…of America:

Obama may be an ephebe, an utter novice at the post of command, but it must be admitted that he is a consummate sorcerer who was able to seduce and enchant multitudes, especially the horde of grown-up children so ready and eager to be piped to. Unlike the Pied Piper, however, he did not work alone but arrived on the scene surrounded by a retinue of plutocrats, political mandarins, and clever enablers, and of course by the usual train of cavillers, pettifoggers, sybarites, and janissaries, that is, journalists, feminists, intellectuals and academics. This only facilitated his task which he would not have been capable of accomplishing on his own.

Nonetheless, he had the magic, the gift of bewitchment, and no hesitation in using it. It wasn’t long before he was able to spellbind a vast swarm of believers with the promise of auroral benefictions (if I may coin a term). The tune was irresistible but very few heard the infrasonic lyrics, which actually belied the melody. These poor dupes followed him willingly into the new dawn of mellifluous beginnings, only to find the bright morning of the future suddenly changed into the grim presentiment of the coming debacle. This is what inevitably happens when one invests uncritically in fairy tales and surrenders one’s intelligence and autonomy to the blandishments of a false messiah.

Read all.

CNN has finally fired Jon Klein. I hope that his successor is an improvement (hard to see how it could be worse). Who in their right mind would want to watch a show with Elliot Spitzer (or as Jim Garaghty calls it, Client Number Nine At Eight)? It sure would be nice to have two cable news channels that don’t suck.

[Update a while later]

Wow, coincidence? Jeff Zucker is out at NBC, too. I wonder if he’s been protecting Olbermann and Ed Schultz?

Why Obama is losing support — it’s the arrogance and condescension, stupid:

By now it should be clear that the only new idea Obama introduced into American politics was the idea of Obama: Obama the voice of a new generation, Obama the brilliant technocrat, Obama the postracial leader.

The reality of Obama has been quite the opposite. The fresh-faced young leader has governed according to stale old ideas. The dazzling intellect has proved inadequate to basic managerial challenges. We haven’t even been able to enjoy the achievement of having elected a black president, because so many of Obama’s supporters (though not Obama himself, to his credit) won’t shut up about how every criticism of the president and his policies is “racist.”

Yet in America’s current predicament, there is ample reason for optimism. We’d like to think that the failure of Obama’s policies will discredit the bad economic ideas on which they’re based, that his incompetence will discredit the notion that the cognitive elite should run the lives of everyone else, and that the phony charges of racism will discredit the long-outdated assumption of white guilt, at last bringing America close to the ideal of a colorblind society.

I’m less optimistic. There’s a reason that the left’s ideas are the oldest ones in the world — they have a superficial appeal to people who don’t give them much thought, and so we have to suffer repeatedly from their failed social experiments, and relearn the lessons every few generations.

[Update a few minutes later]

When you’ve lost Shephard Fairey…well, I’m not sure who you’ve lost, but he has. On the other hand, he seems to remain in denial:

“To say I feel disappointment is within the context that I know he’s very intelligent, very capable, very compassionate,” Fairey said. “I think he has the tools, and he does not trust his instincts in how to apply them.”

What a fool. And a tool.

[Update a while later]

An Obama primary challenge?

Its always bad political juju to have a primary challenge against an unpopular incumbent, particularly when the unpopularity is as a result of policies, but it would be particularly disastrous for the Donkeys in 2012, because the blacks would probably stay home in the fall if he were defeated in the primary.

In the midst of whining about the Republican “Pledge to America” (which I haven’t had time to read, and may not find it for a while), we get this email from a Pelosi aide:

“Congressional Republicans are pledging to ship jobs overseas, blow a $700 billion hole in the deficit to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires; turn Social Security from a guaranteed benefit into a guaranteed gamble; once again, subject American families to the recklessness of Wall Street; and take away patients’ rights.”

Emphasis mine.

I know it’s nitpickery, but it drove me crazy when Al Gore bellowed “blow a hole in the deficit” over and over a decade ago. A deficit is a hole. How do you “blow a hole” in a hole? Whenever I hear this expression, it results in at least a twenty-point drop in my estimation of the user’s IQ.

In which I completely agree with Ramesh (not to imply that I generally disagree with him, though I occasionally do, being more libertarian than conservative):

If O’Donnell loses the Senate race, she should become Slate‘s chief legal writer. It would be a step up for the publication.

A big one.

And it’s just another example of the contempt in which people like Dahlia (and frequent commenter Thomas Matula) hold the Constitution and its requirements for elected officials and their oath.

[Update Thursday morning]

I can’t link it, because, well, it’s an email, but here are Jonah Goldberg’s thoughts:

This is awesome. It’s not just that Lithwick dismisses a perfectly sensible and mainstream argument. It’s not just that she is ignorant of the contents of the actual Constitution (it does not provide for the Supreme Court serving as the either sole or final arbiter of what is constitutional). It’s not that she seems to have forgotten Marbury v. Madison. It’s not that she cannot grasp the idea that some legislator might not want to vote for unconstitutional legislation. No, what really makes this great is the absolute bunkered pomposity behind her instinctual certainty that anyone who disagrees with her bouillabaisse of ignorance and ideology must be “weird.”

Indeed.

…testifies before fake lawmakers.

Yes, this will enhance their credibility going into the election.

Katherine Mangu-Ward has a blog post on yesterday’s presser, with a bonus link to The Onion.

All the President’s creeps.

[Update a few minutes later]

I liked this comment:

Obama distrusts and/or despises the U.S. military, so he takes a job as Commander-in-Chief when two wars are ongoing.

Obama has little positive to say about America, so he takes a job where he is the Head of State of a nation he largely abhors.

Obama despises capitalism so he leads a nation that has a reputation as a paragon of capitalism and which built its prosperity on this economic system.

Obama, who perceives himself as black, is an academic racialist and sometime racist who wants to lead a nation that is two-thirds white.

Obama, who believes Western Civilization is ultimately the cause of all that is ill in the world, takes a job as chief executive of the nation that is preeminent in the Western world.

Obama, who is neither Christian nor Muslim and who attended an anti-Semitic church for 20 years, wants to lead a nation whose citizens are mostly Christian and whose history is steeped deeply with Judeo-Christian sensibilities.

Obama is thin-skinned and overly sensitive to criticism, so he takes a job where he is criticized every minute of every single day, all across the world, for some reason or another. Much of the criticism is ill-informed, but some of it is well-informed and cuts right to the bone.

…

…

What could possibly go wrong?

The irony is amazing.