Protect and Deflect

Question: What do Barack Hussein Obama and Osama bin Laden have in common?

Answer: They both have friends who bombed the Pentagon.

That's a little joke from over at No Quarter. It is funny, and has the added bonus of being true and edifying.

It pretty much sums up the fall campaign if Little Lord Obama is the nominee.

Months ago I had a few friends tell me I was being too hard on Obama on this blog. Looking back, I think I was not nearly hard enough. Back then I was only reaming him because he had no business being President. My rants were based purely on his breathtaking lack of experience - all still true - one Obamite telling me point blank that his time as a neighborhood watch captain, or what ever it was - is the same as being governor of Arkansas for 12 years. That was my first inkling that his most ardent fans had taken leave of anything the rest of us might call "reality." Back then I simply said Clinton was the better candidate and Obama's "machine" in the media and blogs was irrational and unfair. It was not until later that I realized they were nuts. The support was not based in reality. It was only after a few conversations immediately descended into me being called a racist that I gave up on rational conversation with Obamites.

The Obamites are sliming us all with a collective infantile belief that this man they love, by the simple virtue of his being present, will transform us. What he had done or planned to do is of no consequence to them. The end of the road for me with man himself was the moment in the New Hampshire debate when he told Clinton she was "likable enough." At that moment I realized that not only were his hard core supporters commit ed to the delusion - but that he was also an active participant and believer in the Obama Messiah narrative. He was not just a talented, somewhat misguided, candidate anymore. With his snotty dismissal of Clinton he became dangerous in my mind. Sadly, all my fears have been proven true.

Obama believes his glowing press. It's worse than that - he seems to think a glowing, compliant media is his birthright. An inquisitive media confronts his heretofore insulated ego. It is why being asked direct questions about Ayres is so upsetting to him. It was not anger we saw from him at first, but surprise. His utter lack of maturity is what is so dangerous.

Protect and Deflect. Other than in the debate, he took no questions in the 2 weeks leading up to the Pennsylvania vote. When he botched the debate he signaled to his supporters, via his middle finger, how they should react. Blame ABC. Blame her. Protect and deflect. Confronted with his association with Wright he gave the illusion of confronting it head on. The result of the speech on race had the effect of negating any intelligent conversation - not inviting it. He still has not explained his relationship to that church with any authority or commitment. Or even in a way that makes sense. He was there, he wasn't there. Wright is a crazy uncle, and he's my mentor. Race is the biggest issue in American life, race doesn't matter.

This is all a game to protect his ego. During his Nuremberg rallies in which thousands scream their adoration he is in his element. When he's asked a simple question while forcing a waffle down in a diner he is a snotty brat. It is all fodder for fun blog posts until one thinks about what it means to have a President with no capacity to deal with unpleasant confrontations. What are we getting with a man who says and seem to believe "to know me is to love me"? Russian Oligarchs and Iranian mullahs must be cackling with glee at the prospect of President Obama. It is doubtful he could hold massive "Got Hope?"rallies in Red Square to get through his term.

At the end of the Obama nightmare - and there will be one - I believe the first order of the day will be the evisceration of the lethal and irresponsible media. Olbermann and Huffington should be put on a rickety skiff beyond the horizon for starters. We need to wash our hands of the mindless and misleading elements in the "entertainment as news" media complex. We must demand fair and objective information or democracy is dead, dead, dead.

Secondly, if there is a Democratic Party worth having any longer, Howard Dean and Donna Brazille should be put in the stocks on the Washington Mall for a week. Dean is an anti-leader and Brazile is his henchwoman. They have destroyed the party of Jefferson, Jackson, FDR and JFK with a level of stupidity usually seen only in battery chickens. Or, worse, they are not stupid at all. They know what they are doing. Either way a week of tomato chucking at those two will, at least, restore some emotional balance.

With or without Obama I am not hopeful about the next four years. Countries get the leaders they deserve. Wayward Supreme Court justices chose Bush over Gore and we went along with it. Now superdelegates are being blackmailed with the race card to shove a megalomaniac front man down our throats. We are so unconscious about how far we have fallen in the Bush years that the next President will have a job that will be quickly seen as incompatible with democracy. Of the 3 candidates remaining only Clinton has the brass balls to stare down the oncoming tsunami and not wreck what is left of the Republic in the process.