Obama 'Most Powerful Writer Since Julius Caesar,' Says NEA Chief

[Bast]

Just incredible! I really adore this President. I'm so impressed that he is building an administration that is so supportive of the arts.

BTW, Julius Caesar was also left handed like President Obama and Queen Victoria. I am also.

 

[Dachs]

Aaah, Julius Caesar wasn't All That and a Tube of Toothpaste. His extensive use of the passive voice was kinda annoying me.

 

[Patroklos]

Winston Churchill was certainly a peer of the US President at the time more powerful and influential in his time than Obama is right now. Hell, Obama makes it a point to purposely abdicate power and influence.

But hey, if you really want to stand up for this quote go right ahead.

 

[Phlegmak]

Isn't being compared to Julius Caesar in a positive manner sort of horrible? Julius wasn't exactly the best person in the world.

 

[Patroklos]

Aaah, Julius Caesar wasn't All That and a Tube of Toothpaste. His extensive use of the passive voice was kinda annoying me.

To me as well. Very much so. However, his works were in fact an academic study of a Roman campaign, very useful for those of us who study that time period though like all primary sources from antiquity you have to take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Patroklos]

Isn't being compared to Julius Caesar in a positive manner sort of horrible? Julius wasn't exactly the best person in the world.

It is only a comparison relative to two characteristics. Having power and being a writer. So no, I don't think it has a negative conotation in that way.

The negative conotation is the ridiculous hero worship required for someone of the education level of the source to abdicate intellectual honesty to such a degree that they would say such a thing.

 

[Dachs]

Isn't being compared to Julius Caesar in a positive manner sort of horrible? Julius wasn't exactly the best person in the world.

Who's making judgments on his person? They were talking about Caesar-as-author, not Caesar-as-dictator-for-life or Caesar-as-general.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

But hey, if you really want to stand up for this quote go right ahead.

Your mindreader skills, they might be not as potent as you assume they are

By the way, upon reading the quote, which I just did after your remark I do stand up for the quote.

This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar.

Arguably: Open to argument
If you accept the premise; If: On the condition that.

The quote doesn;t just outright say: he is. The quote says there can be made a case he is. It's not absolute.

Winston Churchill was certainly a peer of the US President at the time more powerful and influential in his time than Obama is right now.

Also more powerful than Bush was?

 

[Dachs]

However, his works were in fact an academic study of a Roman campaign, very useful for those of us who study that time period though like all primary sources from antiquity you have to take it with a grain of salt.

The ethnographical attempts were a little subpar and overall inferior to Herodotos or Hieronymos but for period Gallic civilization I suppose there aren't a whole lot of other primary literary sources. I guess the campaign history is okay, if contradictory at points. It certainly wasn't "academic" but it gets the job done.

 

[Patroklos]

Also more powerful than Bush was?

Probably.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Probably.

Reagan?

By the way, just edited previous post.

 

[Patroklos]

The ethnographical attempts were a little subpar and overall inferior to Herodotos or Hieronymos but for period Gallic civilization I suppose there aren't a whole lot of other primary literary sources. I guess the campaign history is okay, if contradictory at points. It certainly wasn't "academic" but it gets the job done.

It was most certainly academic, every attempt was made to record in detail the progress of a Roman campaign, and it does an excellet job of doing so. It is also an excellent record of Gallic society, however again you need to recognize the problems with sources from antiquity in this regard.

I say you have to take it with a grain of salt not because of why it was written, but rathe because of who (and from where he was) it was written by. Some people who read it tend to forget or be ignorant that the Romans produced their histories not as records for posterity, but rather for the consumption of political allies and foes in the present. They were basically recording the facts to justify themselves later in the Senate later.

 

[Patroklos]

By the way, just edited previous post.

I know, which is why I asked the libs here to declare if they do or not. It was a simple question.

