Actress Sally Field won an Oscar in 1979 for playing a union organizer in Norma Rae. Six years later, she won the same prized-award for her role in Places in the Heart, her acceptance speech earning its own special place in sound-bite history:
"...I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!"
That about sums up what the Democratic party strives for -- likeability. They fervently believe that if an American leader is "liked," then "the world" will like us. And if the world likes us, the possibility of war is diminished.
Sally Fields' impromptu phrase explains the phenomenon that is Barack Obama. On the face of it, his resume is not befitting that of a President in these complex times. Experience-wise, years of "community organizing" -- his longest held "position" -- is ridiculously insufficient.
His long personal associations with the blame-America-first: terrorist William Ayers, Pastor Jeremiah Wright, and wife Michelle -- not to mention his close association with the Chicago real estate "fixer" Tony Rezko -- would have already brought down 99 percent of any other presidential aspirant.
So if it's not experience or sound judgment that have elevated Senator Obama to the status of Presumptive Nominee of the Democratic Party, what has?
It's his likeability, the political asset that trumps all others in Left-world. Succinctly, the Left is dying for America to be liked again!
When European articles are written with titles such as "Obamamania! Europe Can't Get Enough!" it's confirmation to the Left that they have the right candidate. Hillary Clinton could have had 20 years in the Senate, and crafted important legislation, but she still wouldn't have had the style, looks, charm or "cool" the Left yearns for in its candidates.
Being liked, has long been central to the Left's identity. The playwright Arthur Miller says as much in his 1949 play, Death of a Salesman. The failed traveling salesman, Willy Loman, tries to impress upon his son Biff that success in life depends less on hard work and more on being "well liked" and having personal attractiveness. Biff breaks with his father when he recognizes the speciousness of "being liked" and realizes how it has led his father to live in a world of dreams and illusions. Kind of like the modern Democratic party believing that if Ahmadinejad "likes" Obama, the Iranian zealot will dismantle his nuclear program!
Harry Truman wasn't "liked" during his last year in office and had an approval rating of 22 percent. In retrospect, we know the tough decisions he made were not influenced by thoughts of his own popularity. The same can be said for President Bush, who has had to make even more difficult and heart-wrenching decisions -- decisions that have led to ZERO attacks against our country in almost seven years.
America is safer because seasoned men like Truman and Bush knew that being right is more important than being liked. It's something the modern Democratic party, as shown in its choice of Obama as its standard bearer, does not understand.
For, when all is said and done, the true goal of the Left, is to be able to gush from the proverbial world stage: "You like us, right now, you like us!"