The Crisis of the Obama Cult

◼ Ace nailed it the other day: - The Other McCain
◼ Margaret Carlson: Is the President's Intellect Finally Engaged By the Catastrophe of Obamacare? - Ace Of Spades

...the Liberal Chattering Classes are facing a question now: "Will my reputation and sense of pride survive Obama's incompetence?"

And: "How absurd am I willing to make myself in order to cover up for this arrogant buffoon's incompetence?"

Some people may begin to peel off -- not because they're not in-the-tank partisan shills, mind you, but because they're in-the-tank partisan shills who still have some functioning sense of self-respect left in them.

They are beginning to realize that loving Obama means, in the end, hating yourself. You have to sacrifice everything for him -- your honesty, your integrity, your autonomy. Your reputation, your legacy, your pride.

His incompetence and deceit are at such a level that he will not permit you to support him and retain a shred of self-respect for yourself.

Devotion to Obama requires destruction of the self. Obama is a jealous Messiah, and will not permit you to love anything else -- even yourself....

The president is not just more concerned than you, but he’s smarter than you are as well.

◼ Obama the Avatar - Charles C. W. Cooke/National Review

Discussing the Obamacare disaster in the Rose Garden on Monday, President Obama led with a phrase to which we have become accustomed: “Nobody,” the president emoted, “is madder than me” about this mess.

Along with “let me be clear” and “make no mistake,” this is a favorite construction. Obama, you see, is more concerned for and correct about everything than everybody else at all times. “Nobody shares the frustrations of the American people more than I do,” he told WABC earlier this month; “nobody is more frustrated” than he about the IRS scandal; “no person,” the president affirmed during the election, “is more interested” in “seeing this economy growing strong.”

...Looking forward, those who prefer their presidents quiet and their republics modest might consider focusing their attentions not on replacing Rei Toei’s software and spinning up a new personality to replace the old one, but instead upon pulling the plug completely, and reminding the head of the executive branch that he is not the roaming repository of the country’s hopes and fears, but instead a servant there to do a particular job — no more, and no less.

We’re used to old-fashioned political (usually Democratic) machines. But those political machines compare to the modern Culture Machine like a stick of dynamite to an H-bomb.

◼ DAVID GELERNTER: WHAT KEEPS THIS FAILED PRESIDENT ABOVE WATER? - Scott Johnson/Powerline

If conservatives were serious, they would think much harder about the Culture Machine (aka the Establishment) and the ways in which Obama is typical instead of exceptional—typical of a new type of Establishment leader, the new Machine Man. We’re used to old-fashioned political (usually Democratic) machines. But those political machines compare to the modern Culture Machine like a stick of dynamite to an H-bomb. While conservatives worry about debt and taxes and huge problems abroad, the left is busy pulling the whole country out from under them. While conservatives fiddle around on the roof, robbers are rifling the house and stealing the children. Conservatives might consider climbing down and having a look. Obama is only the first of a new breed.

◼ WHY DO WE LIVE IN AMERICA LITE?

"Joseph Stalin, pictures of Mao, pictures of Adolph Hitler. The pomp, the ceremony -- the flags like that"

◼ Vets angry over American flag featuring Obama - WFTV

Tempers are flaring over a version of the American flag flying in Lake County. A veterans group says the flag is an outrage.

The flag, which features a picture of President Obama, was taken down Tuesday afternoon.

Korean war veteran Don Van Beck said his blood was boiling.

"I can't describe how upset was because you just don't do that to the American flag," Van Beck said.

Van Beck found it flying outside Lake County Democratic headquarters under the stars and stripes. Marine Corps vet John Masterjohn was seeing red.

"Joseph Stalin, pictures of Mao, pictures of Adolph Hitler. The pomp, the ceremony -- the flags like that," Masterjohn said....

"If you've been a veteran and fought -- and some died for this flag -- you don't want to see it desecrated. That's how simple it is," Van Beck said.

◼ One nation, under Obama - It’s his country. You just live in it. - John Hayward at Human Events

...The idea that any citizen of the United States, of any political persuasion, needs to have the wrongness of this outrage explained to them is mind-boggling. The modern Democrat Party has become a culture so alien that if Captain Kirk encountered it, he’d beam back up to the Enterprise and slam the warp drive up to maximum to escape, lest his crew be driven mad by sustained exposure.

But the Democrat Party of Lake County, Florida still doesn’t really understand what’s wrong with their creepy and offensive cult of personality...

The Authoritarian Mind

◼ link - Glenn Greenwald/Salon on Twitter: @ggreenwald



Hollywood producer and director Davis Guggeinheim just produced a 17-minute “documentary” hailing the greatness of Barack Obama and his many historic and profound accomplishments, and it will be released this week by the Obama campaign. Please just watch this two-minute interview of Guggenheim by CNN’s Piers Morgan in which Guggenheim explains that nothing critical can or should be said of our President other than the fact that he is so Great that his Greatness cannot be sufficiently conveyed in a single film

◼ Download Cult of the Presidency for Free! - CATO

Last week, the New Republic‘s Jonathan Chait praised Cult of the Presidency, and the Economist quoted the book. Which reminds me, I provided a link in my last post, but forgot to stress the fact that we’re now literally giving it away with free online downloads (especially nice for those of you who are Kindle owners).

With presidential “daddyism” rampant, and our National Father-Protector’s manifest failure to protect us from oil spills and tornadoes, there couldn’t be a better time to check out the comprehensive libertarian indictment (if I do say so myself) of the presidency, the very model of a modern constitutional monstrosity. Download it here h/t: Parke