"Here and there one could see women crying and some men wiping away tears too.(...) When 16,000 people, without prompting, start shouting some of his keynote phrases as he delivers them, you know something special is going on. The atmosphere at his events is such that one wonders if Obama is about to walk out with a basket with some loaves and fishes to feed the thousands." Geoff Elliott - The Australian

"There was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messiahnism" Joe Klein - Time

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." H. L. Mencken

"It is one thing to preach and quite another to give people bread." Spanish saying

Australians are famous for their plain spoken common sense,  as Americans once were... a very long time ago. Geoff Elliott, The Australian's Washington correspondent asks some awkward questions about the prospective emperor's new wardrobe.

How does a cult figure, in the eyes of some something akin to a messiah, make the transition to a political frontrunner -  president even - where disappointment will soon crush what seemed to be a journey to a promised land? (...) If he gets the Democratic Party's nomination another test begins anew: how to turn the narrative which is all about striving for what is possible, to one where people are suddenly asking how are you actually going to do it?

Certainly, it appears that many Americans are desperately clutching at straws, filled with powerful, inchoate, emotions as Barack Obama rhythmically strokes his platitudes. Students of American history will be reminded of "The Second Great Awakening", which of course was closely followed by "The Great Disappointment".

Many observers draw parallels between Obama and Jesus, but there are significant differences between the two. Obama, although visible has no clear program, whereas Jesus, although invisible, has a fairly clear program, briefly put: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, harbor the harborless, visit the sick, ransom the captive, bury the dead, instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, admonish sinners, bear wrongs patiently, forgive offenses willingly, comfort the afflicted and to pray for the living and the dead.

Although, to the best of my knowledge, this program has never been put into effect anywhere at any time, many people still find it attractive and would willingly vote for it if they could. However, its superficial resemblance to Socialism  might make it subject to controversy, if seriously put forward by a presidential candidate.

Changing the subject a bit, I find it curious that Hillary Clinton, who has some serious proposals about health care, child care and the like, only receives contributions from big donors, that is to say rich people; whereas Obama, who offers little or nothing that could be of any assistance to the poor or oppressed, has managed to perfect the Howard Dean techniques of small donations through the Internet. I think Hillary should take Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee lessons as soon as possible if she it to have any hope of surviving.

Jim Hoagland has an insightful article in today's Washington Post. He makes these points:

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama share a problem as they move deeper into the primary season: They have both issued promises to withdraw from Iraq that are impossibly vague, unrealistic or worse. They must now rectify this -- for the good of their campaigns and the nation. The Democratic candidates repeat fundamental errors already made in Iraq by President Bush. They ignore the important role that Iraqis must play in deciding the fate of their nation if there is to be any stability during and after a U.S. withdrawal.(...) Like Bush, Obama and Clinton pretend they can implement neat solutions to that torn country's complex problems. That is, to borrow a phrase from this campaign, a fairy tale.(...) Obama's effort to impeach Clinton's credibility through a backward-looking debate on Iraq -- pitting her 2002 vote vs. his 2002 speech -- has not been decisive because he has yet to show that the difference will lead to an authentically different approach to getting U.S. combat troops out of Iraq. Yes, Obama has promised to withdraw all combat troops within 16 months. Clinton promises to begin withdrawals within 60 days of her inauguration. Most significant, each has promised a hedge: to keep unspecified numbers of soldiers behind to fight terrorists or train Iraqis and, in Clinton's case, to protect the Kurds and deter Iranian aggression. But neither has been pressed in debates or news conferences as to how these residual troops would be left behind. It strains credulity to think that the Iraqis would -- after being told that they are not worth protecting or working with -- allow U.S. troops to stay on and hunt al-Qaeda & Co. or protect the huge U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. What carrots do the two Democrats propose to keep this permanently dissed ally on board instead of making any U.S. retreat a hell on Earth? Kennedy and other Democrats pillory Bush administration officials for trying to negotiate a status-of-forces agreement with the Iraqi government to replace the expiring U.N. mandate that governs the presence of foreign troops. Bush's fault is that he has waited far too long to recognize that Iraqis want to exercise sovereign rights inside their own country. He is not rushing to tie a Democratic president's hands. He responds to long-standing pressures from the Iraqis and the United Nations that he has previously ignored. Bush's cavalier rejection of the provisional Iraqi government created immediately after the U.S.-led invasion -- in favor of installing proconsul L. Paul Bremer III and a long occupation -- pushed U.S. policy onto its slope of disasters. Surviving Republican candidates overshoot the runway in the other direction, attributing to recent U.S. gains a permanence that has still to be established. The Democrats clearly will not repeat that mistake. They must also reject Bush's habit of ignoring Iraqi realities and responsibilities and pretending that the United States alone has the power to impose its will as the end point of this conflict.

In fact, thanks to Bush's immeasurable incompetence, leaving Iraq has become like the famous scene in Robert De Niro's film, "A Bronx Story", where an improbable group of Hell's Angels invade a Mafia-owned bar in the Bronx and after being politely asked to leave, begin to spray beer and insult the patrons. Chazz Palminteri, the local capo mafiosi, locks the door and tells them, "Now yez can't leave", whereupon every Italian extra in Hollywood comes out the back room with baseball bats and beats the bikers to a pulp.

This is more or less the position the United States finds itself in today. I think that when the American people really wake up to the fact that with Republicans or Democrats, by now Iraq is so screwed up that "yez can't leave", they will gladly extradite Bush to The Hague to have him tried as a war criminal.

I am beginning to think the battle between Hillary and Obama is going to get so rough and so ugly and end up in a tie running into a brokered convention so foul and sordid that both candidates will be on life support by then.

At that time something will have to done to put that fight to an end and bury all the bodies, which will stink by August.

Probably the only solution would be a movement to draft Al Gore. In contrast to either Hillary or Obama I think he could defeat McCain handily. A Gore-Edwards ticket would have my vote and make America forget the primaries.