The Obama Presidency

Is it just another badly staged reality show?

Since the beginning of the presidential primary races several years ago, I had my concerns about the Barack Obama campaign and how it would be run. We are talking about a man with, to say the least, limited professional experience, making a run for possibly the most important job in the world. But to tell the truth, I wasn’t than keen on any of his opponents and I figured that at the very least, he should be given a chance to provide some real ”hope and change” to a country that is obviously in need of some. About halfway through the national elections, I became engaged in watching the West Wing series in reruns. I never was one for watching series on prime time and being able to view the entire series in a short span is more to my liking. But as the series progressed, especially when Jimmy Smits entered as a new presidential candidate, I started to sense some eerie similarities between the show and real life. I am a logical thinker but somehow this seemed to defy logic. Could it be? I started to look a little deeper and tried to connect the dots.

My first thought was how would a poor black man, born in Hawaii (supposedly) who had migrated to Chicago, come up with a strategy this brilliant? After all, his background gave no indication that he could conjure up a plan that would not only take advantage of the average Americans love of theatre but also choreograph an entire campaign around it. After all, he is a constitutional scholar with practical experience in community organizing and a minute amount of political expertise. His prior election wins were done with smoke and mirrors, one where he challenged a competitors petition to run (thereby disqualifying him) and another by default. So where does this plan come from? Enter Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod. Could they be the source of this masterful scheme? More investigation was required to nail down this theory.

My research indicated that the character Josh Lyman, the mastermind of the Santos Campaign on the West Wing, was “loosely” based on Rahm Emanuel and his antics during the time he spent with the Clinton presidency. Or that the character played by Jimmy Smits, John Santos was the first legitimate candidate of color for the presidency. Coincidence? Maybe, but odd, none the less. Do you see any similarities? So I kept digging. Turns out that that in real life, Mr. Emanuels brother is a noted and powerful Hollywood agent. Are the Emanuel brothers capable of perpetrating this web of coincidence? That’s not for me to decide but you can read more about them in this NY Times article that delves deep into their persona’s and gives the reader an inside peek into their mindset.

There are other disturbing coincidences that I noted during the election process. For example, The vice presidential candidate, played by John Spencer, died ( which unfortunately, actually occurred) at the end of the campaign and Mr Obama, also lost the grandmother who raised him towards the end of his election run. Okay, I guess I can concede that one. And in the show, catastrophic event (a nuclear accident in California) was a major factor of influence to the voters. In real life, the near collapse of the banking industry and Wall Street was the single most deciding factor, in this writer’s opinion, to the ultimate decision. Now while this near calamity was a long time in the making, I believe that it could have been forced to occur in a specific time range prior to the election for dramatic effect and to push the electorate away from any aspirant even remotely connected with the sitting president. Think I’m a conspiracy nut or just someone with an extremely over active imagination. Well that may well be. But consider this. What if one of the key supporters of one candidate had the where with all to manipulate the economy on a grand scale and decided to do so? Can’t happen you say? No one has that much influence. Economies have been manipulated forever and forcing an eventual reality to occur within a specific time frame is possible and in fact, may have occurred as recently as 1992. George Soros, an ardent Obama backer, made one billion dollars in a single day by short trading the English pound, almost single handedly destroying the currency of that country. To date it is still considered the monetary system of the country. It is still considered one of the greatest trades of all time. Could it have happened? Most definitely! Did it? One may never know but it certainly gives you something to think about. Seems to me it would depend on how much an individual wanted a specific scenario to become a reality. Factor in the well documented media bias during this election cycle, and you may have all the corroboration that you need to make a call. A perfect storm that perhaps benefited from a little cloud seeding.

While all of this is simply supposition on my part, you have to admit it has some substance. Could it happen? Maybe, but so can lightning strikes. In the TV show, the series ends after Santos is elected to the presidency. So we don’t know how he would have led the nation. Maybe that’s why the first six months of the real life administration seem to be in a constant state of confusion. Perhaps not, but it’s definitely worth some additional thought.