Like split personalities, clinging to their vision of what Obama must have been. That beautiful mirror reflecting back to them all their hopes and dreams. The feet of clay. The bitter realization that he isn't and never was plastered over every time with the tattered remnants of their imaginary Obama.
Dowd usually starts her column with the plaster, but as she writes, she warms up and the truth, which she DOES now see, surfaces.
Noonan is the opposite, calls it right down the line, and then pulls back in horror at what she sees behind the curtain, and tries to reassure herself it's not that bad.
It's the oddest thing. These bright, strong, powerful women, lost, and trying to extricate themselves from the quicksand, but only halfheartedly.
Listen. Ladies. He isn't. He never was. It was plain as day, if you had only looked behind the facade. You, for whom words are a living, should have felt the hair rise on the back of your neck. Understanding the dishonest use of words to paint a false picture - should be the prerequisite to Journalism 101.
Now you will profess to be wise, and will claim to be applying this new standard to every new candidate, and will end up smearing honest people. Such is the legacy of your folly - and of Obama and the Progressive left with all their lies and snake oil.
It makes me sad for you.
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It Wasn't Really an Upset - Another Democratic loss, another message to Obama. This one may come too late. - Peggy Noonan/Wall St. Journal
An upset is a surprise. The loss of Anthony Weiner's former seat to the Republicans was not a surprise. It was the latest in a long string of referendums on the president's leadership. That string started in 2009 when the New Jersey and Virginia governorships went Republican, and continued in 2010 with the loss of Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat. Then there was last November.
At first these elections looked like, and could be experienced by the White House as, an attempt at a corrective: Change your ways or you'll lose us. By November 2010 they were a warning: You're losing us, we're leaving. Now they are simply more proof of a broad rejection: You've lost us.
It gets even more damning, and accurately so. But then...
This is all so dire and critical that I will swerve and end with three things I've admired about the president since he entered the White House.... The first is that he has an intact, multigenerational family...
Yeah. That's what I think of reading his mother's exploits, his aunt, his uncle, and all the rest... but ok, he's married, and he has two kids - the plaster over the mirror. You could call this faint praise, but she is sincere. Really? Peggy? It must be really bad, when you have to treat this as something special, as if millions of us, and PRACTICALLY ALL the previous presidents don't? Are we now so debased that this remains as a reason to appoint a man to the most powerful position in the world? If this is your new standard, I hope your future coverage of the Republican candidates considers them eminently qualified.
The second is that he isn't mean.
Again! Are you BLIND? Do you not understand what Working Families Party, for example, is? Do you not understand sending out the goons to hurt his opponents? This is, after all, the man whose rise to power comes because private sealed divorce records paved his way. Are his hands clean, Peggy? Please.
The third has been a relative absence of deep political scandal.
I can only assume that her journalistic blinders allow her to believe that since there has been no real coverage of any scandals, and no proper vetting of this man, that no scandal exists. Not until it is reported by someone like her.
His record in Illinois is not pure, and reports exist, juicy contracts given to donors, his record shows you that Solyndra, and now Lightsquared is no anomaly. Fast & Furious is not exactly secret - but reporters choose to deem all criticism as 'merely political.' 'tit for tat' 'they all do it.' These are not scandals?
He, 'Mr. Obama,' was and is, a Chicago thug politician, Peggy. Rev. Wright and Bill Ayres - all that MATTERED. Because it would have saved you and so many others from having to look into the dark void behind the curtain.
PS: I know. @attaaackwaaaaatch
PPS: Add david Brooks to the list - he gets it and laments it, but goes right back to the 'Obama is a centrist' fantasy. ◼
When the president unveiled the second half of his stimulus it became clear that this package has nothing to do with helping people right away or averting a double dip. This is a campaign marker, not a jobs bill....It recycles ideas that couldn’t get passed even when Democrats controlled Congress. - David Brooks/New York Times
