This fellow’s apparent inability to see the beam in his own eye is pretty astounding.
Following Obama during the New Hampshire primary, I saw a candidate who — though I disagreed with him on many issues — defended idealism and rhetoric against the supremely cynical Clinton machine, who brought a religious sensibility to matters of social justice, who took care to understand and accommodate the arguments of others, who provided a temperamental contrast to culture-war politics.
The Clinton machine was “supremely cynical” says the speechwriter for the Bush administration. That’s a tad much. And, Gerson insists he was ‘refreshed’ by Obama’s “contrast to culture-war politics”. Perhaps a bit slow coming to that revelation, Michael.
Where else can we find specks in Obama’s eye?
constant allocation of blame to others
childish cultivation of controversy with conservative media figures to favorably polarize the electorate
The pledge of “bipartisan” cooperation has become an attempt to shove Republicans until their backs reach some wall of outrage and humiliation.
But then Gerson covers his hypocritical ass (perhaps like the torture memo rewrites)
None of this is new or exceptional — which is the point. It is exactly the way things have always been done.
Translation: Obama is not the Messiah after all and we had it on the best of authority (Rush Limbaugh) that he was. How dare Obama not live up to Rush’s propaganda trope or to my own dreams of what government could look like if, say, I was part of it and had the opportunity to sculpt my ideals there in the reality-based community.
Some relish this kind of politics. But the false dawn of post-partisanship is no reason for celebration. Ideological war creates an atmosphere in which the angry predominate — and it can cause anger to rise unbidden within all of us. While in government, I saw the persistent, moaning critics outside the window. Now I have dug my tunnel and joined them. It is not where I want to be — or where American politics might have been.
Yeah, Michael, some do relish it. I expect you dine with them several times a week. You’re probably not a bad fellow but you’re still blind as a bat because you only pretend to having done any penance for what you and your buddies created and for which you are now ( irony of biblical proportions) so terribly victimized by.
