Is Barack Obama Really "The One"?

I've been hearing this "change" mantra over and over for the past year; it has captured the hearts of all the people who are sick of the cynicism of the past eight years, people who truly believe and are betting that Barack Obama is "The One".

Putting aside the ominous Matrix reference, is Barack Obama truly a force for change? How exactly will the last day of Bush differ from the first day of Obama?

Obama has tapped into the American's disillusionment with their current situation, the economy is bad, the housing crisis sends people out into the streets every day, America-bashing is the new favourite game practiced all over the world, with Sudoku coming in a close second. American Troops stationed in two war zones scratching their heads because they have no clue as to what they are supposed to do. The president giving a press conference about the state of the economy, only to express surprise when a reporter tells him the current price of gasoline. PEOPLE WANT CHANGE!

Obama has literally come out of political nowhere to emphasize that he is the man that will deliver America from its evils, but is that really the case?

His whole campaign strategy is that he will change the direction of the country from where George W. Bush's "Misguided" polices are taking it, but the trouble is, it isn't really Obama that is pushing Bush out the door, the Presidential term limits are doing that.

Obama of course knows this, so every opportunity he gets, he talks about how a John McCain presidency will be a third term of George Bush.

If we learn anything from the 2000 republican primary, it is that McCain is nothing like Bush, their personal histories are different, their political ideologies aren't the same either, yet according to Obama you would think that Bush and McCain are siamese twins; this a very, very thin argument from the Obama camp.

In the end, Obama says he doesn't like petty politics, but his Convention speech sadly gives us a different picture.

He claimed that McCain would define middle-class as someone who makes under five million a year; McCain was joking, Obama had to have known this, but he used it in his speech anyway.

He also claimed that "average family income" went down $2000 under Bush, which is just not true. An aide then tries to clarify Obama's comments only to make it seem more strange, the aide says that Obama meant working families, not including retired couples and that Obama meant "median family income" even though that's not what he said. Besides, median family income has slightly increased during the Bush term, so what is the point that Obama is trying to make?

These are just two points in his Convention speech, there are other cases where Obama has er... misrepresented the truth, like when he falsely claimed that abortions under Bush have not gone down or his plan for "fast-track" alternatives to import oil, which actually is a ten year long plan. Ten years isn't what I would call fast track, not that the plan itself is bad it's just that he wants to call it a "fast track" plan, so that it can be used in a thirty-second TV spot, typical politics.

In the end Obama is just not the messiah that the people so desperately want him to be, he's just another politician that is trying to grab the top job, is that bad? No, of course not, that's how democracies function, but if you expected Obama to be different and some kind of saint in a den of political, opportunistic thieves, then you were sadly misled.

On the hand McCain is worse in the petty politics game. But at least he doesn't pretend to be a modern day messiah, Obama more or less does or haven't you heard of the fainting spells in his rallies.

Sources used for reference: www.factcheck.org, www.youtube.com/watch