Barack Obama is Rupert Murdoch

The more I learn about the Junior Senator from Illinois, the more I'm growing convinced that he's the Rupert Murdoch of Politics. By which I mean that I think there's a parallel between the Audacity of Hope and the Audacity of Fox. Rupert Murdoch famously launched two Fox television networks. One of them has done more to keep this country slouching towards Gomorrah than any other recent cultural phenomenon, foisting onto the airwaves such immoral tripe as "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?" (and who could forget the follow-up with Darva Conger's appearance on "Celebrity Boxing" to take on some washed-up 1970s gymnast as part of the undercard to the main event of John Wayne Bobbitt vs. Joey Buttafuoco?) and Temptation Island. The other network provided the platform for Bill O'Reilly to become the nation's true vox populi by denouncing exactly the type of cultural garbage purveyed by Fox TV. It's really a brilliant model, backing a horse on either side of the culture wars. Cynical? Perhaps, but at the end of the day, it's all about the money, and Murdoch's made plenty of it.

Obama is audaciously trying to follow this model. Thus, he is running as a candidate of faith even though he's more pro-choice than NARAL. He's the candidate of racial reconciliation, even though he gave tens of thousands of dollars to the race-bating, Black Liberation theology-spewing Jeremiah Wright. He speaks out against corporate America at the same time he's appointing Jim Johnson to his VP Search Committee.

It's really quite amazing, and if he pulls this off, will certainly be impressive. Though for a candidate who routinely praises public service and denigrates the business world, it's somewhat ironic to note that he's behaving just like Rupert Murdoch.