Which White Guy is Barack Obama Most Alike? Tune in to Find out!

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com

I have blogged before about how I am sick of the Obama/Abe Lincoln comparisons. At the beginning of the Obama administration, we as news-consumers were also beaten over the head with comparisons to FDR. Today the HuffingtonPosts banner headline is "Dwight D. Obama" and shows a picture of Obama and Eisenhower. 20 seconds after seeing that headline, I turned on my television to see CNN running the headline "Obama vs. Napoleon- is healthcare Obama's Waterloo?".

Did George Bush draw as many comparisons? Did he draw any? What makes Obama so comparable? He seems to be wholly unique- among world leaders and especially among United States Presidents. His father was born in Africa, he's bi-racial, he was raised in Hawaii and the Philippines, he was the first black editor of Harvard Law Review, he was raised in a single-parent home, after graduating as arguably the most distinguished law student in the country (as editor of the HLR) he turned down guaranteed riches in order to community-build in Chicago. I'd say that makes him unlike other presidents.

When Obama wanted to overhaul infrastructure, similar to what FDR did with the new deal, why can't they say, "He seems to think like an FDR-style Democrat", or "Apparently, Obama is looking to leave new infrastructure as a legacy"? Why is it phrased "Obama is the new FDR?"? When he tries mentions a desire to engage in dialogue with enemy states, he must be just like Lincoln, who brought together the North and South.

The media wants to make Obama's character the sum of his policies- It isn't that he thinks like these men, it's that he IS like them. While past leaders like Roosevelt, FDR, Kennedy, Churchill, and to a lesser extent, Clinton- were free to be men of multi-tiered complexity, whose blending of talents, foibles and quirks were unique and likely never to be seen again- Obama is relegated to comparisons with people who have come before him. It's not that he possess traits XY and Z, it's that he's kinda like other guys who also have XY and Z between them.

So, again, why all the comparisons? Didn't George Bush have more in common with previous leaders, as a white, child of privilege turned politician? Why no comparisons to JFK or John Quincy Adams?

I can only assume it's racially based. My guess is that the underlying assumption is that the news makers feel that America as a whole has some kind of skepticism about who this black character REALLY is. So my conclusion is that the news media either, A) feel this way themselves or, B) they feel that the news consumers feel this way.

My question to the media then is: Which is it, A or B? The majority of us in the U.S. voted for him, so you'd think it could be assumed that we have an ok idea of who he is, what he is like and what he is about. Apparently the news media feels that white people can't understand who a black man is, and we need some kind of analogy to understand.

"So tell me all about this colored President Obama. I can't seem to make sense of him."
"He is like Abraham Lincoln kinda, except for Obama is a black version."
"Ohhhhhhh. I see."

I think most Americans would rather answer the question of, "Who the hell exactly was George Bush ?" than, "Who is this new Obama fellow?". Obama actually won the majority of votes and has an approval rating above 50%- I'd say America's mind is made up about him. Let's find some actual news to report instead of implicitly playing into America's perceived racial paranoia. Paranoid infotainment is not making any Americans more intelligent or tolerant.