# How is Obama-mania any worse than Camelot? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 20, 2009, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198 "2009-01-20T20:14:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/21 "2009-01-21T21:07:46Z")
> [@Myself](#): > > Hal Bristol has one opinion… Please stop dragging the Palin girl into this. ---
**Author:** ![Myself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@Myself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myself)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/22 "2009-01-21T21:30:23Z")
:smack: A thousand apologies to you Mr. Hal Bris **ton**. My name gets slaughtered regularly, and I know how I feel about it. I’m trying to be too quick, sneaking in here between sips of coffee and those bothersome tasks I’m paid to do. However, I don’t see where I’ve misunderstood anything. > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Myself, “Many joined the Peach Corps…” > Briston, "What a fruity organization they were… " ME: JFK inspired people to join the Peace Corps. HE: The Peace Corps was “fruity.” ME: Others agree with me. Here are two examples. What’s to misunderstand? In any event, this isn’t worth the chaos it seems to have caused. Let’s move on shall we? ---
**Author:** ![Auntbeast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/23 "2009-01-21T21:31:56Z")
You wrote Peach, not peace, that was what the joke was about. Have a bit more coffee. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/24 "2009-01-21T22:39:14Z")
Obama doesn’t have a soundtrack worthy of the name. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/25 "2009-01-21T22:50:04Z")
> [@Myself](#): > > However, I don’t see where I’ve misunderstood anything. Yow. A triple whoosh (with half-nametwist and a double quotation, too)! A posting sequence worthy of Mark Spits…goin’ for the gold! 😉 I’m sorry, **Myself** – if I thought you’d overlook the Peach/Peace mis-spelling again, I’d have pointed it out explicitly (the way **Auntbeast** did). ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/26 "2009-01-21T23:53:37Z")
I was born in 1951. I remember the Kennedy mania. At the very least, nobody compared him to Jesus. On that point, Obamamania is worse. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/27 "2009-01-22T00:01:14Z")
But … but … the dude nailed _Marilyn Freakin’ Monroe_! What could be more magical and mystical than that? ---
**Author:** ![Myself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@Myself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myself)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/28 "2009-01-22T01:04:33Z")
:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: > [@](#): > > Yow. A triple whoosh (with half-nametwist and a double quotation, too)! A posting sequence worthy of Mark Spits…goin’ for the gold! As my grandmother used to say to me, “Don’t worry, bambino, you’ll never be a complete failure. You can always serve as a bad example.” My last post was sent obviously before…then he said…but I…aw, skip it. I’ll just apologize to Digital Stimulus, 1001 times. Thank you to Auntbeast for real iz ing that I need to ad dress ed in one (1) syl la ble words. I will slink away now. Making an Olympic quality fool of myself like this is… the pits. ---
**Author:** ![Algorithm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/algorithm/32/12204_2.png) [@Algorithm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algorithm)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/29 "2009-01-22T01:18:46Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > I was born in 1951. I remember the Kennedy mania. At the very least, nobody compared him to Jesus. On that point, Obamamania is worse. Have Obama supporters seriously compared him to Jesus? I thought all the messiah talk was an exaggeration, rather than a true characterization of the “fanaticism” over Obama. ---
**Author:** ![Auntbeast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/30 "2009-01-22T01:39:50Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > I was born in 1951. I remember the Kennedy mania. At the very least, nobody compared him to Jesus. On that point, Obamamania is worse. I think in this era that kind of talk is far more accepted than it used to be? After all, it was 3 years after JFK that the Beatles caught crap for saying they were more popular than Jesus. We are far more liberal with blasphemous talk these days. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/31 "2009-01-22T01:55:45Z")
I was in high school during the Kennedy administration, and believe me, he wasn’t even close to being a “great” president. He made a lot of mistakes, and his style was more of a bully than an effective politician. But if the substance was lacking, the style certainly wasn’t. He and Jackie brought class and culture to Washington, something that was totally lacking in former administations. And yeah, it was nice to have little kids in the White House too. Especially after Ike and Mamie. I think our optimism for Obama is more warranted than whatever people felt for Kennedy. Obama is clearly “his own man,” not having been pushed into office by a rich father. And for once, we have a president with both style and substance. But of course he will not simply get his way all the time; there will be failures. And how he deals with those failures will tell the true measure of the man. Obviously some people see him as a Messiah. He appeals to people on a very emotional level, and that’s not always a good thing. But it won’t be long before they realize how human he is. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/32 "2009-01-22T04:07:08Z")
Kennedy inspired hope; Obama inspires hope . So far, so good… But for a better comparison, I liked the political cartoon that I saw 6 months ago , after Obama spoke in Germany at the Berlin wall: The cartoon showed Obama saying “Ich Bin ein BEGinner” . Kennedy commanded the army during a serious crisis, he created the Peace Corps, he started the moon landings. Obama has so far done nothing, except constantly compare himself to Abraham Lincoln. We remember Kennedy half a century later for good reasons. And 50 years from now, I’ll be happy to remember Obama, too…IF he shows me that he deserves it. In the meantime, Jon Stewart described obama-mania on the Daily Show: after Barak made his speech at the convention in Denver, fireworks exploded in the air , and Stewart said “the excitement was so great that the stadium ejaculated”. ---
**Author:** ![dre2xl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/34f0e0/32.png) [@dre2xl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dre2xl)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/33 "2009-01-22T05:39:53Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > To describe this as “mocking” is rather over-the-top, IMO. People are saying that Obama-mania has gotten out of control. I don’t think that qualifies as “mocking.” > > Besides, I think that **elfkin477** already identified a key difference. JFK was lauded for the things that he did as President. Obama was being venerated long before he actually took office. Regardless of whether this veneration is truly warranted, I think that’s a rather key distinction between the two situations. Kennedy was before my time, but whatever I heard of Kennedy-mania, it centered around their family and “soft” topics like fashion and what the family was up to – his accomplishments, not so much. Is that an accurate perception? In that sense, I’m not worn out on Obama-mania. Their adorable family and cute interviews are a mitigating factor to this Republican. It’s that… well, damn, this guy spent most of his Senate term running for office, and the general public probably can’t name one thing he did as a governor or Senator, but his followers are practically worshiping him as a politician? It also confounds me that a lot of Obama-stickered cars I see on the interstate during rush hour are SUVs (and typically not on the HOV line either). WTF, have the occupants of these SUVs been listening to him at all? ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198/34 "2009-01-22T07:11:52Z")
I was repulsed by Obama-mania during the primaries but I think it’s actually died down. I think there is genuine interest and admiration for the President, but it’s appropriate. There’s a lot of interest in Obama in large part because of whom he follows. Bush didn’t do much to raise the bar regarding judgment or (the appearance of) intelligence. Obama is in stark contrast. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-obama-mania-any-worse-than-camelot/482198.md?page=1)