Posted by
Always To The Right on Saturday, January 17, 2009 5:22:29 PM
You didn’t think he was going to disband the cult just because he’s
president now, did you? Behold the launch of Hopenchange 2.0: Turning
his grassroots organization from an operation to get him elected into
an operation to pressure members of Congress to adopt his agenda. And
by “members of Congress,” I don’t mean Republicans.
What fascinates me is his faith that his supporters, almost all of whom
are Democrats, can be counted on to side with him on policy against …
other Democrats. There’s no reason in principle to believe
that’s true — Obamites logically should prefer his position on economic
recovery to McCain’s, but to Chris Dodd’s or Barney Frank’s? — but it’s
perfectly sensible if you view Obamamania as a cult of personality with
The One as the object in whom all trust is reposed. (See also.) He does a superb job of cultivating it too, from using the paparazzi to enhance his status as an icon to dumping one dopey Lincoln allusion after another
on a media that’s itching to make the comparison. In theory it’s a bad
idea to have a party “rooted around” one individual — but The One isn’t
just any individual, or so we should believe. If Lincoln told you to
dial up some Blue Dog Democrat and ask him to vote for another bailout,
you’d do it, wouldn’t you? Well, there you go.