Send Krugman To The Catskills

After pounding Obama for months (this December column used "naive" and "fantasies"), Krugman is now fretting that a media backlash may swamp Obama in the general election.  A commenter at Kevin Drum's site has as good a guess as any as to what may have triggered this combination of synapses in Krugman's cranium:

You're effing kidding us, right, Kev?

The leader of the anti-Obama untruths squad, Krugman, is worried about an anti-Obama backlash?

Surely what he meant to write is that he is worried that his efforts to foment an anti-Obama backlash won't bear fruit in time to save HRC, and that he is lamenting his misfire now in order to build an alibi for himself against future charges that he is one of the lying MSM jackasses who gave the general election to the GOP.

Foe the record - I first predicted an Obama backlash in January, and again more recently, so two cheers for both me and stopped clocks everywhere.

But this intrigues me - David Brooks takes a turn today; Dahlia Lithwick thumped the Obama Phenomena a few days ago; and Jake Tapper wrote about the Cult of Obama cult two weeks back.

But in each case a significant line of attack is not against Obama as much as it is against his madly enthusiastic supporters.  This solves a problem for the reporters, who are cheerfully thrashing crazed collegiate yuppies rather than a Noble Black Man, and poses a puzzler for Obama - just what is he supposed to do, have less enthusiastic supporters?  More yawning and less applause at his rallies?

Brooks does go after Obama with this:

How is a 47-year-old novice going to unify highly polarized 70-something committee chairs? What will happen if the nation’s 261,000 lobbyists don’t see the light, even after the laying on of hands? Does The Changemaker have the guts to take on the special interests in his own party — the trial lawyers, the teachers’ unions, the AARP?

The Gang of 14 created bipartisan unity on judges, but Obama sat it out. Kennedy and McCain created a bipartisan deal on immigration. Obama opted out of the parts that displeased the unions. Sixty-eight senators supported a bipartisan deal on FISA. Obama voted no. And if he were president now, how would the High Deacon of Unity heal the breach that split the House last week?

Need I emphasize the obvious?  When it comes to reaching across the aisle, John McCain has a record of doing what Obama has a record of talking about.

THE NICKNAME PRIMARY:  David Brooks tries a couple of tags for Obama - I notice the Hope Pope, the Changemaker, the High Deacon of Unity, and the Presence.

However, I want dibs on Baritone Obama - goes with the Barack/Barry name, plays off the Important Yet Mellifluous Voice... oh, forget it, if I have to explain it's not working.

Comments

[Jim in Chicago]

Mr. Changiness?

At the end of the day, if he beats Hillary, the Dems will have nominated their most liberal candidate for the presidency perhaps ever, and at least since 1972.

And 1972 was a landslide -- and that was in an era where there were a significant amount of young idealistic voters, thanks to the baby boom. Mr. Changiness doesn't have it that good.

McCain must be praying Changiness beats Hillary.

[MayBee]

Don't miss http://www.newhouse.com/obamamania-virtue-or-vice--3.html>this part of the story:

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson denied Monday that the Clinton campaign was doing anything to push the cult-of-Obama meme.

But Sidney Blumenthal, a senior Clinton adviser, did e-mail the Media Matters posting to a list of influential persons, including reporters.

Asked about that, Blumenthal replied by e-mail that the e-mail in question was "off the record. I send some published articles to close friends. However you received one, it was not intended for you, or any other reporter, and you should tell me how my personal confidence was broken and you happened to receive it."

Friends perhaps, but the list of those receiving Blumenthal's e-mail included reporters John B. Judis, a senior editor at The New Republic; Joe Conason, national correspondent for The New York Observer and columnist for Salon.com; and Gene Lyons, columnist with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette and author of "The Hunting of the President: The Ten Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton."

[Syl]

You know, I don't care how the cult-of-Obama meme gets out there. I just want it to get out there.

[section9]

A personality cult is a personality cult.

