Swoonio and Barackolet

Ed Mor­ris­sey at Hot Air dis­sects a reporter’s spurned-love piece about Obama and comments:

I’d chal­lenge this argu­ment as part of the real prob­lem Drew misses. The peo­ple who held Obama in such high esteem had indis­putably roman­tic (in the clas­sic sense) notions of Obama. By def­i­n­i­tion. What had Obama done before 2007 to earn “unro­man­ti­cally high opinion[s]” from any­one? He won a few elec­tions, but had no sig­nif­i­cant leg­isla­tive accom­plish­ments to his name, either in Illi­nois or in the US Senate.

Most of these high opin­ions and high expec­ta­tions came from Obama’s two mem­oirs. It’s almost impos­si­ble in this age to imag­ine any more roman­tic basis for the vast sup­port Obama won for his quest to have his first exec­u­tive job be the US Pres­i­dency. His lit­er­ary accom­plish­ments, com­bined with his biog­ra­phy, trumped any sense of com­pe­tence or expe­ri­ence as a con­sid­er­a­tion. The entire exer­cise was noth­ing but roman­tic. It was, like the Roman­tic move­ment itself, a rebel­lion against ratio­nal­ity and estab­lish­ment borne by the arts.

But soft, what light through yon­der win­dow evil Bush-Cheney Mor­dor breaks?  It is the east HOPE, it is CHANGE, it is PROOF WE’RE NOT RACIST, and Juliet Barack is the sun embod­i­ment of HOPE, etc.  Arise, fair sun Barack, and kill defeat the envi­ous moon the evil Bush-Cheney Mor­dor, Who is already sick and pale with grief.  That thou, her maid Cham­pion of Hope and Change and NOT BEING RACISTS ANYMORE, art far more fair than she the Evil Bush-Cheney Mor­dor.

Democ­rats are par­tic­u­larly sus­cep­ti­ble to this sort of teenage scrump­tios­ity. He’s so DREAMY!  Any­one remem­ber, dur­ing the Lewin­sky mess, the reporter Nina Burleigh, who wanted to suck on Bill’s cigar?

There is noth­ing new about this kind of roman­tic attach­ment to an attrac­tive politi­cian.  If Jack Kennedy ever dropped by my house when my mom was home alone I would hope that he departed before my dad showed up. But this is beyond, apolo­gies to Mor­ris­sey, roman­ti­cism.  This is mag­i­cal thinking.

With this crew it’s not going to be a dreamy after­noon with Jack Kennedy, tur­tle doves, and mimosas on the patio.  It’s start­ing to look more like the stranger who shows up on his Harley, knocks up half the neigh­bor­hood, and then roars off into the sun­set, leav­ing the girls, their par­ents, and the Wel­fare Depart­ment to deal with the consequences.

You can edit his­tory for the peo­ple who read it but you can’t edit hitory for the peo­ple who are liv­ing it.   You can change how Romeo and Juliet ends.  Screw up the coun­try and we’re stuck with it.

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Reality Check magical thinking, romance