Thursday, March 5, 2009

The "New" Rhetoric

I've been noticing this thing a bit on my own and have been really surprised that nobody has made much effort to point it out, but Obama and Bush both have very similar rhetoric and strategies for dealing with the wars in the Middle East. Of all outlets, "The Daily Show" seems to best illustrate this point:



They did a similar segment following Obama's inauguration and how his rhetoric toward terrorism is eerily similar to that of Bush II:



We know that Bush's rhetoric was completely empty and that his actions in no way reflected his goals, or maybe it is simply a manifestation of the fact that his goals were unattainable. As far as judging Obama, not enough time has passed to do so, but there is cause for concern. Obama's commitment to Afghanistan, though inarguably a more noble cause than that of Iraq, is a reflection of yet another unwinable war fought with the same ill-advised Iraq surge tactics.

No one talks about these similarities because the two presidents are markedly different in their domestic approaches, and the economy is the greatest concern right now. Still, there is no question that, either intentionally or unintentionally, that Obama has created a cult of personality around himself, and I would argue that inherently such a thing is not a problem, but it most certainly becomes one if our infatuation with the man (or the myth) leads us to stop questioning policy, or at least trying to understand it more fully.

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