"The Obama revolution arrived

not on little cat feet in the Iowa snow

but like a balmy promise,

an effortlessly leaping lion hungry for change,

propelled by a visceral desire

among Americans to feel American again"

How touching, how naive

Obama might turn out to be a decent president

- he certainly would be better than Huckabee -

but at the moment the evidence provides little support

beyond factors that matter inordinately these days,

such as that he is young, good-looking and half black

This is the sort of thing music producers look for in boy bands

Choosing a president is supposed to involve some deeper concerns

Besides, there is nothing about Obama

that gives him a copyright on hope

If you really want change,

then logic would point you to John Edwards

But our politics have been subsumed by

the values of television and so we continue to look

for an American Idol instead of an American President

When I hear about how Sen. Barack Obama is going to "re-brand" America's image in the Middle East, I realize how naive, well-meaning, amateurish, Obama really is.

He seems convinced that everyone understands the goodness of U.S. intentions - that worries me again these days.

That's because a curious and dangerous consensus seems to be forming among the chattering classes, on both the left and the right.

That what the US needs in these troubling times is not knowledge and experience but a "fresh face" with an "intuitive sense of the world," and that the mere act of electing Obama will put us on the path to winning the so-called war on terror.

"Change" As a Marketing Tool

I understand that people wept while listening to Barack Obama's speech following his caucus victory in Iowa. I think he is a fine speaker.

The main theme of his campaign is the assertion that he will bring deep and significant change to American life and government. Indeed, he seems to say that he, himself, symbolizes that coming change.

The mainstream media droll over Obama. That's enough in itself to make one suspicious of him. The media, both liberal and conservative, have taken to rattling on about how well his election would "play" overseas where we Americans have come to be more than usually reviled.

They seem to be more interested in public relations than the expectation of revolution of some sort. They also don't seem to wonder what sort of president he would be. But, what else would you expect from most of them?

We have been listening to this "change" talk since the first Clinton campaign for president.

At that time the pop music of the 70s, was made into a clarion call for the realization of the supposed goals of the cultural revolution of the 60s.

Then there was much the same kind of talk in the election campaign that gave us GWB.

We were told that a revolutionary reversion to Christian morality and small town values would follow upon the election of George Bush.

What we got instead was the "K" Street Project and the Jacobin driven war for Westernization and security in the Middle East. Oh, yes. There was also Halliburton, etc.

Now we are called by this young man and his rivals to believe that he (they) will change the social and economic matrix in which we live.

Hope is a powerful aphrodisiac. America is falling for it again. Obama is another political hustler in a long line of snake-oil politicians. Why are Americans so gullible? Why are they so easily conned? Because they're still hoping for a savior?I watched the beginning of Barack Obama’s victory speech and immediately dropped into deep cynicism.

Surrounded by supporters waving “CHANGE” signs, the Illinois senator went on for what felt like five minutes about how his success in the Iowa caucuses was a vote for “hope” and “change.”

Those are very nice sentiments, but without substance, they’re meaningless advertising slogans, the revolution of Chevrolet and the eternal youth of Mountain Dew.

At worst, Obama’s talk of “unity” and ending “division” is a naïve anodyne in a country ruled by a ruthless right-wing establishment.

At my most cynical, I suspect he’s running as a combination of John F. Kennedy and Tiger Woods, a charismatic, youthful signifier of idealism with just enough melanin so white people can feel good about not being racist.

The Obama Brand

The main issue in U.S. foreign policy that the next president will face is repairing our image in the world. But in foreign policy, unlike advertising, image is created through action, not branding.

Which is why one cannot help but sense a touch of shirking (not to mention a lack of short-term memory) in all this talk about "intuitive experience" and "re-branding images," particularly when it comes from those who began the "New American Century" as ardent supporters of Bush's wars and his self-advertised "gut" instincts.

It is as though, rather than accepting blame for the mess and taking responsibility for cleaning it up, they would prefer to slap a new coat of paint on the problem and declare it fixed.

It was "intuition" that made the mess in the first place. It will take more than intuition to clean it up. After all, we are not launching a new product. We are electing a president.

PCP: Pop Culture Politics

This country badly needs a decent president but Iowa voters went to their caucuses and selected instead two preachers, one ordained, the other self-anointed and both successful manipulators of cheap cliches purportedly leading us, in one case, to Christ and, in the other, to hope and change.

How Huckabee, a cruel purveyor of Christian heresies about women and gays, would bring us closer to the Lord is anyone's guess.

As for Obama, we noted some time back that "he's taken the easy way out and applied the marketing principles of Tony Robbins and Marianne Williamson to a political campaign.

Having gone through eight years of EST with Bill Clinton and almost that much of AA with George Bush, we should be burned out on psycho-therapeutics as opposed to physical reality but sadly many are taken in by Obama's covert message that if you trust in hope you don't have to worry about the details like pensions and health care."

Obama might turn out to be a decent president - he certainly would be better than Huckabee - but at the moment the evidence provides little support beyond factors that matter inordinately these days, such as that he is young, good-looking and half black.

This is the sort of thing music producers look for in boy bands. Choosing a president is supposed to involve some deeper concerns.

Besides, there is nothing about Obama that gives him a copyright on hope and, if you really want change, then logic would point you to John Edwards.

But our politics have been subsumed by the values of television and so we continue to look for an American Idol instead of an American President.

Watch Video: Barack Obama won the Democratic Iowa caucus with an inspirational message of hope and change. But US pundit Ken Silverstein says he doesn't hold out much hope that President Obama would be a change at all.