As readers will be aware, I have become increasingly concerned in recent weeks about the erratic and damaging foreign policy behavior of President Barack Obama. I have wondered whether such behavior is the product of intellectual incapacity or even of outright insanity. Following up on a comment from one of my readers, I have decided to explore an alternative, and ultimately even more dangerous possibility: that Barack Obama is sane and competent, but is guided by an obsessional hatred of all that the country he represents is known to stand for. I introduce this line of thinking in today’s column through a brief outline of Richard Condon’s 1959 novel, The Manchurian Candidate.
Condon’s novel focuses attention on the son of a prominent United States political family who has been brainwashed into becoming an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party. Sergeant Raymond Shaw, together with the rest of his infantry platoon are kidnapped in 1952 during the Korean War. They are taken to Manchuria to be brainwashed into believing that Shaw saved their lives in combat, and are then released back to the United States. For his alleged heroism under fire, Congress subsequently awards Shaw the Medal of Honor.
In reality, the brainwashed Shaw is now a sleeper agent operating under a KGB handler, his domineering mother, a ruthless power broker working with Communists to overthrow the United States’ government. Shaw is subconsciously activated to follow orders whenever he views the Queen of Diamonds playing card while playing solitaire. Attention in the novel centers on whether Shaw will be effectively manipulated by his mother to impose her husband, a United States Senator, as a puppet dictator, directly under her control.
Of course, the novel’s concept of the Manchurian Candidate takes a very particular form. Nevertheless, the notion that a President of the United States may be driven by a deeply-rooted, perhaps hidden, obsessional hatred of his country’s history, institutions and expressed ideals is truly worthy of a thoughtful analysis and discussion.
So that is what I intend to do.
Hat Tip: Tim
March 27, 2011 at 6:11 pm |
It’s not just Obama, it’s the 20% of the population that are the hard-core Left. They hate this country with a passion.
March 28, 2011 at 12:11 am |
Obama’s social policy sure mirrors Edward Bellamy’s book Looking Backward: 2000-1887. Obama’s policy of interventionism appears rooted in the statist-progressive policies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
March 28, 2011 at 4:43 am |
Who is the executive producer for this “reality” Presidency?
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aF7fB1PF0NPg
Who funded and established this organization?
http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/component/content/article/136-latest-news/3335-crisis-alert-libya-implementation-of-un-resolution-1973-for-the-protection-of-civilians-urgent-action-required-in-cote-divoire-deteriorating-situation-in-abyei
April 2, 2011 at 11:46 am |
[...] the original post: The Manchurian Candidate « Charles Rowley's Blog This entry was written by VnaLazy and posted on March 27, 2011 at 3:06 pm and filed under [...]
April 16, 2011 at 5:37 am |
[...] deep end these days. His blog is taking on “conspiratorial” tones with his detour into Obama as Manchurian Candidate. Funny, I don’t recall the strategic calculus of the “Manchurian Candidate” [...]
April 16, 2011 at 9:00 pm |
The interesting question is determining how this particular brainless idiot became the Manchurian candidate. When did the obsfucation begin?