Look, Up in the Sky, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane …! Obama Is Superman
“It is a remarkable dichotomy. In many ways, Clark is the most human of us all. Then … he shoots fire from the skies, and it is difficult not to think of him as a god. And how fortunate we all are that it does not occur to him.” – Batman, Superman/Batman #3 (Dec. 2003)
Barack Obama “has authority to use drone strikes to kill Americans on US soil.” – The Telegraph, 06 March, 2013
While I find it highly offensive to see Barack Obama portrayed as “the Pope” or “the Messiah” (and so would President Obama if he was a Christian); I do believe the comparison to Superman is accurate. Barack Obama is Superman.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Clark Kent was raised by communists or started his political career in a domestic terrorist’s living room; nor would I say that Barack Obama was born on the planet Krypton and believes in “truth, justice and the American way.”
The similarities between Barack Obama and the “Man of Steel” are not to be found in character or background, but in approach.
JUDGE, JURY AND EXECUTIONER
Superman sees the world with complete transparency, building his case without restraint, and closing it without jury or appeal. How fortunate we are that he’s a “beneficent despot.” Or is he? I guess we will just have to trust him. Bill of Rights? What rights? “We don’t need no stinking badges!”
You can take Superman out of Nietzsche but even his creators couldn’t take Nietzsche out of the “Man of Steel.” (See Part 1: “Ummasking Superman“)
The same “conservatives” that gleefully chime “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” also gush over the new Superman movie with the excitement of a 14 year old girl with a Justin Bieber ticket. I’m pretty sure that Lord Acton would never sport a Superman poster in his dorm room.
The dichotomy of an otherwise thoughtful mind that embraces Acton’s warning about power when it appears in Lord of the Rings yet ignores it when it is slighted in Star Wars and Superman, may be the exception to the rule for conservatives. For liberals, it is the logical consequence of their fascist underpinnings.
The left fawns over Superman for the same reason they fawn over Stalin, Mao, Castro and Chavez – power lust. The left adores absolute power when they are the ones with power in the absolute.
While progressives cried incessantly over the paper cut to civil rights that was the Bush/Cheney administration; they simply yawn at the Texas Chainsaw Massacre that is Obama’s.
Obama whips out the NDAA and cranks up the Patriot Act to the level that would make the Stasi blush, and the dutiful press corps looks the other way. The “scandals” of the IRS tampering and targeting and the NSA and DOJ wiretapping receive some traction only because the AP was on the enemies list.