A Cult of Personality

is what we've got here folks, plain and simple. From everyone's favorite web encylopedia:

A cult of personality or personality cult arises when a country's leader uses mass media to create a heroic public image through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships.

A cult of personality is similar to general hero worship, except that it is created specifically for political leaders.

Tell me that's not what we have going on in these United States of America.

I got to listen to the welcoming presentation for Hillary Clinton, Madame Secretary of State, this morning while I was stuck in traffic on my way to work. Frankly, I nearly vomited listening to the happy little drones welcoming in the new Queen. A bit of searching (not much, really) and I was able to find the complete video of the entire sordid affair.



Kindly note the rock star groupies that await the new Secretary from the start of the video to about 3:45 in. Dignified, indeed.

At 4:50 on the video, I am shocked to learn that the State Department is busy combating terrorism (great!), poverty (well, OK, someone's gotta do it I suppose), climate change (WHAT? The Department of State is busy combatting an unproven THEORY? WHAT?) and HIV/AIDS (crikey). That's right folks - the Department of State is hard at work combating the evil that is..... global warming. Is that disgusting, or is it just me? To hell with combating dictatorships across the world. To hell with fighting radical islam - a religion that abuses it's women and maintains control through intimidation and execution. To hell with stopping the flow of illegal immigrants flooding across our borders. No sir, Skippy!! We're fighting global warming!!

If you can make it through the rest of the video, you'll notice something that's missing. And frankly, I didn't notice it myself till about 7:10 in the video. At that point, the camera pans through and over the crowd of admirers (quite large, actually) and the viewer gets a glimpse of an impressive lobby, with flags from around the world proudly on display. And then it hit me.

At no point in the video do you see an American flag. Anywhere. Not on the make shift stage Madame Secretary is standing on. Not in the lobby or atrium. Not in front of the building when Madame Secretary steps out of her Caddy. It struck me as quite odd, actually. Now, I'm not saying that there was not an American flag to be found in the building. I'd really like to think that there is. But from what I saw on the video feed, no American flag.

Madame Secretary herself goes on to state:

And as you probably already know, we are expecting the President and the Vice President to be here in the State Department this afternoon. (Applause.)

Cult of Personality, indeed. Hero worship anyone? Now everyone behave, or you'll get sent to the Principal's office!

Among the many conversations that I've had with the President and with the Vice President, over years, but certainly much more astutely and in a concentrated way in the last weeks, we want to send a clear and unequivocal message: This is a team, and you are the members of that team.... We are not any longer going to tolerate the kind of divisiveness that has paralyzed and undermined our ability to get things done for America.

Now, I'm sure that Madame Secretary is not referring to her own ability to sow discord and divisiveness, right? She was a stalwart supporter of the last President, all on the same team, right? I'm sure she would never say that she and her party and their allies in the media would ever sow, what was it she said, this kind of divisiveness?

Frankly, only 2 days in to this obomination of a Presidency and I'm disgusted already. I gotta find some of that purple cool aide they're drinking at State because at this rate, my head will truly explode before the mid term elections.

You can find the entire text of Madame Secretary's speech, as well as the embedded video above here.