March 28, 2009

Is Obama a Prince Among Men?

By Lloyd Brown
When seeking office, the aspirant must pretend to be what he is not. After seizing power, he should impose his agenda quickly and ruthlessly before his subjects realize what he is doing and have time to react.Sound familiar? It might, but this approach was designed 500 years before the Barack Obama campaign in 2008.Niccolò Machiavelli, a 16th century Florentine diplomat and bureaucrat, was the author of The Prince, a treatise on ruling successfully through the pragmatic exercise of power. Because Machiavelli had no concern for morality, but rather counseled ruthless pragmatism, his name has become a synonym for cunning political manipulation and deceit. However, Machiavelli's clear-eyed understanding of human nature and political behavior, has made his work a classic. In the course of his expensive education at top schools, could Barack Obama have failed to read it?Those who wonder at the speed with which Obama, aided and abetted by the congressional Democrats, is moving away...(Read Full Article)