The problem he is running into with this quote is that while he may know a lot about art (though he has a weird defintion of it), he has little knowledge of history apparently. There have been hundreds of major of empires and nation states between Republican Rome and 21st Century America. Relative to their peers some of these have been FAR more powerful than America is right now relative to its peers. Many of the leaders of those states where prolific writers, not just in academic works like Marcus Aurelius but any number who authored all sorts of works from plays to political commentary.

The quote is ridiculous any way it is read, powerful in the way of style/substance or powerful in relation to the author's influence. Hell, there are god kings in between Caesar and Obama!

 

[Bast]

Winston Churchill was certainly a peer of the US President at the time more powerful and influential in his time than Obama is right now.

LOL This is a joke. Britain was in decline in the 40s and 50s. It was losing so many of its territories overseas.

In fact, Britain had been in gradual decline since the death of Queen Victoria in 1901.

The height of the British Empire came in the 19th century. I thought everyone knew that.

 

[Earthling]

In any case, despite all the hand wringing the Fox story is entirely legit. The words were said, and they are not at all ambiguous in meaning.

Would you be so kind to quote what you are referring to, from the source (not CFC poster) you're referencing? You know, to be crystal clear for everyone from ages 5 and up who can read?

 

[Patroklos]

LOL This is a joke. Britain was in decline in the 40s and 50s. It was losing so many of its territories overseas.

In fact, Britain had been in gradual decline since the death of Queen Victoria in 1901.

The height of the British Empire came in the 19th century. I thought everyone knew that.

The problem with your analysis is that it relies entirely on an examination of British power, not American.

Your analysis also fails because a leader's power is not based solely on the nation they head, but also the person himself. While it is true America surplanted Britain in power in every metric by the end of WWII (but not until the end), Churchill himself had a crushing stranglehold on the affairs of the alliance far out of proportion to the actual British contrabutions to the war effort. There is no person who could seriously suppor the idea that either FDR or Stalin were more forceful personalities within the alliance than Churchill.

Your analysis fails furhter because power begets power, or more accuratle the successful use of the power you have leads to the accumulation of more power. For instance, the various Prime Ministers of Britain during the French Revolution exerted control over events around the world that were totally disproportionate to the physical power of Britain at the time. I would consider any of them more powerful men that most of the presidents since WWII.

 

[Earthling]

Still waiting for that quote which, to you, so obviously meant "Obama is the best at writing."

 

[Patroklos]

Putting the president in the pantheon with such pencil-pushing powerhouses as the man who was, literally, the Czar of all Czars, Landesman said that since Obama "actually writes his own books," he's the most powerful man to be a true writer in the 2,000 years since Caesar strode the narrow earth.

There you go. From the OP.

Not only is this an accurate description of what the guy meant, to totally blows apart your contention that the Fox was manipulating the quote to mean powerful in the style sense as opposed to the intended influence sense.

Your entire objection is now layed bare as an inability to read the OP. So, I ask you AGAIN, is Obama indeed the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar? Before you try and quibble I will point out to you that pretty much every Roman emperor dabbled as a playwrite.

 

[RedRalph]

:rolleye:

The problem with your analysis is that it relies entirely on an examination of British power, not American.

Your analysis also fails because a leader's power is not based solely on the nation they head, but also the person himself. While it is true America surplanted Britain in power in every metric by the end of WWII (but not until the end), Churchill himself had a crushing stranglehold on the affairs of the alliance far out of proportion to the actual British contrabutions to the war effort. There is no person who could seriously suppor the idea that either FDR or Stalin were more forceful personalities within the alliance than Churchill.

Forceful =/= powerful. Stalin and FDR got their way far more frequently than Churchill did, IMO.

 

[Patroklos]

Forceful =/= powerful. Stalin and FDR got their way far more frequently than Churchill did, IMO.

Forcefullness is power when it facilitates being the primary guiding hand of an alliance of the three most powerful nations on earth, the other two being more powerful than the one providing that guiding hand.