Last night Nick and I decided to attend a presentation by Sidney Milkis, a professor from the University of Virginia, hosted by the Poly. Sci. department entitled “Great Expectations: Obama and the Politics of Reform.” I thought this would be an even breakdown of Obama’s political moves in the past year, and for some reason I wasn’t quite expecting a worship session of the messiah, but it came fairly close. Yes indeed, a year post-election and we’re stilling talking about Hope and Change.

For a large portion of the time, and the beginning of the evening, Milkis spoke a lot on the subject of multi-culturalism (as if we aren’t beat over the head with it enough here in Eugene). According to Milkis, Obama was a multi-racial man who consciously chose to be African American, and he reaffirmed his intentions of remaining African American by marrying Michelle Obama. I wasn’t aware that one has such reign over their ethnicity; nevertheless the speaker seemed to be suggesting Obama was brave for making the choice. He then continued on his multi-cultural shpeel, talking about the ability of Obama to represent America, despite being black. Apparently Obama is the “first African American to truly embody America’s values.” (MLK only does on the third monday of January each year) Oh, I also learned that Barrack’s middle name, Hussien, is iconic of everything good and righteous in American politics.

It was about this time when I started to notice the rising smug levels in the room. Milkis went on to discuss the successful minority voter turnout and said, “It was delicious that Sarah Palin made fun of Obama’s experience as a campaign organizer.” As the crowd chuckled I think I actually spotted someone sniff his own fart out of the corner of my eye.

I think it’s easy to agree with the professor when he said, “He [Obama] was dealt a difficult hand,” but Milkis wasn’t so quick in gathering my support when he started in on his Progressive charade. According to the speaker the biggest “serpent in the Obama Garden of Eden” is foreign policy, particularly the righteous and good war in Afghanistan. It’s all good though because it’s now the era in which everyone will understand that “Big government is not an obstacle of freedom.. Big government in our time is necessary to our protection.”

Oh, and apparently the only reason the right is opposed to health care is that, “They know this would be a great accomplishment.”

All in all the seminar was a little smug to me, but I guess I never was one to worship the gods.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 18:43 by Kiefer and is filed under Campus, Entertainment, Free Speech, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.