President Obama and Jane Austen: Did Jane Austen Skewer Obama 200 Years Ago?

"How can the President say someting so positively, when he means the exact opposite? It is unaccountable. How can one understand him?"


The above is Jane Austen, from "Northanger Abbeey"--except, of course, that Ms. Austen was talking about "the general", and not directly about the President that had not yet been born. I have mentioned earlier that Ms. Austen, earlier in "Northagner Abbey", had described the kind of person who passoinately says one thing one day, and contradicts himself the next day--equally as passionately. It is if Jane Austen had observed Barack Obama from 200 years in the past.


Superficially, "Northanger Abbey" (rating, 99 out of 100) is an hilarious send up of the overheated gothic novel and of horror/suspense novels/movies ever after. In reality, the novel is about deception of all kinds--including, most particularly, SELF-DECEPTION. Thus, it is a send up of the speculative, hypocritical world of cable "news", and modern "journalism", as much as it is a send up of the novels of "Mrs. Radcliffe" at which Austen directly pokes fun. Yes, it IS a send up of President Obama, who seems to be able to deceive himself as well as others.


P.S.: I know. I cannot be objective about President Obama. Even though I "supported" him (see Dan't comment yesterday), I also "supported" John McCain by opposing Barack Obama (I supported Bob Barr, without any self-deception that he would become President). Am I makeing fun of Dan? Yep. Gulity. If opposing John McCain is that same thing as supporting Barack Obama, what is it when I opposed Obama (as I did). Is that not equally "supporting" John McCain? Yes, I have no self-deception. I know I threw my vote away. But Dan assumes, incorrectly, that John McCain had a "right" to "expect" my vote, and my "support", even though John McCain has often INSULTED ME (people who believe what I believe). That is one of the messages that I have tried to convery in this blog. REPUBLICANS do NOT have a "right" to expect my support. They have to EARN it. They are still not doing so. Did McCain really "expect" people like me to "support him? I think he hoped that we would have nowhere else to go, but I don't think McCain was really looking for our support. He, like all "moderate" Republicans, was hoping for "moderates"--independents and Democrats, along with that type of Republican--to elect him. They preferred Obama, who sold himself to the same group (ableit Obama is hardly a "moderate"). That is the inevitable result of McCain's kind of "Republicanism". Thus, I could not "supprot" McCain, other than by OPPOSING Obama, and I will not support future Repubicans of the same type. Good luck on that "independent" and "moderate" strategy. Even if it "workds" (wins an election), it will merely take us down the same disastrous road as Obama, only slightly SLOWER (as President Bush did--and he was hardly "slow" at betraying free market capitalism at the end).