The Obambi phenomenomenom is a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that's missing it's Mao Suit. With all due respect to Michelle Obama, it's a load of horsecrap.

Know Hope is no hope.

The great middle of this country will eventually catch on to it by election time, and when it does, Andrew Sullivan will have reason to cry.

[MikeS]

I can't really criticize people for being led astray by an 'orator.'

One year at the State Fair, I purchased one of those gadgets that was supposed to make my car get twice as many miles to the gallon.

[Other Tom]

The one I like best is the idea that the Clintons are aware of some real dirt about Obama that they won't use, but they're sure the Republicans will during the general election campaign.

That's right, folks: there's some really bad stuff out there that Sidney Blumenthal knows about, but he'd never stoop so low as to use it.

[bgates]

missing its Mao Suit

Maobama!

Or we could emphasize his Muslim connections with an Arabic prefix - al-Obama. People in Hyde Park would pass by the mansion he got from Rezko and say, "sweet home, al-Obama."

Too bad his family's not from New York. They'd be the Bronx Obamas....

I disagree that McCain has a stronger claim on bipartisanship. He doesn't reach across the aisle to conservatives any more than Obama does.

[tp]

Tom. Being Time "Magazine's Man of the Year" should qualify you dub Obama as Time Magazine's "Mirror of the Year".

[steveaz]

Guys,
Talk about memes? I smell another switch in the works. On ABC and MSNBC I noticed that they've begun to retail the "New Camelot" meme.

Michelle O. is to be cast as Jackie O. And Barry O. is JFK.

I'm guessing that, given their pay-scale, these "reality-based" media folks know what they're talking about. But if you ask me, I'd say that the label ain't gonna stick.

Oh! Kinda OT, but...

I leveled my Gender-Studies-Professor friend last week by pointing out that Barry O' has a baritone voice, and that, absent his enunciating a clear platform for her intellect to seize on, her tribe's near universal swoon for him is simply their rote, endocrinological response to his pronounced, male secondary sex-characteristic.

I mean, like, duh! Blew her away, I did.

Try it for yourself - Imagine Barry O's last "Hope" speech, delivered not in a burly baritone, but, instead, in a high tenor.
It makes him not "work" anymore, doesn't it?

Cheers!

[Cecil Turner]

David Brooks tries a couple of tags . . .

Okumbaya? Obob-the-builder? If he loses: O-bomba?

[kim]

Oh, easy, then, steveaz, all Hillary has to do is castrate Obama.
=================================

[centralcal]

Ha Ha! Kim.

[Sue]

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/191325.php time at Jawa

The Supreme Court has effectively ruled that wiretapping suspected terrorists without a warrant is legal.

Rusty ponders that Pelosi will be more than willing to pass some law now. Let's see how fast she runs back to Congress.

[Jane]

Neither link works Sue.

[Sue]

Sorry. I got so excited I didn't preview.

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/191325.php>Jawa

And now typepad won't let me post. Grrrrr...

[PeterUK]

"Oh, easy, then, steveaz, all Hillary has to do is castrate Obama."

Sometimes you just spoil the woman.

[GMax]

Obam is running radio ads in Dallas with his full throated Kingfish Long's populist impression. He says he has a plan to reduce everyone's health care premium by $2500.

If you have been paying attention at all, you will already know that this sleight of hand is accomplished by having the government pay catastrophic coverage for employers with the understanding that the savings will be passed back to their employees. No discussion of where these Government funds are coming from, but I have a strong sense that they can only come from the middle class since you cant get enough from the "rich" to really pay for much of anything. If you get a reduction in premiums and an increase in taxes, do you really have any change in substance? Well, welcome to Obamaland's futureworld.

[Bill Collier]

Rush was calling him "Barak The Magic Negro", but I just call him "Puff", and that for all kinds of reasons!

[Jim Miller]

I've been calling him Barack "Arugula" Obama since last December, because I think he is best understood as a snobbish white yuppie, posing as a black man.

[Ethan]

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