Barack Obama Is Titus The Wicked
THE contest is on to see which British news organ can go the most cray-zee for Obama.
The Guardian is winning by way of one colour supplement and a headline, over the Telegraph – a deal on both Obama’s books and a DVD – and third comes the Times, which has this gem from Natalie Haynes:
The day after the US election, I received a text telling me that Barack Obama had run so “our children could fly”.
Mildly stomach-turning though this was, it reminded me that the devotion of his supporters seemed almost bizarre at times; such passionate sincerity belongs to a different time from the cynical age in which we usually live. It kept reminding me of something, and I couldn’t think what.
Then I dusted the bookshelves and realised – Barack Obama is the modern incarnation of the Emperor Titus, who ruled the Roman Empire from AD79-81, before death cut his reign tragically short. This is Suetonius: “Titus had such winning ways – perhaps inborn, perhaps cultivated subsequently, or conferred on him by fortune – that he became an object of universal love and adoration.”
Titus “enjoyed a successful military career and in 67 AD went with his father to suppress the Jewish Revolt… In 70 AD, Jerusalem was sacked, the Jewish temple was destroyed and much of the population killed or dispersed. ”
Leaving behind the Wailing Wall.
That could have been written about Obama pretty much any time in the past year. Perhaps it was because Titus didn’t have time to go mad, like Caligula, or weird, like Tiberius, but he was probably the most adored emperor in Roman history.
Maybe. Still:
Titus died on 13 September 81 AD, probably from natural causes, although Domitian, who succeeded him, was suspected of having poisoned him.
Poison fish, apparenly…
Oh, and Titus’s nickname? Titus The Wicked.
Posted: 20th, January 2009 | In: Politicians Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
