Tom Tancredo, the former Republican congressman and possible 2014 Colorado gubernatorial candidate, is angry that President Obama wants to compare himself to Nelson Mandela, even though Obama hasn’t done that. Tancredo writes in a WorldNetDaily column, “Mandela and Obama: Hero vs. Street Hustler,” that “our reigning narcissist” sees himself like the late South African leader.
“Obama does remind me of Winnie Mandela, the scandalous, self-serving, demagogic second wife whom Nelson Mandela divorced because she was such an embarrassment,” Tancredo adds. “We can only wish that America could divorce Obama as easily as Mandela divorced his agitator-wife, but Obama’s crimes are more insidious and his support network more forgiving than Winnie Mandela’s.”
Curiously, Tancredo’s column hailing Mandela as South Africa’s George Washington ran in WorldNetDaily, whose editor Joseph Farah explicitly condemned Obama for likening Mandela to George Washington.
This week the world lost a rare, genuine hero of national reconciliation and racial progress, Nelson Mandela. A leader of Mandela’s character, courage and nobility comes along maybe once in a century; the 21st century has yet to see one.
Comparisons of Mandela and Obama are probably inevitable, especially when promoted by our reigning narcissist, Obama himself.
Yes, Barack Obama can be compared to Nelson Mandela – the same way a midget is compared to a giant, a zircon to a diamond, or a street-corner hustler to an astronaut. No matter how hard the mainstream media try to paint a different picture, Obama will forever remain a little speck lost in Mandela’s long shadow.
On the other hand, in one way Obama does remind me of Mandela, but not the Mandela whose legacy will be celebrated universally. Obama does remind me of Winnie Mandela, the scandalous, self-serving, demagogic second wife whom Nelson Mandela divorced because she was such an embarrassment.
We can only wish that America could divorce Obama as easily as Mandela divorced his agitator-wife, but Obama’s crimes are more insidious and his support network more forgiving than Winnie Mandela’s. She and her bodyguards were convicted of kidnapping and assault, and her tenure in the South African Parliament was marked by controversy and arrests for financial manipulations.
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Mandela was not corrupted by the trappings of power, by the love of popular adulation or the lure of riches. His nation needed a George Washington, not an Adolf Hitler, and he filled the role beautifully. Mandela served only one five-year term as president of South Africa before turning over leadership to a new generation.
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The United States’ constitutional traditions used to provide a model for emerging nations to follow in contrast to dictatorships and military dynasties. As Barack Obama heads off to Nelson Mandela’s funeral, we can only hope South Africa’s leaders look to America’s past achievements for guidance and inspiration, and not our present condition as a nation spiraling downward into the despotism our ancestors fought so nobly to avoid.
