By Eugene C. Buie

PERSONAL MANNERISMS CAN sometimes become a curiosity. Since he took office, I have watched President Obama speak several times and found his manner of speaking condescending and irritating. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t quite recall whom at the time. Then, unexpectedly, it came to me during a recent televised news conference on health care.

As he lifted his chin and looked around the room with self-assured arrogance, he proclaimed that we would get this (health care legislation) done, emphasis on “done” with a sharp consonant cutoff. Yul Brenner, the actor in the classic movie, “The King and I,” flashed into my mind. Several times during the movie, he lifts his royal chin and proclaims with the same self-assured arrogance, “So let it be written; so let it be done!” At last, my memory returned and, with it, yet another memory from World War II. It was a picture of Benito Mussolini, also with his chin in the air, staring down his nose at the people.

As I recall, most Americans don’t react well to public officials raising a “royal chin” and talking down to them. It was part of what turned us against Great Britain in 1776. But I cannot deny, this president may be different.

A significant majority elected him in 2008, and his arrogance has grown since taking office. Apparently, there is a large segment of our population who admires someone willing to promise them change (although he never said what or how) and who are willing to commit themselves to him with the expectation of favoritism and patronage in return.

Perhaps many in America today want a demigod. They and the liberal media became emotionally invested in this president who asked people to “believe” in him. In building up the Obama image, the media devoted much time and print to formulating a general sense of discontent with the war in Iraq, much as they had done with Vietnam in the 1960s. They built upon and amplified the hatred of George W. Bush felt by Democrats after his contested victory over Al Gore. They continue to promote this mindless hatred, even today, in contrast to an equally mindless adoration of President Obama.

Obama worshippers had great expectations. These expectations, by the way, varied widely since much of the “change” he promised was never defined, until now. Nevertheless, he isn’t the first such demigod in the world’s history. But, I keep wondering: Aren’t Americans different from much of the world? Don’t Americans feel they have a personal responsibility for their own future, rather than turning that future over to a demigod? Like Debra Kerr, who played the English school teacher in “The King and I,” Americans may be amused by the arrogance of a royal chin, but how long are they willing to tolerate one who takes seriously the misconception that he has been “chosen” to rule our lives.

It is a fearful thing to watch; that is, a president of the most powerful country in the world who is old enough to behave like an adult, but who is still captive to his childhood’s grandiose-self. Such a child says to the world, with a lifted chin, “I am perfect, and you admire me.” This is the message conveyed by President Obama in every public appearance. Eventually, most grown-ups tire of this arrogant, self-centered behavior common among young children.

But, we have witnessed a strange phenomenon this past decade in two presidents, both of whom possessed grandiose ideas of themselves. George W. Bush thought he could change the culture of the Middle East by imposing democracy on a people he neither understood nor respected. And now, Barack Obama intends to “fundamentally change” America’s national heritage and an economy he neither understands nor respects.

The president and a partisan Congress are intent in their plans to fundamentally change America. They believe their plans are perfect and that the American public admires them. They are obsessed with a modern liberal ideology that only the elite in Washington, D.C., (big government) are capable of ruling our lives. Are we ready to bow and submit? Shall we let it be done?

Mr. Buie lives in Harrisonburg.