Pop-psychological warfare

In his New York Times column today, Thomas L. Friedman gives what's perhaps the best articulation I've heard to date of what underlies the ongoing "low information infatuation" with Barack Obama as a presidential candidate:

"I believe that what has propelled his candidacy up to now -- more than anything -- is that many Americans have projected onto him their hunger for community, their hunger for a president with the voice, instincts and moral authority to make it so much harder for foreigners to be anti-American or for Americans to be anti-one-another."

In other words, "24" fans, Dennis "President Palmer" Haysbert didn't give him money for nothing.

Mock the clouds-parting, messianic media treatment of Obama all you want, but it's arguably symptomatic of the profound, gnawing hunger in this country for a White House occupant we can at least imagine ourselves respecting again.

Even if Obama is more a vessel for the electorate's naive, sunshiny hopes and dreams than a potent visionary or second political coming, at least he's not a sealed-off, empty vessel masquerading as a prophet.

If nothing else, he's perceived as something new. The Bush doctrine and Iraq debacle have become tragically persuasive arguments that you simply can't build a sustainable national identity around militarily battling terrorism.

If Obama's campaign (or Bill Richardson's, for that matter) can avoid being painted as a bunch of pansies out to appease the Frenchies and foreigners and actually package the message that being a rational, communicative force for good in the world strengthens national security, it could have an extremely powerful argument.

Then again, if I have to listen to one more armchair psychologist's "argument" that this Virginia Tech incident plainly illustrates we need to arm everyone so we can die not like sheep, but like some other, presumably nobler order of carrion should we ever happen to land on the wrong end of a disturbed individual's bullet, I'm going to scream. Especially when it's followed by the corollary that, you know, someone really ought to do something about violent films and video games while they're at it. And shouldn't people have known this would happen, based on the shooter's writings, and pre-emptively shot him down?

Please. Life sucks, people suck, rich kids, religion and rogue states suck -- most of us find ways to deal with it that don't end in mass killing sprees; through creation, not physical destruction.

As my dear mother, Laure, writes: "I fear for creative expression not just for those who practice it, but for those who need to see it to realize there's more than what's in their little backyards."

Even if Obama himself isn't injecting anything curative into the discourse concerning the future of this country, at least he's inspiring those around him to imagine something better than four more years of lurking around in the Bushes.