Messianic

Starting Saturday, when I returned home from my last work trip, through today, the local Republic newspaper has been running one fawning story after another on Barack Obama. The candidate visited Columbus last Friday and spoke at East High School.

All the newspaper articles, dominating the front page through the weekend and continuing to take space on Monday and Tuesday, have been uniform in their worship of the Democrat candidate from Illinois. They feature quotes from teachers and students, local Democrat politicians and activists, all gushing over Senator Obama. The praise for the candidate is so over the top that one would believe he is a Messianic figure. The star-struck supporters believe he will end war, end poverty, end racial divisions, and right all wrongs.

What's interesting is that there is not a single word in any of the articles from Obama's opponents, whether from supporters of Hillary Clinton or John McCain. Which brings me to wish for a visit from John McCain.

If such a visit were to take place, how much would you be willing to bet on something I think would be inevitable? That the Republic's coverage of the event would be remarkably different. I'd bet that the newspaper would first of all restrict their coverage to the day after the event, rather than the next 5 days. I'd also bet that the articles would be much less star-struck, and would be salted heavily with negative comments from local Democrat Party activists.

Too bad it's an empirical study that won't be possible. But I'm guessing nobody will be willing to take me up on my bet.

The other striking observation I made after reading every one of the newpaper articles was their total lack of coverage of Obama's actual policy proposals. I found it hilarious that one of the Obama worshippers interviewed gushed about how clearly he stated his positions on important issues. The natural question arising from that quote was, "and what positions were those, exactly?".

All that newsprint, and somehow the Republic managed to forget to share with us the specifics of Obama's policies. Aside from the famous Obama stuff about "hope" and "change". Or was it "change" and "hope"?

Have we really become so shallow and ignorant as a people?