the driving seat - change that purged his party's leadership of any who weren't loyal to him before party - and Blair went on to be almost as bad as a Thatcherite conservative would have been. But that "almost' was enough for over a decade. The dynamic has only changed, now, as the conservatives have disowned Thatcher and turned towards the center.

Several years ago, Rove read a book on Thatcher's reign and decided to model his candidate, George W. Bush, after her. The rest - Obama, McCain and all - follows as inevitably as night follows day. However, in the main Americans aren't interested in seeing the parallels and what they portend for the next decade or so of US politics, if only because all that Brit stuff "didn't happen here."

But yet again, the "progressive" candidate for change is turning out to be a wolf in sheeps clothing only better by degree from his party rivals and his opposite number, rather than kind. That difference is still enough, but it leaves a stale taste in the mouth even so.