The Pomo President

The website Moral Accountability posted a quote today from Democrats for Life that I thought was interesting, on Obama's freeing of funds for embryonic stem cell research:

Democrats For Life of America disagreed with the Mexico City Policy reversal but had an opportunity to air our concerns with representatives of the Administration. But the announcement that President Obama would allow expanded use of embryonic stem cells came as a surprise. DFLA has had a productive relationship both with the campaign and the early stages of the new Administration. To have no opportunity to weigh in on this controversial issue signals a cooling of our relations. DFLA is against President Obama’s decision, period. There are workable and successful options available to private sector research operations that use umbilical cord blood and non embryonic stem cells. To frame this decision as a necessity to cure finding medical research is not accurate. While we have zero confidence that a call for reversal of this Executive Order will prevail, we are hopeful that the President will heed our call for common ground solutions in dealing with pro-life Democrats.

Now that is interesting on several levels. Most obviously, DFLA is saying, pointedly, that Obama is a hypocrite. He came into office saying one thing and is now doing another. But worse than that, his rhetoric, even now, sounds highly inclusive and yet his actions have not been. He literally can say one thing while simultaneously doing another. Nobody likes a hypocrite.

But there is a deeper issue here, and it has everything to do with us, not him. I would content that "we" have gotten what we wanted. What I argued during the election was that Obama sounded great, but his rhetoric was not based in any substance. So when he would say things like "I will work to reduce abortion in America," all one had to do was look at his voting record and realize that he was lying. And this is what you do with any person. Is what they are saying actually true? There is, unfortunately, no direct correlation between what someones says and what someone actually believes. And what is downright scary is that, perhaps for the first time, Americans said this was ok.

Doug Groothuis calls Obama the first postmodern president: "(He is) all image, all the time; surface over depth; pastiche over foundation." America was desperate enough for change (for no obvious reason) that they were happy to elect a man whose substance was highly suspect. And, fascinatingly, Obama and his team knew that. They knew that if issues, if substance, ever became more important than speech and style, he would lose. They literally would train their field workers not to talk about Obama's positions but rather talk about "how they became Obama supporters." Or notice, for example, what Obama was doing last night. He was being interviewed by Jay Leno. That is historic, and shows us where he is powerful and where he isn't.

Now I understand that the issues aren't always going to be so self-evidently good that no marketing is needed. Reagan's trickle-down economics, for example, was never very popular and he had to hit the stump quite often to change minds. But there is a difference between trying to get someone to see truth and trying get someone to ignore it. And Obama, consistently, does the latter. With masterful sleight of hand, he uses his rhetorical ability to cloak what he really believes.

Now I don't just say that so that we can continue to harp on Obama (though I will). I say it also so that we don't follow suit. Speaking to the Corinthians, Paul warned of this (2 Cor. 11:3-6):

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things.

Paul's point is that substance matters much more than style. "I won't ever be as good as some preachers," he says, "But I have the truth. That is all that matters." So in hearing and doing, we must agree.