The Absolution Candidate

Rush Limbaugh came close, today, to a telling insight into the left’s love of Obama. He finished short. Let me complete Rush’s thought: The left worship Obama hoping for absolution and salvation.

Absolution is a big thing to a Catholic. It’s the difference between Heaven and Hell. Absolution comes only from God through His son Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. The Messiah paved the way.

The left’s deification of Obama stands on its own. They worship him, they give him thanks, they praise him for his glory. They view his election as the resurrection, the toil of the campaign as his passion, the hard-fought primaries as the agony in the garden.

Assuaged with a bizarre guilt that afflicts liberalism, the guilt of being born white in America with great privilege and great prosperity, the left cries out for absolution from that original sin–the sin of Americanism.

In this trek toward secular salvation, the left’s history is even more moving than the Jews. Israel has I Am who promised a Messiah and delivered Him to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. The Jews were chosen – called by God to share the bounty of His heavenly feast.

Liberals, on the other hand, were called only by each other. Their sins are self-invented, their guilt self-inflicted. They’ve sought a god among dying things: Franklin Roosevelt, the Supreme Court, George McGovern, and even the earth itself. None sent a messiah, and from the struck rock flowed only sand.

In their desperation, they have created their own messiah, whose name is Obama. They have made him in their own image and likeness and declared that he is good. Believing his election a moral responsibility, they have forsaken all past vows and broken all encumbering oaths to help him win. They will ignore his opponent if they can, lie about him if they must. It is the command of their god to elect Obama, and neither man’s law nor journalistic ethics will keep them from their duties.

In exchange, Obama promises to forgive them their sins–the sin of slavery, of racism, of prosperity, happiness, peace, and even of life. Obama, in their minds, will drive the money changers like Exxon-Mobil from the temple of good and universal government. Obama will grant them salvation and admission to their earthly heaven. So they believe.

William F. Buckley’s 1965 campaign for mayor of New York popularized the phrase, “Don’t immanentize the eschaton,” meaning, don’t try to draw the end time near, or don’t expect heaven on earth. Well, if heaven is earth, as it is to liberals, then there’s nothing wrong with taking such actions as necessary to enjoy that gift–before we die.

Alas, Barack Obama is simply their latest attempt at immanentizing the eschaton. Like all their other false gods, this one, too, will die. Not literally, perhaps, but figuratively. Either Obama will win and disappoint, or he will lose and crush the liberals. So it goes when you seek on earth what is only in heaven. Why do they look for the living among the dead?

Looked at this way, it’s difficult to feel for liberals anything but the pity we feel for the ignorance of animals (Buckley, ~1968): both look at men as gods guaranteeing futility and disappointment.

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