Step 1: Take a complicated, emotionally charged issue, e.g., race, gender, sexuality, economic security, etc.

Step 2: Dismiss, rather than address and resolve, the complications and, thus the emotional charge.

Result: Your audience feels relieved and confuses this feeling of relief with practical accomplishment. "The problem is solved because I'm not worried about it anymore."

George W. Bush does this. So does Obama.

This is how these guys addressed the conflicts in their own lives. While it may make for good therapy, it's a disaster in terms of public policy.

Why? Because public policy requires results not pretty talk. It requires accountability not shelter behind feelings.

All Obama needs at this point is a balcony, a little peaked cap, and a group of handsome men in black shirts patrolling the crowd and we can start calling him Il Duce.

Blecch.

Oh please. Obama is a fascist because he inspires?

Is every great orator just a dictator?

No he is just refreshing, honest and compassionate. When you live in America that has been so miserable since George Bush and deceitful as the Clinton Presidency its hard to see good when its staring you in the face. It just like Jesus Christ when he came to save us and we rejected him because he was to good to be true; thats Barack Obama

Wow. In the same thread Obama is compared to Mussolini and Christ.

Obama's speeches are great but they lack in substance. So does his website policies in general. He talks about what he would like to do but I have no idea of how he'll do it. He acknowledges the problems that we face but does little to note how he would approach these.

I'm not necessarily opposed to Obama but I don't see him as any kind of visionary. I find him acceptable but not spectacular. I will concede that he has energized young voters more than any president in my memory (I'm 40). But the politics of hope are not necessarily the politics of resolution. We can't talk our problems away. We need bold and decisive action. When I look at Obama, I see the usual political hedging. You know, the failure to specify anything so that he can't technically be wrong in the future. That's like every other politician I know.

I can think of worse alternatives than Obama but I'd be careful to call him any sort of savior.

Lateralus:

Wow. In the same thread Obama is compared to Mussolini and Christ.

Wow! I was thinking the very same thing!!!!

When someone is as vague in his speech as Obama is, I guess this becomes eminently possible.

While there may be some truth in some of Obama's stances being light on specifics, I think there is something more important. Frankly, a lot of problems can be solved by a variety of people other than the president. What is needed is for those other people to actually give a damn about the American people and the rest of the world. If Obama's election can show congresspeople that we will vote for the candidate that actually cares, maybe they'll start to as well. More importantly, if we can get some more transparency in government, those that co-opt the process and just do the bidding of big business and special interests will be sidelined or exposed. This is far more important than Obama knowing how to solve every individual issue. The president is a leader who sets priority and maybe works personally to solve a few specific issues. So again, it would be nice if Obama had more specifics on how to solve more problems, but I'd be more than happy with him if he is simply able to inspire the nation and the Congress to do work FOR the people.

At least it wasn't Hitler and Christ.

Something screaming funny about these guys who can't read screaming for more detail, more specifics. More than what?

Just who is, by comparison, the king or queen of hard-bitten and detail-minded visionary pragmatism?

Please. You dipshits voted for Bush. You wouldn't know realism if it bit you in the ass.